I am apprehensive about today. Not because of this episode--compared to the previous episode, this should be less draining, though I'm going to have to take even more extensive notes--but because I spilled more than half my breakfast right onto the floor, which is generally not a good sign. (Also means I don't get much breakfast.) I've also been in a terrible mood lately because of...well, a lot of things.
Anyway, I don't want to turn this blog into a constant grouse-fest, so instead of complaining about any of those things, I'm going to get on with my notes on the episode. As always, beyond the read more tag will be my incomprehensible reactions that are filled with spoilers. I'm only posting these notes publicly because it makes it easier for me to find them again. (Yeah, I know that's dumb. But that's me in a nutshell.)
The episode picks up where the last one left off, with Wei Wuxian sitting in the boat looking like a mental wreck. He overhears some of the Wen Clan soldiers complaining about the quality of the liquor, and saying that it tastes "like the smell of the lake." Then we go into a flashback where Wei Wuxian is drinking some of the Hefeng Liquor out of a lotus leaf, and saying that it mixes "the aroma of lotus and liquor." Then, after a little dialog with the Jiang siblings, he asks Jiang Yanli if it would be "extraordinarily tasty" if they "brew liquor with lotus seeds and leaves?" Um...and then he says he'll call it Hefeng Liquor...which is what he said he was drinking at the start of the flashback?
Huh?
Okay, went back to the start of the scene and he definitely did not say "Hefeng" in that first line, so that's a translation error. 😰 A translation error that turns the scene into nonsense. Yikes.
Am I allowed to repeat my desire to have a really good translation of this show?
Anyway, the important thing is that I have now ascertained that I was not mistaken in thinking that the specific liquor that was being served at Lotus Pier was actually Wei Wuxian's innovation, and I have both the name of it--Hefeng--and what it is--brewed from lotus seeds and leaves--so that's what's important, and I can add those details to the pertinent scenes in my fic.
Heh. The flashback is barely over when the Wen Clan soldiers just collapse, and then moments later Wen Ning shows up with the wounded Jiang Cheng on his back.
Once they're all three in the boat, Wei Wuxian starts unsteadily reaching up his hand towards Jiang Cheng's face to check if he's breathing. Wen Ning assures him that Jiang Cheng is just "in a coma" (that seems an extreme description, wouldn't "unconscious" be more normal?) but also tells him that he has several broken ribs, and was whipped. As translated, Wen Ning just says that Wen Chao found "the Jiang Clan's whip," rather than that he found the clan's Discipline Whip, a spiritual tool designed to leave scars that cannot fade. (As was described in the first volume of the novel, when Wei Wuxian sees the scars on Lan Wangji's back... 😭)
Ah, Wen Ning is so sweet. He even recovered Zidian while he was at it. (The novel doesn't go into how Jiang Cheng still has Zidian after being captured. I suspect Wen Chao and his men didn't realize what it was, and thus didn't take it away from him. Wen Zhuliu probably did know what that ring was, but wouldn't have said anything, whether out of respect for Yu-furen or out of disgust at Wen Chao.)
Wen Ning does say that the bodies of Jiang Cheng's parents were taken out by his men, and that he'll have them delivered later. (Which is about what he says in the novel, too. Though I think there it might have been in future tense rather than past tense.) I need to keep my eyes peeled for any hint of when the bodies were delivered and in what state. (Like, pre- or post-cremation. I feel like the implication in the novel is that it was post-cremation, but that was a years-later implication in the midst, as I recall, of the argument over whether or not Wei Wuxian was right to save everyone from the Qiongqi Path work camp, so...not the best indicator of timing of events. 😰)
Anyway, in this version, Wen Ning initially just tells Wei Wuxian to escape with Jiang Cheng, and it's only after Wei Wuxian says that they have nowhere to escape to that he offers to take them to Yiling where his sister can tend to Jiang Cheng's wounds. I can't recall if that's the way it went in the novel, or if he just took them there without discussion. I definitely need to reread the book...
