#deng kuan

[corny-ass]

Ok.... Can someone please clarify some questions for me!??

Firstly,

Who married Gao Xiaolian in the end!??

Is it Chengling or is it Deng Kuan??

Secondly,

How exactly does Wen Kexing survive???

Like in not complaining at all but howww!??

I'm so confused and my dual shipping heart can't take the suspense of it..*sigh*

[minnarr]

Wuchang Gui on jianghu promises (episode 7)

[apolocya]

[ID: A piece of digital fanart for Word of Honor zine. It is a scene taking place in spring, with flowering trees and green meadow grass. Zhang Chengling flies a swallow kite while a dog energetically follows behind him. Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing stand a bit far off, smiling at each other and holding another swallow kite. In the back, Ye Baiyi lies under a pink flowering tree with two rabbits. Gao Xiaolian and Deng Kuan chat together even further away. Far off in the distance, there is a mountain range with Siji Manor fading into the blue of the sky. End ID.]

My other piece for @wohzine !

[thesweetpianowritingdownmylife]

What Deng Kuan says to his child: Let's go home, when two immortals start fighting, you never know when they will stop 😊

What Deng Kuan is thinking: Let's leave before they stop fighting and start fucking right there in the snow.

[chalkrevelations]

So, Word of Honor, Episode 36 (and “Episode” 37) again, because I want to do a little bit more unpacking of this, particularly with some of the extra material and information that people have been able to point me to.

Spoilers, obvs. For right now, I mainly want to pull out this bit of my initial reaction to 36 & 37, because I think it remains a key point for me:

It would be nice, though, if the connective tissue from 36 to 37 made any sense. Or existed whatsoever. Just, like, throw me a bone, show, some kind of explicit hand-waviness that actually gets mentioned for why Ye Baiyi apparently was not as smart as he thought he was and didn’t really know what he was talking about when he was doomsaying about how one of the pair will surely, oh surely perish. None of this “Sooooo, they managed to figure out the technique and master it?” from some random shidi who never actually gets an answer. I mean, the door was left open for fanwankery on this one, with what looks to be a very last-minute conceit of all this being a story told by grown-up Chengling to his disciples, which begs the question of how much of what he’s telling them is totally accurate, given any number of issues …

I do feel like there’s an interesting meta thing going on here, in that the entire show has been about – let’s be honest, it was never really about the plot – queer-coding this couple in ways that supposedly fly enough under the radar that people can handwave them as Just Good Friends and Brothers (I mean, I guess) with a Bury Your Gays tragic ending (ugh) for good measure. And Chengling is telling a story in-universe that seems to conform to some of this same formula. And yet, we all know well and good that these guys were husbands … So are we supposed to carry the same assurance out of the show, on a meta level, that what appears to be happening in the story at the end of Ep 36 – what we discover we’re learning through Chengling’s story-telling, isn’t really the truth? Just, look: While we’re getting the Good Friends and Brothers push, there’s stuff like obvious voice-over work that doesn’t match the much more queer version of what the actors actually said, which is apparently blazingly clear to any viewers who know Mandarin and can manage to lip-read. The show has literally put de-queered words into these characters’ mouths. You can’t trust what you hear. But apparently the show has also made this obvious enough that, if you’re a good enough speaker of the language the show is being told in, and you have a good enough eye, you can see what is actually going on. Are we being taught to trust our eyes more than our ears, are we being told that what we’re being told – by the end of Ep 36 on a meta level, by Ye Baiyi-through-Chengling’s-story on an in-universe level, and by what we learn about what happened from Chengling’s story, itself, also on an in-universe level – is inherently untrustworthy, but that if we “speak the language” of this show well enough, and have a good enough eye, we can decode it and see what “actually” happened and is later made explicit in Ep 37? 

So, that’s a lot, but the reason I wanted to pull it back out is because I feel like this no-homo, surface-level, smoke-and-mirrors effect that gets layered over a queer bedrock of “reality” is precisely what the show did with its ending, and I want to approach that on a couple of different levels. Particularly since I’ve seen several reactions from other people who didn’t seem to have seen/didn’t have access to the extra of “Ep” 37, or who also found it difficult and vaguely unsatisfying to make the leap from Ep 36 to full belief in, and commitment to, “Ep” 37.

When I first posted this, I was really leaning on the idea of a classic Rashomon effect, given that we see – imho – a final Zhou Zishu/Wen Kexing scene in Ep 36 that’s filmed to lead us to believe that Wen Kexing died, with a subsequent cut to Zhang Chengling wrapping up a telling of the “story” of ZZS and WKX to his disciples. The easiest fanwank on this is that all of what we’ve seen so far has been Chengling telling the story of ZZS and WKX to his disciples, making him an unreliable narrator who in fact doesn’t know the truth of what really happened. I was actually reminded of the contrast in The Untamed (god, I don’t need to warn for spoilers for The Untamed, do I, we’ve all seen Chen Qing Ling at this point, right? Anyway, SPOILERS FOR THE UNTAMED) between the cliff scene in Episode 1 when they make it look like Jiang Cheng stabbed Wei Wuxian, leading to his fall off the cliff, and you go back later and realize this is the version that the storyteller was telling to the people in the teahouse vs. Episode, god, what is it, 33? When we see the cliff scene in “real” time, and discover that’s not what actually happened, that what happened is that Jiang Cheng stabbed a rock and Wei Wuxian shook himself free of Lan Wangji’s grip to fall to his death. You can’t trust what you hear. Also … well, we’ll get back to Chengling in a minute.

