Running out of things to say before the read more tag. What follows is, as always, rambling and incoherent and spoiler-filled. Don't click to continue unless you already know the story of Mo Dao Zu Shi and probably don't click even then. These are just my personal notes so I can edit my stupidly long fanfic that's set in the drama's canon. (And they're posted publicly just because that makes it easier for me to find them again.)
The episode starts with a recap of the last few exchanges between Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing, and is followed up with Wen Ning's adorably naïve conclusion that Jiang-gongzi will be cured, with the unspoken (and even more naïve) corollary of "now everything will be just fine!" Then we switch shots--and Wei Wuxian switches outfits--to the open countryside, in the foothills, and Wei Wuxian is outside enjoying some qinggong while he still can (well, actually, I think he still uses it even after losing his core, but he probably shouldn't?) and capturing some game. (He was looking for rabbits, according to his line, but ended up with a chicken...though it looks like a pheasant to me, but...🤷)
Anyway, he becomes aware that something's wrong, and starts walking through the tall grasses, looking for the source of the problem. He finds the collapsed Song Lan, with a bloodied white band tied around his eyes. He brings him back to the Yiling Supervisory Office, where Wen Qing examines his wounds, with Wen Ning's help. As Wen Qing is examining him, Jiang Yanli comes in with a bowl of medicine. As translated, Wen Qing says he'll recover "in a few days." There's something concerning her about his condition that she doesn't share with Wei Wuxian (or us).
Okay, super-important! Song Lan reports that after the events in Yueyang, he and Xiao Xingchen traveled together, until a few months ago, when Song Lan rushed back to...I've already forgotten how they translated Baixue Temple in the line that was on screen just like a minute ago. 😰 Snow White Pavilion or something crazy-sounding like that. I'm sticking with Baixue Temple in the fic, so I don't care how they translated it. Anyway, he says he was returning home to celebrate his shifu's birthday.
Of course, he gets there too late, and everyone is dead (except his shifu has not quite finished dying yet) and blood and corpses are everywhere in the courtyard. The courtyard had already been decorated with red banners and such for the birthday celebration. (There's a particular birthday that's strongly associated with red, is it the 60th? I would say I should look that up, but exactly how old his shifu was is not even remotely important to my fic, so it feels like a waste of time to do that at this juncture.) Back in the present, Song Lan is crying blood at the memory of his dying shifu groaning out a warning to him. 😭
The warning was not sufficient, of course, and Xue Yang leaps down from the roof to toss a blinding powder at Song Lan. Then he laughs and taunts Song Lan, giving him a message for Xiao Xingchen, calling the slaughter "a big gift for him." Song Lan's narration goes on to tell us that Xue Yang spent more than ten days torturing Song Lan's shifu while waiting for Song Lan to arrive so he could blind him.
Wen Ning seems very invested in the story, despite not knowing any of the people involved. 😅
Wait.
Shouldn't he know Xue Yang? Considering in CQL Xue Yang is a guest cultivator of the Wen Clan (or was before going rogue after getting his revenge on Chang Ci'an), he must at least know Xue Yang's name, if not have actually met him. Wen Qing almost certainly should have met him, considering she was essentially Wen Ruohan's private physician as well as his blood relative; in all the times she was called into the audience hall, Xue Yang must have been there on some of those occasions.
Well, anyway. In answering Wei Wuxian's question of what happened next, Song Lan reports that he "became drowsy." Then, "in a trance, I seemed to see Xingchen. He told me that he's taking me to see his master, Baoshan-sanren. She can heal my eyes." Wen Qing knows Baoshan-sanren's name, and Wen Ning has heard rumors that Baoshan-sanren is capable of reviving the dead and restoring flesh to bones. (Uh...some of that actually sounds like Wei Wuxian's powers from the novel...whoa, that would be nuts, if Baoshan-sanren was actually practicing the same kind of things he does. It would be a pretty radical AU, but interesting...)
Hmm. Okay, so in my previous rewatch, I interpreted this as Song Lan thinking that it had only been a dream, but now that I'm watching it again, it doesn't seem that way after all. After confirming that he means the same Baoshan-sanren that the Wen siblings are aware of, Song Lan says "He took me to Yiling." But that he doesn't know anything beyond that. (In the novel, Song Lan remained with Baoshan-sanren for a year to recover after the eye-swap surgery, while Xiao Xingchen left the mountain again immediately. Since Song Lan left immediately in this, I've gone on the assumption that Xiao Xingchen was the one who remained behind to recuperate. Hopefully his story in the Yi City arc won't contradict that, because my fic will fall apart if I have to change when and where they encounter Xiao Xingchen again.)