After we see Wen Ning rowing the boat away from Lotus Pier, the scene shifts to morning, and Wen Zhuliu waking Wen Chao, who has collapsed over his table from the sleeping drug in the wine. And everyone else who was at the banquet is still collapsed where they were sitting, looking kind of like they were all slaughtered. Dang...that would be a heck of an AU: what if Wen Ning had accidentally put in something lethal instead of just a sleeping drug? (I'd say what if he had done it intentionally, but he wouldn't. He's too sweet.) Or, in order to get away from the Yin Iron that comes with working with CQL canon, what if Wen Ning hadn't been there and so Wei Wuxian had managed to sneak in and poison the wine? Imagine if Wen Chao, Wang Lingjiao and Wen Zhuliu were wiped out just like that? I mean, actually, it probably wouldn't change that much, except that Wei Wuxian wouldn't end up thrown into the Burial Mounds...and if Wen Ning wasn't there, then Jiang Cheng wouldn't end up as Wen Qing's patient, so no golden core transfer, so....yeah, actually that would get pretty dark, because Jiang Cheng would 100% go actually insane if he was left without a golden core permanently.
So, never mind.
Ooh, Wen Zhuliu knows the name of what Wen Ning used to drug them! It's called the "Hundred Days Ebriety." Wow, that's a word. It's so obscure that both the dictionary apps on my phone don't have it (though one of them knows it's a word, but you have to pay to get at the definition). Turns out it means "the condition of being drunk" and it's the exact antonym of "sobriety." (I mean, the connection to "sobriety" was obvious, of course, but....) I think this is what especially bothers me about these subtitles. Sometimes they use obscure words that even a decently-read native speaker has to look up, and sometimes they have lines like "I think that guy really smart." It's deeply inconsistent in quality, as well as having just plain wrong translations of titles (like translating "shufu" as "Clan Leader" instead of "uncle") and bizarre errors like the thing with the Hefeng Liquor in the flashback at the start of this episode.
Anyway. Just in case it's useful, what else Wen Zhuliu says about the Hundred Days Ebriety is that it will cause a splitting headache and muscle weakness. (Sounds more like Hundred Days Hangover to me, lol!) Also that it takes several days to recover.
Wen Chao immediately assumes that Wei Wuxian was behind the drugging. Seriously, dude? You think he would only drug you and not poison you? Or that he wouldn't waltz in when everyone was unconscious and kill you all? Underestimating Wei Wuxian's desire for revenge there. Massively.
Wen Zhuliu reports that Jiang Cheng was rescued (it kinda bothers me that both of them are referring to him as Jiang Cheng; I feel like Wen Zhuliu should refer to him more politely than that), but makes no mention of Jiang Fengmian's and Yu Ziyuan's bodies having been removed. I suspect this is not to say that they're not gone, but that Wen Zhuliu did not mention it because he was not asked, and because he actually respected them as people, and thus didn't want to see their corpses abused. (In the show, it was Wang Lingjiao he stopped from abusing Yu Ziyuan's body, but I seem to recall that in the novel it was Wen Chao rather than Wang Lingjiao. If my memory is correct, that too may have been a change made to ensure that no one would feel Wang Lingjiao didn't deserve the punishment she eventually receives at Wei Wuxian's hands.)
Then we go to the boat, as it has stopped somewhere along the way to pick up Jiang Yanli, who has been staying with someone the subtitles described as "Madam Liu." Jiang Yanli is so distraught by seeing Jiang Cheng's state that she doesn't even notice Wen Ning until he tries to reassure her that Jiang Cheng is just "in a coma," at which time she's plainly alarmed by his presence but manages not to say anything past "You..." She only seems to believe his assurances that he would never betray Wei Wuxian after Wei Wuxian himself nods to indicate that he believes Wen Ning.
