#zitan

[carmelide]

i know it makes sense for their characters or whatever and that i should just be glad that monarch industry had a happy ending but the fact that wang xuan and xiao qi don't become emperor and empress at the end reallllyyyy pisses me off 😭

[gizkasparadise]

jiwu giving us some real zitan energy in this last arc

bonus shot of his sectmates realizing their newly appointed boss is, in fact, a zitan:

[thegreymoon]

Monarch Industry - Rewatch

Restarting Monarch Industry like I'm not already watching five other shows right now because @jellyfishesandart is an evil influence 😭

But then again, it is true that I can never have enough of Zhou Yiwei on my screen. I love him to bits!

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Ugh, cutiepie! 😭

The irony of her feeling so safe with him, smh.

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Xiao Qi, my beloved 🖤

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I love how impressive this throne looks in the beginning, but then gets progressively duller and more worthless as the show progresses.

There is no respect left for it as a symbol of the nation by the time we get to the end.

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LMAO, oh, Zitan 😅

And I was so ready to love him back when I first watched this because he's just gorgeous 😔 Pity he has no character to match.

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I will never be over the amount of PRESENCE this man has 😭

He's so still and steady, yet he dominates every scene he's in, he just radiates power 🔥🔥

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The power of this 🔥🔥

If the main couple had not been so rock-solid in this, I would have 100% been shipping this!!

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He is the hottest man alive and I'm not taking criticism.

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Oh, Potato, you have no idea how wrong you are 🙄

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So so wrong, all the time, every time.

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LMAO, these idiots 🤣🤣

They were so happy here 😢

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Aww, his shy little smile 🤗

I love him to pieces 🖤

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Such a beautiful man 🖤

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The closing song is just so beautiful 😭

[quanronggallery]

Vintage Chinese Zitan Wood Bagua Abacus w Shelf https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/vintage-chinese-zitan-wood-bagua-abacus-w-shelf-396-c-1ac4e93aeb?objectID=179558279&algIndex=upcoming_lots_lotNumber_asc_prod&queryID=ea73d9153730fe667201b47ab7ab044e

[wishingforatypewriter]

Once the construction got underway, Suyin started leaving. The first time she disappeared without word, Baatar had entered an acute state of panic, pacing up and down the campsite in the valley and the halls of the Gaoling estate, politely urging the Beifongs to contact the authorities and report her missing. But Su’s grandparents had merely sat on their zitan wood dais, sipping plum wine, wholly unbothered by the question of her whereabouts. 

“Oh, she does that sometimes, dear,” Lady Poppy said with a sympathetic smile. “She’ll be back when she’s ready.” 

“Like an alley cat when it runs out of food,” Lord Lao grumbled. 

As he continued with his designs of the city proper, Baatar kept one eye on the horizon, waiting for her the way crops await the rain.  

When she returned in her little green jeep more than a week later, there was a massive convoy of platinum following behind her. She walked up to the building site, smiling like a victorious general fresh from battle, and threw her arms around him. 

“Missed me?” she purred into his ear, and Baatar’s collar felt suddenly tight around his neck. 

“Um, Su, w-where did you get all this platinum?” 

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.” 

[screaming-at-the-tv]

MY GOODNESS

I don't even ship Awu and Zitan, but I'm still here crying for them 😭

This is how a show should be

[christylove94]

Everlasting - Part Four - III

Pairing: Dongfang Qingcang/Xiao Lanhua

Chapter Tags: Canon typical violence, hurt/comfort, AU elements

Gulping in each breath, her hands lead the book down to the small platform on an unsteady path. She manages to resist a yawn as she picks it up and reads the shimmering veins flowing through the leaf, perfectly intact. The damage had been extensive. She and Da Mutou had caused a lot of harm with their tugging.

That's not the only damage that's been caused due to our disagreements, she remembers with a wry grin, her eyes drifting across the low table they've shared tea and dessert at many times.

