The original XuanWu cave script that was scrapped and the traces it left in the final cut:
(Leaked script of the original XuanWu cave scene)
*the first half is basically the XuanWu of slaughter appearing and all the cultivators trying to fight it. I'm only going to MTL the latter half where the biggest changes are found.
He (Wei Wuxian) is aiming three arrows at once towards the Xuanwu of slaughter when suddenly a scream came from behind him. Wei Wuxian turned his head and saw Wang Lingjiao instructing two servants to restrain MianMian while she is holding an iron brand and is aiming it at MianMian’s face. Wen Qing saw and tried to stop her but she was too late.
Wei Wuxian shot the arrows and hit the two servants as well as Wang Lingjiao. Wang Lingjiao let out a bitter cry but even as she is fleeing she still did not forget to rush towards MianMian with the iron brand.
Wen Qing rushes to MianMian pull her aside but the iron brand came straight at her instead. Wei Wuxian had no weapons and had to get close and push Wang Lingjiao aside but then the iron brand hit him instead. Wei Wuxian falls and knocks down Wen Qing. The two roll on the ground. The medicine Wen Ning gave him falls out of his robes and rolls off but no one notices.
Wang Lingjiao spouted a mouthful of blood, flew backwards, fell to the ground and cried. Wei Wuxian looked down and saw the clothes on his chest were burned and his flesh was smoking.
Wen Qing: (whispers) "Wei Wuxian! "
Wei Wuxian smiled at her as if he wasn’t hurt: “Wen Qing, please take care of yourself.”
Then he gets up and returns to the battle. Wen Qing wants to catch up to him but he is still in the middle of the battle.
When this leak spread all over Weibo, naturally the fans were anxious. Still, there was a fair amount of them who encouraged others not to judge too quickly, seeing as how it was possible for the so-called leaks to be fake. However that changed when footage of the XuanWu cave scene was leaked, and it coincided with the events in the script.
*Behold, this is the iconic leak that basically saved CQL's ass. Pay your respects
Understandably, shit went down and the fans were PISSED. They made petitions, bombed the shit out of the CQL official weibo, contacted Tencent senior management and even Jinjiang Literature City (aka JJWXC the site where MDZS is published) had to make an official statement on their weibo page.
Of course we now know that the fans' efforts were successful and that version of the iron-branding scene did not make it to the final cut.
However, we can still see traces of its original presence in the final cut. For example, Wen Qing's bizarrely empty role in XuanWu cave (in which she's literally just standing there the whole time) makes sense if you think about the fact that she was supposed to have a big moment during the iron-brand scene. MianMian's yuandao moment was moved early on and replaced with WWX asking for WQ's help to stop the march, while the medicine that WWX used in the XuanWu cave belonged to Wen Qing instead of MianMian.
CQL put a LOT of effort into shoving Wen Qing into the XuanWu cave scene, mostly at the expense of MianMian's original moments, which was undoubtedly for the purpose of shoehorning her into MianMian's iron-brand scene. Consequently, it also affected the scene where MianMian defended Wei Wuxian in front of all the sect leaders and got accused of only defending him because she "had romantic feeling for him".
(TL by exiledrebelsscanlations)
There is literally no good reason for such a line to be excised from the script. It's a small but powerful moment showing how the sect leaders reduced MianMian's level-headed arguments into a lovestruck woman's emotional outburst. But now it makes sense if you consider the possibility that this scene was part of the footage from the original script. It was "cut" because in this version, Wei Wuxian saved Wen Qing, not MianMian.
And lastly, the conversation WangXian had about MianMian in the cave was also affected. When LWJ accused him of being careless, WWX retorted by saying that since MianMian is such a pretty girl it would be a shame if Wang Lingjiao had successfully branded her face. That means that in the original script he should be talking about Wen Qing here since she was the one he saved. When CQL aired, eagle-eyed CN fans noticed something off with WWX's mouth movements in the cave scene, and realized that the dubbing did not match.
"...the 13th episode of XuanWu cave was really remade and changed back to Wei Wuxian saving MianMian, except the dubbing and mouth movements did not match. (38:02-38:10) the dubbing says "MianMian is a pretty girl", but Xiao Zhan's mouth says "Wen Qing is a pretty girl..." (MTL)
贝爷666 (2019, bilibili), article title: 孟子义加戏事件总览2——剧内外相关细节及证据（最全）
There were a lot of posts on Weibo about this, as a LOT of fans noticed, but at this point most of them were just happy that the team decided to respect the source material despite the time and budget constraints and they were quite generous with their praise with many fans saying thank you. It's also worth noting that according to the leaked schedule, the XuanWu cave was scheduled for shooting THREE times because of the scenes they had to cut, replace and add.
First shoot: June 14, 2018
Second shoot: July 14, 2018
Third shoot: July 22, 2018
It's likely that apart from refilming scenes to compensate for the ones they had to cut, they also filmed additional scenes that were added to the revised script, which may include the iconic "Do you like MianMian" scene, seeing as the mouth movement in that scene is accurate to the dubbing.
And there you have it. I personally find these leaks incredibly fascinating in a very morbid way. I seriously cannot imagine how the original book fans felt when all this went down. It's even worse when you know that there was originally supposed to be a love triangle between WWX/WQ/JC and there were leaks suggesting that LWJ lowkey end up having feelings for WQ too. But that's a story for another time lmao
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