Wen Qing is naturally eager to find news of if Baoshan-sanren is actually in Yiling, but Wei Wuxian shuts down her questions so that Song Lan can rest. He claims that he knows where Baoshan-sanren is, since she trained his mother, and in response to Jiang Yanli's eager question, he assures her that Baoshan-sanren will be able to cure Jiang Cheng.
This is actually kind of stupid of him? In the novel, he actually does go looking for Baoshan-sanren, and when he can't find her, he leaves Jiang Cheng to rest in a small town, runs back to Yiling and begs Wen Qing to perform the golden core transfer. Here, despite the certainty that Baoshan-sanren is nearby and that someone has recently seen and been treated by her, he makes no attempt to find her, and just uses her as a cover for the golden core transfer, planning it that was from the start. Full points for him thinking ahead and taking control of his situation, but also minus a zillion points for making zero attempt to protect himself.
Then the next scene is the one where Wei Wuxian brings Jiang Cheng a big, hearty meal and pulls out the needles so he can eat. This is also the scene where Jiang Cheng is so low that he says there's no point in him being alive, since he can't get his revenge in life, and that maybe if he dies he'll be able to turn into a ferocious ghost capable of taking vengeance. Only to have that deflated by Wei Wuxian, who reminds him that he went through a soul-calming ceremony as a child, so he won't be able to become a ghost. Only after a few more exchanges between them does Wei Wuxian finally start telling him about Baoshan-sanren and how she should be able to restore his core. Even though Jiang Cheng knows Wei Wuxian doesn't remember his childhood, he's still eager to believe Wei Wuxian's lies that he knows how to find the immortal.
Though Jiang Cheng wants to go immediately, Wei Wuxian insists that the earliest they can leave is the next day, because they have to do something about Jiang Yanli first, as they can't possibly bring her with them. (That would be an interesting AU, if they tried to bring her along. I can't see her agreeing to allow the transfer, though. (Probably the only reason Wei Wuxian wanted to send her away in the first place, for that matter.))
Apparently one of the things Jiang Yanli does during their time in Yiling is to go picking herbs in the back hills with Wen Ning. That's the sort of thing I might have wanted to mention in my first draft if I'd remembered it. 😅
That(?) night, Wei Wuxian goes to see Wen Qing (apparently that was actually her house where he was spending all that time reading?) and reports that Song Lan's eyes are recovering well, and he should soon be able to see again. Her response implies that Song Lan is also wanted by the Wen Clan. Which I suppose makes sense, since he's one of the people who captured Xue Yang, and therefore could in theory have an idea where the Yin Iron piece is?
When Wei Wuxian tells Wen Qing that he's asked Song Lan to take Jiang Yanli to meet up with Lan Wangji and the Jin Clan (yeah, that combo doesn't make much sense), it gives her pause, but we're not told why. I wonder if she's worried that's going to make everything worse? Or maybe she was just hoping that with Jiang Yanli around, there would be no way the golden core transfer could actually be undertaken, since she really doesn't want to have to perform that surgery. When Wei Wuxian asks her for a "tranquilizing powder" to make someone sleep for a whole day, he addresses her as "Wen Qing" instead of "Wen-guniang" like he has been for the most part up until now. Not sure if that means anything, but it's important to note it. I like the fact that she already had a packet of it prepared.
As Wei Wuxian is leaving, Wen Qing asks him if he's thought about what if Jiang Cheng finds out the truth. Wei Wuxian insists that he won't, and Wen Qing points out the difference between hiding it from him for a while and hiding it from him for the rest of his life. (If she had asked Wei Wuxian "can you hide it for the rest of your life" instead of "the rest of his life"....) Rather than addressing her point, Wei Wuxian turns to look at her and says that if it was Wen Ning who was in Jiang Cheng's place, she would feel the same way Wei Wuxian does, and be willing to go just as far. This clearly strikes her, because I don't think she had realized just how true and deep their brotherly bond really is.
Wei Wuxian brings the incense powder to Jiang Yanli while she's tending to her brother, and he actually tells her that it's to help her sleep. He just doesn't tell her quite how much it'll help her sleep. 😅 I'm not sure if that's better or worse. She had some of his favorite soup waiting for him, so they talk for a while as he has the soup, and this is when we get the flashback to little Wei Ying attempting to run away because little Jiang Cheng was having a tantrum because his puppies were taken away.
But why are they addressing tiny little Wei Ying as "a-Xian" instead of "a-Ying"? That makes no freaking sense!