Hmm. I really wonder who this "Madam Liu" woman actually is, precisely. She's dressed in purple, so she's probably connected to the Jiang Clan in some respect, and she addresses them as a-Xian and a-Li. Maybe she's a distant relation of the family? Like a cousin of Jiang Fengmian's who married someone nearby who wasn't a cultivator? Her clothing isn't very fine, but if she's a servant or former servant, you wouldn't think she would address Jiang Yanli in such a close manner. (Witness Wen-popo addressing Wen Qing as Qing-guniang.) Jiang Yanli addresses this "Madam Liu" as popo, shortly after the old woman becomes distressed to see Wei Wuxian bowing to her. You know, I think we are supposed to take her for a former servant. Possibly she, like Wen-popo, is actually their former nurse, and she just addresses them so closely because that's what the Jiang family (except for Yu-furen) is like? She does refer to Jiang Fengmian as "zongzhu," so definitely connected to the clan in some respect. Former nurse does seem like the most probable explanation. She just didn't live at Lotus Pier because there's no children there who need her services at the moment, I guess.
That means I absolutely should have included her in my fic. Dang. I'll have to go back to the earlier episode and see if I can figure out precisely how Wei Wuxian spoke of her when he told Jiang Yanli to go shelter at her house. Presumably as "Liu-popo"? Either way, it would only make sense that she would be be brought in to help Wen-popo look after a-Yuan (also the smaller of those orphans from Kuizhou, even before a-Yuan and Wen-popo arrive) in my fic, so I need to add her in there somewhere, even if only minimally.
Then, after seeing Wen Ning continuing to row them upriver, we go back to Lotus Pier, where Wen Chao is tormenting his men to find out how Wei Wuxian got back into Lotus Pier despite the "traps" he had set. (Which were obviously not all that impressive, considering that Wei Wuxian did in fact get inside unhampered by them.) The rug is still stained with blood from the battle that took place in there earlier, but there are also bright, fresh blood stains on the wood, so Wen Chao's evidently been at this for a while, and ruthlessly. It's kind of amazing none of his men ever knifed him in the back.
And we witness one of the soldiers throwing Wen Ning under the bus, saying that he had no right to stop Wen Ning from inspecting the wine, because Wen Ning's rank is higher than his.
Then Wen Chao orders Wen Zhuliu to deal with the groveling soldier, and Wen Zhuliu picks him up by his throat and there's...some kind of yellow light playing on the guy's throat coming from his fingers...? I have no idea what that was. Other than applied in post by computer. Wen Zhuliu holds him there for a little while then crushes his throat and tosses the body down. (And all the other troops were kneeling in the room further out, so they all witnessed every bit of this scene!)
Wen Chao comments on how fearless Wen Ning is, and Wang Lingjiao immediately starts stirring him up against Wen Ning, saying that he's taking advantage of Wen Ruohan's favor towards Wen Qing. Wen Chao doesn't want to be flattered right now, though, and says that Wen Ning isn't a problem, that he and Wen Zhuliu will leave for Yiling "tomorrow." Wen Zhuliu thinks it unlikely that Wen Ning would take Jiang Cheng to Wen Qing at the Yiling Supervisory Office, but Wen Chao insists that Wen Ning has nowhere else to go. Wang Lingjiao asks what Wen Chao will do if he finds proof that Wen Ning really was behind the drugging and the rescue of Jiang Cheng, and Wen Chao announces that he will "kill them all."
Full points for dramatic impact.
Problem is that Jiang Cheng is resting in the Yiling Supervisory Office for an unspecified period of days or possibly even weeks (I think in the novel it was specifically weeks), and Wen Chao does not arrive in that time.
I mean, yes, it would take longer to get there by land than by the river, but...Yiling is very close to Yunmeng. That's sort of the whole point. The real locations--if the map from the wiki is accurate--are about 170 miles apart. A normal person walking twenty miles a day (which is the number I got quite some time ago when I searched for "how far can a person walk in a day") would take about eight and a half days to cross that? And Wen Chao would not be walking. He would be riding a horse. Admittedly, it would still take (in reality)...I've forgotten the number I got when I searched for how far a horse can travel in a day. I feel like it was in the 25-30 mile range, with the proviso that the horse would need to be rested after a few days or it would suffer injury. (I do recall quite strongly that there was a particular battle in which King John (of England) took his enemies by surprise because his entire army crossed 80 miles in two days, which was viewed as absolutely impossible. So 40 miles a day is the ultimate limit of the "traveling so fast that it damages the horse" as far as I'm concerned.) If we assumed that Wen Chao didn't care if he was hurting his horse (likely the case) and that he was traveling 30 miles a day, it would still take nearly six days to get from Yunmeng to Yiling. But I feel like the sequence at the Yiling Supervisory Office is still longer than that. 😰
Ultimately, the scene of Wen Chao interrogating his own men should probably have been put off at least until after the others arrived in Yiling. Delaying the scenes of them waking up until after that happened might even have been good. Like maybe that stuff was so strong it made them sleep for a day or two, not just overnight.