“Little Orchid, were you able to fix the Destiny Book?” Lord Changheng inquires from his seated lotus position about a dozen chi away. 

Her heart kicks the walls of her throat without mercy, her pulse near visible in the wrist of her hand gripping the Destiny Book. She keeps her gaze fixed on the wooden stand attached securely to the platform. 

She gives no answer.

“Little Orchid…?”

My instincts had known, hadn't they? That's why–

“Is there a problem?”

The moment he rises to his feet, she surges to her own, clutching the Destiny Book to her belly. 

He stiffens, eyebrows pinched together, but doesn't move closer. 

Her eyes give a covert search of her surroundings. Seconds pass as sweat beads along the back of her neck trapped underneath her hair. All she needs is time. Now that she's aware, she just needs to give him time.

Lord Changheng opens his mouth–

“No problem!” she insists bright and clear, flapping her hands, wishing to shake away the tension. “I just– I, um… food!” She snatches up a platter from the platform.

Lord Changheng steps towards her in clear puzzlement. “Food?”

Lowered eyes - not so much that she can't see him - puckered bottom lip, slumped shoulders, and pitious tone. She displays her full pout while explaining, “I'm just weak grass, and this Destiny Book was badly damaged. I need more energy to heal it fully.” A remorseful dip to her head tops it off. “Sorry, Changheng.”

At this, his eyebrows lift with the corners of his mouth, revealing a soft, sunny countenance. “I see. And what would you like?”

A chi away now. Icicles stab down her spine, slicing through every nerve they encounter. A breath struggles its way out of her. “I-I, um—”

Her chin is pinched between thumb and finger, lifting her face to his. His expression has not changed, but a frantic drumming in her gut tells her she has failed to deceive him. 

Whatever cloying words he tells her are lost to her ears in the rush of adrenaline flooding her veins. The book is shifted to one hand. She clenches her eyes shut. 

Swing.

The sturdy platter of zitan wood shatters against the imposter's face as easily as the twin Da Motou broke. 

In the wake of plinking wood and his shocked shout, she runs. 

Pillars and railing flash by her sides. Her magic builds in panicked preparation. A waterfall pressing against a dam. 

Opulent blankets, pillows, and drapes fill her mind. His bed chambers. 

She can't make it. 

They had ridden Shangque when they went to the Cangyan Sea. Of course she can't teleport there. 

But—

A cool demand resounds from all sides.

“Hand her over.”

Her feet slip from under her. Pain explodes through her knees, radiating outward in repetitious waves. 

“Da Mutou!” 

Her body skids. The world dips under her. Sharp blows thundering down her side and torso in her tumble. Spilled over the brief steps, her body splays out to a halt. 

“Da Mutou, I'm here!” The copper tasting cry feels as if it's punched from her shaking form.

“Search all you want, Dongfang Qingcang,” an unfamiliar cadence that unsettles and chills taunts with a satisfied chuckle. “This is the Thousand Dreamland. You're more likely to be trapped in a false dream than ever finding the true one. But even if you do manage to find the real fairy you seek… you'll be too late.”

The air displaces beside her being filled in by a man in the subtle hues of a bird’s plumage. “Did you hear that?” 

Her throat is near crushed, her rapid breaths restricted. Vision starry black around the edges, her body floats upward with his grip, limp aside from her bone-tight hold on the Destiny Book. 

A face obscured by an obsidian mask, open over a mouth with a strip of liquid crimson down the right side, grins.

“He'll be too late.”

“H-he'll... ss-save… me…!” A costly croak of the last of her air, she is aware, but the need to defend will not be suppressed. 

“Save you?” Mocking mirth saturates his words. Her right wrist is ensnared, jerked up to eye level. Her scraped knuckles ooze the color from her fierce grip. “He's here for this.” The hiss slips through gritted teeth.

The delicate bones in her wrist creak, threatening collapse. Stars swim across her vision. 

