on grilling meat skewers in 子夜归 Moonlit Reunion (2025)
in ep. 27, 武祯 Wu Zhen returns home to her husband 梅逐雨 Mei Zhuyu grilling meat skewers.
let me be frank that i have many qualms with this director's style, but this particular scene was one i thought he handled beautifully.
the hazy smoke between our main couple and the crackle of flames in the background is an obvious allusion to 不食人间烟火, a Daoist phrase often translated as to not eat the the mortal realm's fireworks (with 烟火 meaning 'fireworks').
but that interpretation doesn't make much sense, does it?
that's because 烟火 in this context does not refer to 'fireworks'... but instead the literal 烟 / 'smoke' and 火 / 'fire'... that accompany cooking food.
the phrase originates from 庄子 The Writings of Zhuangzi, a literary work from the Warring States Period and one of the two foundational texts of Daoism alongside the 道德经 Dao De Jing. in chapter 1 逍遥游 Enjoyment in Untroubled Ease, author and philosopher 庄周 Zhuang Zhou described a 神人 / lit. 'godly person' as such:
不食五谷，吸风饮露。/ [someone who] did not eat the Five Grains, but rather inhaled wind and drank dew.
辟谷 / lit. 'abstaining from grains' is an important fasting practice as Daoists believed that only by eliminating the 三尸 / Three Corpses (which feed on grain) could one ascend to immortality.
or, another way to understand the concept of 不食人间烟火 can be as follows: immortals need not eat and drink, only mortals do.
so that is why this scene is so beautifully poignant. Wu Zhen has just learned her mortal body is falling apart. if she is going to become a fully-fledged 妖 yao, then she will have to leave her mortal attachments behind: her father, her sister, her husband...
she is going to outlive them.
but here is Mei Zhuyu, sitting opposite her, with firelight dancing across his face... recounting to her how his family used to grill meat skewers like this every winter, and how he wants to do this with her every year in the future and with her father too.
he is not just inviting her to "come eat," but instead to "come be human with me."
he is saying, "let's spend a simple mortal life together."
and Wu Zhen wants that. she wants that so painfully, because she is both yao and also human... and as she remarks later in the episode:
“人心太贪了。” / "The human heart is too greedy."
it should also be noted that as she watches Mei Zhuyu interact with the little boy and longs for a regular human life with him, the opening lyrics of 周深 Zhou Shen's OST 岁月尘埃 Dust of the Passing Years playing in the background are fittingly:
“叹人间烟火，花盛开掉落” / i lament the smoke and fire of the human realm, that even flowers which bloom splendidly must wilt and fall away
the mortal lifespan is but a mere some decades. (think about 柳太真 Liu Taizhen who wanted to enact revenge on the human who wronged her... but when she next saw him, he had already lived out a full life without her.)
perhaps that is why another saying goes “人间烟火气，最抚凡人心” / 'it is the scent of the human realm’s smoke and fire that is most comforting to mortal hearts.'