Or, once again, I'm just thinking too much about all of this.
Arrival at the Yiling Supervisory Office. It's well away from the river, so Wen Ning had to hire a carriage to get them there. It seems like the carriages in this are always led along by a man walking beside the horse. Which means they wouldn't be even the slightest bit faster than being on foot. 😰 I'm assuming that this is actually historically accurate to the period(s) that the art design team decided to draw on for the clothes and set designs, though, so it's just....sort of awkward for me to wrap my head around it. I probably need to keep an eye on any carriages in my fic to make sure the horse is being led along by a walking servant. 😰
Jiang Yanli at this time is speaking of Wen Ning as "Wen-gongzi."
Thankfully (?), I don't do much with descriptions in my text, so it probably doesn't matter, but just in case it does, the Yiling Supervisory Office is in a light forest, a mix of thin trees and bamboo. No, wait, maybe the bamboo is only planted inside the compound. Yeah, that seems to be the case.
😔 I remembered Wei Wuxian getting angry and demanding to know what family was thrown out of their home to make this place into the Yiling Supervisory Office, but for some reason I remembered it as him directing that anger at Wen Qing, not at Wen Ning. As translated, Wen Ning's reply made it sound like it was always Wen Qing's house, even before it was the Yiling Supervisory Office. Which does not entirely make sense? But maybe...maybe like their mother grew up there, and maybe her own family died off after her marriage, so the house became her property, and then Wen Qing's? Or maybe it was a gift from someone she had saved with her medicine?
Anyway, Jiang Yanli talks Wei Wuxian down from his paranoia (which is indeed what she calls it) and as Wen Ning is trying to get them inside one of the buildings, Wen Qing returns. Just in the moment of unease on her arrival, someone starts banging on the outside gate of the compound, trying to get in. Wei Wuxian draws Wen Ning's sword and points it at Wen Qing, but he's shaking as he does so.
Wen Qing quiets the men outside by shouting that her brother has returned, but that he's ill again. They accept her word, apologize and leave. (And we do get to see them leaving, and they are indeed Wen Clan soldiers.)
Then we change to an interior shot that appears to be dusk or later, given the color of the lower light coming through the screened window, and Jiang Cheng is resting in bed, deliriously talking in his sleep. His wounds have been cleaned, and Wei Wuxian is sitting nearby, in new clothes (where the heck did they come from?), so it's obviously been at least half a day, maybe longer.
Huh. When Wen Qing comes to the door, she addresses him through the door as Wei-gongzi. That's surprising, but maybe it's a side effect of the situation, and his jumpy, paranoid state of mind. They stand outside for a little while talking about the situation, and he expresses his intention to kill everyone responsible for what happened at Lotus Pier. She doesn't argue with that, only nodding and saying "I see." (Really, what else could she do or say in response?) As she starts walking off, he turns towards her, and she stops, asking if he plans to kill her, too. He doesn't say or do anything, so she continues walking off, saying that she'll check on Jiang Cheng. And she's using that name, too. 😰 Poor guy gets no respect out of anyone. She ought to speak to and of him as Jiang Wanyin or Jiang-gongzi. (That's what I had her calling him in my fic. I really don't want to change it, so I guess I'll have to just leave an A/N on the first chapter saying that I've changed that, too, because it's really not right for everyone to just call him by his birth name all the time. I say, despite that I speak of him by his birth name all the time. 😅)
What's odd to me is that they've been there for hours, and she's only just now checking on Jiang Cheng's condition. He was brought to her as a patient, and in this version he's an old acquaintance, and they may have traveled together briefly on the way to Mount Dafan, and she just ignored his plight for hours? I suppose there's a logical reason behind it (responsibilities of her position or something) but it feels strange to me. Also, where is Jiang Yanli right now? Shouldn't she have been helping Wei Wuxian look after her brother? Maybe she's cooking for them right now, but had been helping earlier?