It feels as if she slips into mortal time. What must be weeks pass in seconds as her body twitches in fading struggle. 

A roar of pressure squeezes against her ears from the world being torn asunder.

Icy cerulean. Snapping azure. Undeniable danger. 

In the haze of her view over his shoulder, cold, biting fury blaze in a wild halo. Her drooping, flickering vision is drawn to it as a moth is to a flame.

But the frantic whooshing in her ears begins to slow. Precious sound follows. 

“Impo… ble! …ou sh… …le…!”

Electric blue chases the encroaching darkness into oblivion. Air inflates her lungs so forcibly tears well upward and tip over. Full bodied shudders follow each gasping breath down the throbbing ache of her throat. It takes several moments for her to find the strength to peel open her eyes. 

Deep pools of dusky brown observe her in a cool fashion, the pinched fringes of his features giving away his concern. 

She feels propped up over his legs and tucked close into the calming heat of his chest. The palm of his hand cradles her head, fingers massaging and feeding his spirit energy into her meridians. His liquid fire racing to mend the worst of her hurts. 

The floor would be her cradle if what everyone else believed about him was true. 

It's almost too much, what she feels in this instant swirling inside her. Too much to absorb. Overwhelming, like seeing that Fate Mark on Lord Changheng.

But this feels infinitely better.

Da Mutou's attention breaks away, leading her gaze to the right.

The masked man is midair, his wicked blade already past the apex of his swing.

A silver-white sword swathed in blue flames cuts through the air, shattering at its peak. Each miniscule shard seems to blink out of existence, and in their place the masked man crashes to the ground, riddled with bleeping wounds. 

A smattering of heartbeats is all the exchange took. 

Her lips move the barest hint, her words a mere whisper. “Da… Da Mutou.”

“You seem to be the wooden head here.” The response is whip fast with his focus remaining on the masked man trembling upon the ground.

A denial would be pointless seeing as she agrees.

She shifts her mouth into a pout instead.

Her upper body is leaned with care against a thick beam where she is left to soak in the vastness of his spirit energy cycling through her. 

Da Mutou begins to approach the masked man in the center of the fractured greeting room with the slow, assured gait of a prowling predator. 

“You are the lord of Hashi City. What do you want with the Destiny Book?” He stops before the fallen lord, looking down upon him. “Why are you wearing a mask?” 

She does not know much about warfare, but the haughty defiance the masked man displays through his bleeding sneer is transparent. He is a cornered animal. 

“Those too hard for you? Well, how about this one?” His right hand wraps around a flare of Hellfire that reforms into his long, imposing sword. “How dare you hurt one of my own?” 

The frost bitten undertones to the smooth accusation is met with a derisive laugh.

“One of your own?” Hashi City's Lord huffs out, grinning. “Rumors must be true. Who knew the Moon Supreme preferred to have his services performed by lowly fair—”

The masked man gags as his body lurches into the air by the band of Hellfire cinched tight around his throat from a mere tilt of Da Mutou's head. 

Warning ripples through her senses akin to those which trail along the fine threads of a spider's web. 

Da Mutou lifts his left hand, fingers gradually parting in a vertical angle.

The masked man's feet kick in weak spasms, his mouth opening grotesquely wide—

Gasping, she clamps her hands over her ears. Jerks her head away—

And comes face to face with the familiar sight of an unfurling, spiked whip.

Her eyes snap shut. 

The ground rumbles underneath her. 

For a time, she hears… nothing. 

Tense for several moments longer, she realizes it's because her heart is pounding hard and fast, drowning out all else. 

A yelp propels from her chest at the touch to her shoulder.

Eyes popping wide, she spots Da Mutou squatting in front of her, the source of the touch. Throwing a frightened look past him, she sees no sign of a writhing man, gushing blood from his mouth. No sign of the Hashi City woman either.

Hoisted up without much notice, her body nestles into his chest on instinct. She doesn't realize how much she's shaking until he begins to stride towards the entrance of Arbiter Hall and her fear begins to slowly seep from her veins. 