It's not like the show is pretending he doesn't have a birth name or we don't know what it is: lots of people have already used it, and it's almost the only thing that Lan Wangji ever calls him. So why are they not using it here, where it would only make sense? (We don't even know if his courtesy name has even been chosen yet at this point, since he's so newly arrived at Lotus Pier! It all depends if Jiang Fengmian picked the courtesy name, or if Wei Changze and/or Cangse-sanren had picked it and told Jiang Fengmian (or some other mutual acquaintance) about it in a letter.)
When little Wei Ying apologizes for having made trouble for Jiang-shushu, Jiang Fengmian tells him that at Lotus Pier, people don't need to apologize for what they didn't do wrong.
It feels like Wei Wuxian modeled most of his life on that. 😅
Um...should Wei Ying already be calling Jiang Cheng his shidi at this point? Shouldn't that wait until they've started their training, which is several years away?
I don't know the rules enough to know how that would work. Maybe it does work this way? 🤔 Well...I don't think it comes up too much in my fic. I just need to be aware of it, since I don't want to be constantly leaving notes along the lines of "I didn't like the way the show handled this so I'm ignoring it." And this is pretty minor, so if I just touch up the one speech of Jiang Cheng's that's addressing Wei Wuxian's earliest days at Lotus Pier, it should be fine.
Ugh, why is their happy childhood memory making me cry?
I know why it's making Jiang Cheng cry as he's faking sleep, but why is it making me cry?
Maybe I just cry too easily. (Peri-menopausal hormones or something?)
Ah. This was the scene where Jiang Yanli said that the three of them should always be together, and never parted. So that just barely squeaked in before my AU point. 😅
So, that's some interesting incense powder. It put Jiang Yanli to sleep, but Wei Wuxian, sitting like one foot further away from the incense burner, remains wide awake. Well, maybe he was doing some kind of special breathing to keep from inhaling it? That seems like the kind of power people sometimes have in these things. (I think one similar to that came up in Thousand Autumns in fact.)
And then they're setting her in the carriage, with Song Lan standing beside the horse, ready to protect her on the trip to Lanling. (There is still a servant to actually guide the horse, though. Which really sucks for the poor servant having to walk all the way to Lanling! That's like 500 miles!) Song Lan is upset by having the two of them bow to him. He's risking his life to protect their sister on a journey of like five hundred miles, on foot through who knows how many dangers, and he still doesn't want them to thank him properly because he feels they're somehow better than he is? 😭 (He keeps using -gongzi to address them, even though they're using -xiong; they're essentially saying "you're our equal" and he's saying "you're my superior." Even though he's one of the few truly pure characters who never did anything wrong.)
*ahem*
Okay, back from the rabbit hole I just dived down for no reason. (Which took so long that Netflix dumped the show from the buffer memory, and had to reload the whole thing. 😅)
Before he leaves, Song Lan starts leaving a message for Xiao Xingchen with Wei Wuxian, but changes his mind. And after the carriage rolls off, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng approach Wen Qing and Win Ning, and Wei Wuxian tells them that they're leaving, too. Jiang Cheng does thank Wen Qing for "nursing and caring for us," but it's a bit stiff and uncomfortable in a way that his dialog with her in the earlier arcs never was. (But compared to what he's like towards her in the novel...)
After he walks off (and stops not too far away to wait for Wei Wuxian), Wen Qing is just standing there watching him with big eyes. There's clearly emotion there, but it's unclear what the emotion is. I have not so far been able to get any read on how we're supposed to take her side of the tragic quasi-romance they added between them for the drama; she's probably aware of his feelings for her (since he's not good at hiding anything) but I am not the least bit sure if we're supposed to think she feels the same way or what.
Anyway, Wei Wuxian asks her not to blame Jiang Cheng for his behavior, and she assures him that he doesn't need to say that, because if she was in his position, she would behave worse. They talk a little more, then Wei Wuxian walks off without saying goodbye (though he does wave as he's further away), since the plan is to see them again soon. As they're leaving, Jiang Cheng hesitates and almost turns back to look at Wen Qing one last time, but doesn't quite. Wen Ning seems worried by Wen Qing's pensive stare as she watches them leave, and we hear her thinking that none of them values their own lives. (Which, even if she hasn't developed any friendly feelings for them, would have to bother her as a doctor.)
Okay, so these mountains they're walking through are not very tall (they feel more like foothills to me than mountains) and they have no trees, just tall grasses. I'm pretty sure what little descriptive text I have in the fic is nothing like that. 😰 I'm starting to feel like my fic is 500k of garbage. 😭 Okay, no, that was just a bad angle. They're actually pretty high up there, and the lower areas on the mountain they're on have trees. They're not rocky mountains, in any case. I probably ought to take a screenshot to remind me what they look like.
