Every time @bbcphile and I watch another episode on our MLCB rewatch, we're both filled with meta thoughts (to the point it once took us like... an hour and a half to get through one episode XD ...though to be fair, it was a VERY juicy meta episode). And I keep saying I'm going to post them and then I don't, but this one is brief enough that I think I can do it. XD So I give you...
Holy Costume Changes, Batman!
(Mysterious Lotus Casebook, 莲花楼, episode 11)
At Cailan Manor
We start off this episode with Di Feisheng in this purple and deep magenta outfit with white piping and crisscrossing tabards, Fang Duobing in a silver/grey and light blue ensemble with medium blue lapels and belt over a robe with crossed lighter blue lapels, and Li Lianhua in a moss green robe with a dark green belt and over-robe. All have white underrobes and Di Feisheng has a silver/grey middle robe. Pretty standard outfits for all three of them at this point in the series.
In Town
OK, this isn't REALLY a costume change, but by the time they've gone to town to seek lunch (and secrets), Li Lianhua has decided it's a bit too warm out and shed his outer robe. But since no one is carrying it, then one presumes that at least a stop was necessary to put it somewhere? So I'm going to count it.
Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing? Still in their clothes from earlier; no changes here.
In The Dress
Well. We all know how this one happened. ;D
For Reasons that have nothing to do with Li Lianhua wanting an excuse to wear a pretty dress, we swear, Li Lianhua has now changed clothes completely into the pomegranate wedding dress and is being helped over the suspiciously rough terrain by Di Feisheng.
Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing? Still in their outfits from earlier in the day.
After One Dunking and Before Another
And now this is the one I find truly interesting. Rather that change back into the green outfit that he was wearing before putting on the pomegranate wedding dress, the outfit that was Right There in the bride's room somewhere, Li Lianhua has presumably traveled all the way back to his room (or even Lianhualou?) to get a complete change of clothing. He's still sporting a white underrobe, but now he has a red middle robe, a matching red belt, and a white outerrobe that's so sheer one wonders why he even bothered.
(Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing? STILL in their outfits from earlier.)
But what I find so truly fascinating about this particular costume change (and it's going to spawn a fic at some point, I'm SURE of it), is that these are not Li Lianhua's colors. These are Li Xiangyi's colors. Li Lianhua tends to stick to earth and sky tones: soft greens and blues, creams and later whites, but he just... doesn't wear red. At all, really. Except for this one outfit and when he's being forced to resurrect Li Xiangyi for some reason or another.
Maybe it was his near drowning in the wedding dress that brought memories of Donghai to the surface, or maybe it was being so close to solving the mystery of his shixiong's missing body, or maybe it was traveling with Di Feisheng and the constant banter between them bringing up memories of the past, or maybe it was something else entirely, but something brought Li Xiangyi to the surface enough for Li Lianhua to don his colors. And I find that endlessly fascinating.
Also I'm just laughing at him having like 4 outfits in the same span of time that the two men who are MUCH better known for being clotheshorses than he is have had exactly one each. XD