“Were you really… going to… cut out his tongue?” The words feel slurred in her mouth like she's had too much liquor.

“I was.” His walk is smooth, rhythmic, lulling her eyes closed. “For what he implied of you. You have a reputation to uphold after all.”

A wisp of a smile manages to pull at her lips. She doesn't know if it's from the twisted humor he injected into his words, or the fact that he remembered her scolding from the very first night he stayed at Arbiter Hall. 

She can tell even without opening her eyes that he's made his way down the last set of steps from the faint tinkling of the visitor bell in the wind. 

He takes to the air in an easy bound. “There's always next time,” he mumbles, though she's unsure if she imagined it. 

The cracks and tears and vicious pain have faded to dull aches thanks to Da Mutou's spirit energy. But still, it feels as if she could sleep for a week. 

So, she tucks her head into the comforting scent at his neck, presses her hand with the Destiny Book over the throbbing beat of his heart.

Then sleeps.

[romios-gr]

Αποκάλυψη ΣΟΚ! Ζητάνε την ανέγερση του 3ου Ναού ως ναού Πανθρησκείας που θα καταργεί όλες της θρησκείες! Γιώργος Θαλάσσης: Την ώρα που η επικαιρότητα μοιάζει με χύτρα έτοιμη να εκραγεί, οι ισραηλινές οργανώσεις για την ανέγερση του τρίτου ναού του Σολομώντα προχωράνε κανονικά τα σχέδιά τους για τον ερχομό του ειρηνοποιού μεσσία τους (ειρηνοποιού όσο ο εβραϊκός στρατός στην Γάζα) και του “ι... Περισσότερα εδώ: https://romios.gr/apokalypsi-sok-zitane-tin-anegersi-toy-3oy-naoy-os-naoy-panthriskeias-poy-tha-katargei-oles-tis-thriskeies/

[mayaswamp]

When I was 13, I realized that I wanted to draw comics, and after many hours of psychotherapy, drawing lessons and learning everything interesting and useful, I ended up here. After thinking about my problems and complexes for a long time, I gave it all up and started writing, writing a lot. I think my mission in this life is to tell stories, so I want to share my worlds, thoughts and workflow.

This is a map of the planet Sannar. the first story will be about the kingdom of Zitan, the red castle, problems with father and responsibility. in the middle you can see a strange black thing. This is a canyon that provides resources to 5 of the 7 queens and is a sacred place.

Well, wish me luck! I started to make my dream come true!

[kassylin]

Some gorgeous/favourite TRP moments.

[storge]

Just an episode of the “So pretty, but so useless" Zitan show.      ft. Awu being disappointed until she snaps.

           for @calmandpeacefulmyfoot

[thatshowthingstarted]

Pair of Zitan compound cabinets and hatchests, 

Sijiangui, 19th century,

Each cabinet is of massive rectangular form. The hatchest has square panel doors, elaborately carved in deep relief with a single dragon chasing a flaming pearl amidst clouds, above the larger cabinet set with single-panel doors finely carved with four five-clawed dragons chasing a flaming pearl amidst swirling clouds, below a single horizontal panel carved with dragons confronting a flaming pearl. 

The doors are centered around a removable stile, and open to reveal the shelved interior, above the shaped apron carved en suite with confronting dragons. Each cabinet is fitted withbaitong metal hardware and the feet are clad in baitong sabots.

Constructed from the precious hardwood, zitan, the present pair represent an extremely luxurious use of a rare wood that was highly valued during the Qing dynasty. Zitan is a general term which includes numerous species of wood, however, it is commonly agreed that it belongs to the genus Pterocarpus. A purplish-black, fine-grained hardwood, zitan was considered the most prized hardwood by the Chinese. 