And then we get a montage of footage of stuff in other places. A small group of people at Lanling standing before a smug Jin Guangshan and Jin Zixuan chanting for the downfall of the Wen Clan and vengeance for the Jiang Clan, then Nie Mingjue leading his men to take back the Unclean Realm (and a slashed sign that read "Supervisory Office of Qinghe"), and of course the Lan Clan taking back Cloud Recesses, including a shot of Lan Wangji very purposefully stepping on a fallen Wen Clan banner. (Stupidly, the single image that Netflix associates with this episode is the shot of Jin Guangshan and Jin Zixuan. Which is 35 minutes into the 45 minute episode. 😅) This is accompanied by voice-over narration that I think is from Jin Guangshan, talking about how the attack on Lotus Pier sparked the rebellion that history would come to call the Sunshot Campaign.
Given that voice-over, I've decided to treat that montage as a "catching up on what's happened in the time we've been laser-focused on the Lotus Pier trio" and not as "this is what's happening precisely now." Because for my fic I needed Lan Wangji to be done with liberating Cloud Recesses in time to show up not too long after the golden core transfer. 😅
Anyway, then we get a brief montage of Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng continuing on through the mountains, sometimes cutting straight across grassy peaks and sometimes walking on tracks and other times on actual (dirt and gravel) roads. The implication of this montage is that it's probably taken them several days to walk that far, but there's no firm indication of that; no nighttime or daytime footage, as it all seems to have been shot on a cloudy afternoon. (Neither of them is showing any stubble, either, but that's hardly relevant; I think the sequence at the Yiling Supervisory Office is the only time that happens in the whole show.) Okay, well, no, there is one suggestion that there's been time: when they reach the road that Wei Wuxian claims will lead to Baoshan-sanren and Jiang Cheng asks if it's really the right place, part of Wei Wuxian's "why would I lie to you?" speech is "Was I going to let you be happy for a few days just to give you a big disappointment?" So it's been "a few days"...but has it been "a few days" since he first told him about the Baoshan-sanren plan, or since they left Yiling? I feel like in my fic I treated it as a few days since they left Yiling. (After all, Wen Qing needed to get ready and get in position...)
Then Wei Wuxian blindfolds Jiang Cheng and tells him he'll be waiting for him "in the town back there." Said town being a very important detail that I may have grossly misremembered... 😰 ...but I won't get to find out until tomorrow, ofc. The sequence of the blindfolded Jiang Cheng walking along is sort of weird. Like, he's going along a road, and then suddenly he's walking through waist-tall foliage. So, where did the road go? It's a good image, but it doesn't make much sense. Also, they shouldn't have had such a distinctive mountain in the shot.
They were walking along that road in the background earlier. At least twice. I get that Wei Wuxian really was leading him in circles, but maybe it wasn't such a good idea to make it quite that obvious? Or maybe it was, I dunno.
Anyway, eventually he hears the sound of a bell or gong (probably a gong), and starts to panic, like he thinks it's an enemy about to attack him. Just as he's calming down and starting to walk again, a drawn sword approaches in the hands of "Baoshan-sanren." *sigh* Again, I wonder if this sequence wouldn't have worked better if we had been left more in the dark about what was actually happening. It's impossible to know how one's reactions to the story would be different, you know? You can't unlearn what you've already learned. Sorry, Master Yoda.
Okay, in this dialog, Wei Changze's position at Lotus Pier is described as Jiang-zongzhu's "retainer." (Though I wonder if Jiang Fengmian was actually the clan leader by the time Wei Changze and Cangse-sanren eloped?)
*sigh*
The deeper I get in this rewatch, the less confident I am in what I've written. Like, it feels more and more like an utter failure. I'm going to have to rework the characterization of Wei Wuxian in the early portions (though thankfully there's not too much of him awake before he leaves with Lan Wangji to actually find Baoshan-sanren) and I feel like I need to retool Wen Qing's portrayal all around. I'm still trying to get a handle on Wen Ning; it's hard to nail down much about his personality beyond being 110% sweetness, particularly in terms of how well he understands what others are thinking and feeling (thankfully, I don't often go into his POV, but the few times I do are radically inconsistent with each other). I think I've done at least a tolerable job with Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli? I don't know.
Sometimes I really do think "screw it: why should I bother to polish it up and post it when no one will be willing to wade through something so stupidly long anyway?" But if I never bother posting it, then doesn't that turn all the time I spent writing it into 100% wasted time?
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