She can tell he has three broken ribs just by running the backs of two fingers down his torso (through his clothes) and just looking at the whip wounds she says they'll leave scars, so I need to get rid of that scene where she tried to give him an ointment to help get rid of the scars. 😅 It's only when she takes his pulse that she starts to grow alarmed. (She's very visibly wearing nail polish, but it's sort of skin-colored, so I'm assuming maybe there was something about the actress's nails that they wanted to cover up or something. I wouldn't think that nail polish was yet a thing in 5th century-ish anywhere. Hummm...or was it? Okay, I am way off base. According to Wikipedia, nail polish originated several thousand years BCE, and like about half of everything in the world, it started in China. So, yeah, that's fine. I'm not about to add mentions of nail polish to my fic, though. That's way more personal detail than I usually use.)
Wei Wuxian asked what happened, but she doesn't answer him. (And obviously doesn't ever answer that question.) Her surprise at feeling that Jiang Cheng no longer has a golden core really shouldn't be that much of a surprise, considering she knows perfectly well what Wen Zhuliu is capable of, especially considering half the time he's addressed as "Core-Melting Hand."
Next scene it's day again, and Wen Ning is outside fanning the flames under a pot of something (medicine of some sort, presumably), and Wei Wuxian enters the room where Jiang Cheng is sleeping, carrying a bowl of soup. But Jiang Cheng's eyes are open! He's lying there catatonic long enough that Wei Wuxian starts getting worried, but finally he sits up. Still without saying a word, he opens his robes to look at the scars on his chest, and Wei Wuxian promises he'll find a way to erase them.
Jiang Cheng hits his palm against Wei Wuxian's shoulder, still without saying a word, and Wei Wuxian just accepts it, telling him "you can hit me" if it will make him feel better. 😭 Only then does Jiang Cheng finally speak, saying he put all his spiritual power into that blow. Wei Wuxian tries to say that if he does it again then maybe--and Jiang Cheng explains to him exactly why Wen Zhuliu is called "Core-Melting Hand."
In Jiang Cheng's meltdown following this reveal, he still says that Wen Zhuliu melted both his parents' golden cores. We saw all two blows that Jiang Fengmian received in this version, and both came from swords (only the first from Wen Zhuliu, the second from some rando) so it absolutely was not the case for him. I suppose it's possible Yu-furen's core got melted, but if so she didn't need it to keep fighting. However, it's certainly possible that Wen Chao could have lied to him and said that both their cores were melted.
And the meltdown continues, including Jiang Cheng demanding to know why Wei Wuxian saved him. This is such a painful scene for both of them, and in a way it's actually worse for Wei Wuxian because he's not used to seeing Jiang Cheng fall apart like this, and he feels like he failed his duty to protect Jiang Cheng, which means he failed the couple who raised him and whose dying wish was for him to protect their son, and that feeling of helplessness in a situation like this is draining for anyone, but especially for someone like Wei Wuxian who's usually able to handle almost anything.
Wen Qing comes in with a bowl of what I'm assuming is medicine while Jiang Cheng is in a quieter part of his meltdown, having collapsed on the floor either in tears or near them. She sets it down and then slowly approaches, asking him to allow her to help him up. And he seems fine with that until he spots the flames embroidered on her sleeves, reminding him that she's part of the Wen Clan. Then he flips out, swatting her away from him and demanding that she "get out." It almost feels like a child throwing a tantrum, but I think a "fit" would probably be the most apt description, as his reaction is almost a medical condition. Wen Qing is clearly hurt by it, but she doesn't say a word, she just sadly leaves.
She goes out to check on the medicine Wen Ning is working on, inhaling the smoke from one of the pots, and tells him that "Two kinds of guiding drugs are missing. Wuwei seed and dengxin grass." That's probably not relevant to my fic, but having the info can't hurt. Wen Ning is exclusively calling her "jiejie" in this scene, not "a-jie," but in some earlier scenes he used that, and in one earlier scene he referred to her as "a-jie" in a conversation with others. I'm not sure how the distinction is made regarding when characters use one and when they use the other. 😰 It's clear I need to have Wen Ning use "jiejie" more often in my fic, though; I mostly had him using "a-jie."