The density of the wood makes this material especially suitable for fine and intricate carving. The wood's scarcity was compounded by the fact that the trees themselves are slow growing and require centuries to fully mature into usable material. Although local sources of zitan exist in the southern provinces of Yunnan, Guangdong and Guangxi, much of the material was imported from Southeast Asia. 

As an imported commodity, its use was scrupulously monitored and carefully restricted at the Imperial workshops.

94 3/8 in. (239.8 cm.) high, 45 in. (114.3 cm.) wide, 21 3/8 in. (54.4 cm.) deep. 

© Christie's Images Ltd 2017

[orsuliya]

So far the consensus seems to be that Awu and Zitan – had they run away together or married without any obstacles – would have led a happy, if not a particularly exciting life. Sure, knowing Awu, boredom would sooner or later set it, yet all in all Zitan is a good man. Useless in a real crisis, true, but then how many country-wide calamities would they encounter in their daily lives?

And I fully agreed with all of the above. Until this gem:

Zitan’s total inability to read the clock aside, his first instinct is to blame Awu. ‘You didn’t wait for me’ means ‘it’s not my fault, therefore it must be yours’. Which is decidedly not a good sign! If he said something like: ‘I am sorry I didn’t come, I was scared/confused/conflicted/unsure/can’t read the clock properly’, I’d have given him a pass (and a huge dollop of respect!). Because I do understand why he was hesitant to come! I really do!

But there is no sense of personal responsibility there. It’s like he’s playing at being a star-crossed lover at this point; his willful avoidance of real world issues points to just that. As does his later continued refusal to see Awu as she is (metal as f), rather than as she was in his memories/unrealistic plans. And he reacts quite passionately when she does not conform, at least during those first confrontations.

The question is: knowing this tendency, how long would it take for him to blame Awu once their ideal life far away from court stops being so ideal? When real problems set in, problems which he as royal prince may be in no way prepared to deal with? That stash of gold leaf was not that big! Sure, he’d probably try to persevere… But in that household it’s Awu who’d have to man up and deal. Which she’d do brilliantly, to be sure! But Zitan wouldn’t help.

Okay, wrapping this rant up: my problem with Zitan is not that he can’t use a sword (which he apparently can’t, since he doesn’t have one in Huizhou?) or that he’s not a superhero general (he can hardly help that one!), or that he’s the gentle artist type (which is perfectly fine!). It’s not even that he seems to hold no patriotic feelings and prefers to not get into court games. Why, I applaud the latter!

The problem is that I am wary of any person who can’t take responsibility and say out loud ‘I’m sorry, I failed’.

And yes, I do realize he admits to failure, but it’s not to Awu, but to Zilong, partly as a persuasion tactic, partly in his role as a tragic lover. That so does not count.

Damn, Zilu really is the second best male significant other in this thing, isn’t he?

[thegreymoon]

Monarch Industry - Rewatch

So many dramas to watch and I'm choosing to continue rewatching this. Zhou Yiwei is perfection and I love this show so much.

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Don't cry, Awu, Zitan is worthless and useless, as you'll soon find out.

You are about to marry a much better man.

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LMAO, shut up 😂

You ran off on your wedding night. How is that for losing face?

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This idiot.

Poor Grand Princess, you have wasted your efforts on his miserable ass.

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The way she just killed all those people with no remorse so that Awu could marry Zitan.

These nobles really thought everyone was disposable and had no concept of the value of human life whatsoever as long as they got what they wanted.

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Oh, Princess 😢

You are betting on the wrong man here.

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Oh, Awu 😢

His worthless ass is not coming.

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He may be a villain but he is speaking truths.

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And in broad daylight, this loser appears.

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I love how, once she was done waiting for his useless ass, she just eliminated him from her life 😅

[quanronggallery]

Vintage Chinese Zitan Wood Inlay Lapis Lazuli & Shell Crane Design Screen

[screaming-at-the-tv]

I can't believe I have to deal with Zitan the pathetic loserboi thru this whole show. I'd rather have Zilu.