Anyway, Wen Ning is worried about Jiang Cheng's condition, especially after Wen Qing says that he won't get better, which Wen Ning seems to worry means she's refusing to help him. The conversation leads to a statement from Wen Qing that feels important, like it should be brought up later. (I mean part of it I've already brought up in the fic at various times, but this is the sort of thing that should probably be mentioned more in the early stages of the fic than it currently is.) "What the Wen Clan did doesn't represent us. We practice medicine for generations, we only save people, we never kill them."
She also tells Wen Ning that he should send Jiang Cheng away as soon as he recovers, because Wen Chao will come to Yiling to look for him soon, since Wen Ning was seen at Lotus Pier.
New scene, unspecified amount of time later, and Wen Qing is getting herbs out of a medicine drawer when Wei Wuxian comes in to ask her for a favor. The set of medicine drawers is small--only nine drawers--but the way it's built into the shelf suggests that the subtitles may not have been wrong when they implied that the house had always belonged to her, as surely that's not a normal fixture in an ordinary house.
Anyway, of course the favor Wei Wuxian asks for is to let him read all the medical books she has, no matter how ancient. She tries to tell him--just addressing him as "Wei Wuxian," as she did in earlier arcs--that he needs rest, but he insists the only thing he needs is medical books. Naturally, she does cooperate, and so the next scene is him sitting down somewhere to read through them all. Or rather, it's a montage of him reading through them all. Some of them are paper books, and others are written on bamboo scrolls, thus considerably older.
As the camera rolls backwards out of the room where Wei Wuxian is reading one of the bamboo scrolls, we go all the way out of the house, and then pan up past the doorway. There's a symbol above the door, near the point of the roof that looks at first glance kind of like the peony symbol of the Jin Clan, but maybe it's actually a sun symbol for the Wen Clan? Hmm. I had Wen Qing claim that it was Wen Mao himself who changed the clan's emblem from a sun to a double-headed bird, but maybe I should change that up to some random more recent Wen Clan leader, so that it was after the split, and thus that any household belonging to her splinter clan would still use the sun symbol.
Yeah, I think I like that. I'll have to do that. (I also need to have a mention that at some point following this sequence, a fortification wall was added around the Yiling Supervisory Office due to the war, on account of there's definitely one there when they take the Supervisory Office in my fic... 😅)
The montage keeps going through (at least one) night and into the next day. It ends when Wen Qing enters the house with a meal for Wei Wuxian, who has fallen asleep where he was sitting, exhausted from spending all day and night reading. She sets the tray of food down next to an identical tray of food that he didn't touch at some point earlier on, because he didn't have time to eat if he was going to find a cure for Jiang Cheng. 😭 Wen Qing tells him to eat something, and that Jiang Yanli cooked him a meal (referring to her as "your shijie" as far as I can tell from what she actually said, as neither Jiang Yanli's full name nor Jiang-guniang seemed to be in the line), but he's still asleep (with a tiny bit of stubble on his chin and upper lip to indicate the passage of time) even as Wen Qing continues speaking, going into a report on Jiang Cheng's condition (still calling him Jiang Cheng 😰), in which she says that his shallow wounds are healing and even the whip scars are mending, but that he won't eat or sleep, so at Jiang Yanli's request she used acupuncture on him (to put him to sleep). Wei Wuxian is still asleep, even when Wen Qing tells him to go see his shijie because she's worried about him...or at least he seems to be, but then the camera goes in close and he opens his eyes.
Next scene, we're at Jiang Cheng's sickbed, and he's lying there with three acupuncture needles in the top of his head (probably the same kind that Wen Ning used on the giant dog 😅) and Jiang Yanli is tending to him, mopping at his forehead with a cloth. (It's not clear when this scene is in relation to the previous scene, but it seems to be at night again.) She tries to reassure her (unconscious) brother that their father had always told them they would suffer setbacks in life, and that she and Wei Wuxian will think of some way to get through this. Then Wei Wuxian comes in and he looks like such a mess, but it's also somehow a very sweet look on him. Jiang Yanli has a coughing fit before either of them really says anything much, because she's still not fully recovered from the fever she caught after sitting out in the rain crying so long. 😰 Wei Wuxian urges her to get some rest.
Of course, that makes her urge him to get more rest, since he's obviously exhausted, but he still has more books to read, but he worries that the books in Wen Qing's library aren't enough, and he goes through what's almost thinking aloud of wishing he was in Cloud Recesses, then remembering that it's been burnt and so the books must have been burnt, too, and then wondering who could possibly help him with this, and suddenly saying that "Lan Zhan! Lan Zhan will help me!" and he's literally about to run off to go looking for him if Jiang Yanli hadn't grabbed his wrist. It's sort of pitiful, but also painfully sweet. A good way to let the viewer know that his current tragic situation hasn't made him forget about his destined partner.
Wei Wuxian suggests to her that maybe this really is all his fault, just like Yu-furen had said, and Jiang Yanli can't take hearing him blame himself. She's actually crying, she's so worked up over hearing him say that. In the novel, she's only seen crying three times: at her reunion with her brothers after the massacre of Lotus Pier, at the soup incident, and after Jin Zixuan's death. Part of me wants to be like "they shouldn't have weakened her to the point that she cries more easily" and part of me is like "nah, it's just that everyone cries more on the show." (Seriously. Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng especially cry a lot. Admittedly, they have good reason to do so, but they definitely cry a lot more than in the novel. Even Lan Wangji cries in the show. I don't recall the novel ever letting us see him cry. (Though I'm sure he shed plenty of tears for Wei Wuxian's death in the novel, just not in front of anyone else.))
Now she's even talking like it's a foregone conclusion that Jiang Cheng won't recover. She's saying how Wei Wuxian is her only remaining family, and that if anything happens to him, too, then she'll be alone in the world. I cannot believe how much this stuff gets to me. 😭 Even stopping and starting to take notes, and I'm still crying.
Anyway, I need to remember that she got this low during this sequence, because I don't think that's really reflected in my fic.
As they're both breaking down in tears, we get a close-up on the unconscious Jiang Cheng, and even he sheds a tear. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's a very moving depiction of how close these three are, that the misery of two of them just naturally spreads to the third, even though he's literally insensible to the world.
Wen Qing looks in through the doorframe and sees the two of them huddled up and crying, then quietly goes to the table where Wei Wuxian had been reading through all the medical texts, straightens up the mess, and starts reading herself.
Another daytime establishing shot, and Wei Wuxian returns to the house where he had been staying (having shaved), with a tray of food. Wen Qing is still in there reading. He sets the food down beside her, then goes to a different table and starts reading. He tells her he made "the porridge" for her (despite that there is nothing porridge-like on that tray; there was a bowl of tea or very thin soup, and a plate full of some kind of buns or something (honestly, they looked a lot like Japanese manju)) and that she needs to eat for her strength; basically, the same stuff she said to him earlier. I'm not sure how the heck he addressed her, though; the subtitles had him using her name, but he didn't say her full name nor did he call her Wen-guniang or Qing-jie, so 🤷 the few options I'm aware of are already exhausted.
The scene returns to Jiang Cheng's bedside, and now he's showing stubble on his chin and upper lip (which he was not in the previous scene), and it's more pronounced than in Wei Wuxian's case earlier. That would seem to suggest it's been several more days? The montage continues, moving back and forth between the Lotus Pier trio (and also showing Wen Qing having fallen asleep while reading) and the next time we see Jiang Cheng his stubble is not as pronounced, so wtf does that mean? Did someone shave him and then it's coming back again? Did they accidentally put the two shots out of order?
It's Wei Wuxian (changed back to his earlier outfit) who finds the bamboo scroll that evidently describes a golden core transfer. (Certainly, the illustration on the scroll depicts one.) Given his reaction when he sees the identifying text on the outer part of the scroll, it would seem that its very title suggested it had what they were looking for, which does make one wonder why they didn't read all the titles before reading the books/scrolls themselves. 😰
This is one of those changes that I both understand and am frustrated by, though. Because on the one hand, yes, absolutely the long sequence of Wei Wuxian searching through all those books for information on how to restore Jiang Cheng's golden core is great. It shows how devoted he is, and how desperate he is to fix everything. And having Wen Qing get involved despite her misgivings is also great. But on the other hand, in the novel it was a long-standing theory of Wen Qing's that a golden core transfer was possible, so this is--like with the Yin Iron and Wei Wuxian's demonic cultivation--robbing one of the characters of the innovative brilliance they had in the novel.
Obviously, this is the sort of thing that didn't bother me in the least the first time I watched it, but now that I know how it originally was, it does sort of bother me. I feel like maybe it would have been better if they had the long book-reading sequence and only towards the end does Wei Wuxian find the essay describing the theory of a golden core transfer...the essay penned by Wen Qing herself. Then you could have a dramatic confrontation about it, and she could say how she didn't want to encourage him to think it was possible, since it's untested, the chances of success are unknown, and the chances of survival are so small.
But overall I think they've made Wen Qing much younger in the show than in the novel (despite the apparent age difference between herself and Wen Ning in the flashback to their childhood) and thus also made her less famous and accomplished as a doctor. Which I suppose makes it slightly more plausible that no one was willing to believe she could be innocent later on--and makes Jiang Cheng's crush on her in the Cloud Recesses arc more plausible (though just the actress they cast made that plausible no matter their relative ages!)--but also feels like "why are you making one of the only truly accomplished female characters in your female-gaze-oriented show less accomplished?"
Maybe it's just me.
Anyway, after Wen Qing wakes up, she comes out to join Wei Wuxian, who's sitting on the steps outside, and he tells her that he's found a way to save Jiang Cheng. We switch to Wen Ning, who's approaching the house with a plate full of food as Wen Qing starts arguing with Wei Wuxian, insisting that it's out of the question. (In this exchange, he does absolutely use "Wen-guniang." I will be glad after I get far enough into the show that I no longer need to pay quite so much attention to how people address each other.) A flash of lighting and some thunder make Wen Ning jump slightly, leading us to watch him reorganizing the food on the tray so we just hear the argument in the distance at first. Once he finally goes into the house with the food, the argument stops dead so he won't hear it.
I should remember that in this sequence, they're referring to non-cultivation life as being "a mediocre person." Dunno if that's in the slightest bit accurately translated, but...I should remember the term in case it ever came up in this particular context.
The episode closes with Wen Qing saying that she can only give him a fifty percent chance of success. Which is not totally her agreeing to do it, but pretty close.
Okay, so to sum up the chronology of what's happened here, for my own future reference:
- Escape from Lotus Pier with Jiang Cheng--at night
- Picking up Jiang Yanli somewhere outside Yunmeng--next morning
- Wen Chao wakes up and interrogates his men--unknown, shown at this point
- Arrival at Yiling Supervisory Office by carriage--unknown, at least in the afternoon following picking up Jiang Yanli, possibly another day entirely
- Wen Qing inspects Jiang Cheng's wounds--that night
- Jiang Cheng wakes up--next day
- Wei Wuxian asks Wen Qing for medical texts--unknown timing
- Reading montage--takes at least from one day into the next
- Wei Wuxian and Jiang Yanli crying together--(that?) night
- Wen Qing starts reading--same night
- Wei Wuxian brings food to reading Wen Qing--(next?) day
- Further montage--at least one more full day, possibly multiple days considering Jiang Cheng's stubble situation
- Argument between Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing regarding golden core transfer--daytime
Elapsed time from escape from Lotus Pier in this episode:
Minimum: five nights
Maximum: seven or eight nights
Even if we take it to be the minimum, and assume that Wen Chao set off for Yiling about the same time that Jiang Cheng woke up, they're still treading on thin ice that he hasn't gotten there yet. (Especially given the fact that Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu could fly there on their swords if Wen Chao wanted to do so.)
It doesn't ultimately matter, of course, but the better I understand the chronology, the better I can handle them reflecting back on these events in my fic. (Which, after all, picks up immediately after the golden core transfer.)
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