The second level of uncertainty to unwind is Gao Xiaolian calling bs on Chengling’s story. So, I felt like the kid who’s practicing his forms in the snow and being coached by ZZS in “Ep” 37 might actually be someone, not just a random kid, and that might be important, but I could not for the life of me figure out who he might be. I wasn’t aware until I watched some of AvenueX’s wrap-up of the show (I think that’s the first place I heard this info pointed out) that this kid is supposed to be the son of Gao Xiaolian and Deng Kuan, and the dad who comes to take him home is Deng Kuan (formerly Da-shixiong of Yueyang Sect, who – let’s face it – Gao Xiaolian really wanted to marry). Seriously, I spent so much time making fun of ZZS’s stupid facial hair tricks in this show, and then they actually do just put a dumbass mustache on a guy, and I completely don’t recognize him. I have to admit, the mustache threw me enough that I had no idea that was Deng Kuan (well, and maybe only seeing him for three episodes also helped). But if that’s Deng Kuan, and if the kid is his and Gao Xiaolian’s son, then she would have some reasonable standing to know a story detailing WKX’s death was bs.

 Finally, and most crucially – thanks to everyone who directed me to resources (including AvenueX and other fans who were able to do some translation) who were able to talk about the voiceover work in this final ep, because when I talk about how you can’t trust what you hear, but if you speak the language well enough and have a good enough eye, you can catch what’s really going on? When I talk about de-queered words being put into these character’s mouths? Apparently, this is what happens to Chengling in the final scene. That last scene - and the story he tells his disciples - apparently DOES provide the connective tissue from Ep 36 to Ep 37, but you can’t trust what you hear. Apparently, this is one of the places where you can see something different from what you hear if you’re able to lip-read, with Chengling telling the disciples something much closer to the idea that two people who love each other equally can equally support each other through this cultivation technique and both come out alive.

In the AvenueX discussion of this (Livestream #21, starting around 1:22:30), there’s an additional tidbit about the use of the word “cauldron” – I believe by Ye Baiyi - to describe one person in the pair, a word with a specific and widely-understood meaning within the genre that’s not necessarily known outside of the genre with, yes, sexual connotations. (Come on, slash fans, don’t tell me you don’t giggle every time you pass a perfectly innocent Jiffy Lube auto shop, at something that the mundanes don’t think twice about.) Apparently, “cauldron” is in the script, I believe it’s in the English subs, and it apparently was in the original Chinese subs, until too many people started talking about it and how it had been slipped past censorship, because it’s a perfectly common Jiffy Lube auto shop, right? and then it appears Youku went back and changed the character in the Chinese subs to something that doesn’t even make any sense. So again, we get an example of a case where if you’re a good enough speaker of the language this show is being told in – in this case the vernacular of wuxia – with a good enough eye, you can catch what’s really going on. Something that then gets no-homo’d. And has some nonsensical de-queered meaning laid over top of it. How many times do we have to do this until we learn the lesson that you can’t trust what you hear?

 ANYWAY, I’m wondering if the visuals are important, too: Something we see in the last scene with ZZS and WKX in Ep 36, when WKX is either unconscious or dead (CLEARLY UNCONSCIOUS), is that ZZS – twice – doesn’t let WKX’s hands fall. He catches him by the wrists and then catches him again by the hands as WKX’s hands start to slip away from ZZS’s hands – aaaannnnd end scene. I have to wonder if that’s not a subtle but important detail, that we see ZZS refusing to let WKX physically slip away, and maybe, by implication, refusing to let WKX slip away from him into death.

Also, again with Ye Baiyi – in the flashback when WKX is yelling at ZZS, Ye Baiyi says “No one dies!” as he comes bursting into WKX’s sickroom. And then even reiterates it – “No one dies before me!” But then the voiceover during the qi transfer, he’s supposedly going on about here’s how WKX is going to have to kill himself to save his husband? I think the script has dropped the ball in a few places, but that would really be a tremendous flub. That also deserves some unpacking, but I’m running out of free time right now.

So, just some additional thoughts. I will probably have more, but next up, I think, will be a re-watch from the beginning.

One last thought, tho’: What’s the likelihood that Nian Xiang is Actual A-Xiang and Goa Xiaolian’s/Deng Kuan’s kid is Cao Weining, reincarnated?

[janedrewfinally]

The Trials and Tribulations of Yueyang Sect head disciple Deng Kuan (a list):

1) Being the head disciple of what is probably the shoutiest of the Five Lakes Alliance sects, because Gao Chong does not quite get the concept of “indoor voice.”

2) Being the head disciple of the Yueyang sect without being the “favored disciple,” because that is apparently Song Huairen.

3) The general fact that Song Huairen (favored disciple) and Xie Wuyang (in charge of training the younger disciples) are, in fact, both spies for Zhao Jing. I mean, that has to be making things more difficult for Deng Kuan in various subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

4) Being a head disciple in mutually-requited love with the daughter of the sect leader when the match does not have the sect leader’s approval. This is assuming that Gao Chong knows that Gao Xiaolian and Deng Kuan are in love with each other; I could see the argument that he does not, but the fact that they have feelings for each other seems to be a known thing. Given that Gao Chong has no sons, having his head disciple marry his daughter seems like a logical choice- except, again, his head disciple is apparently not his favorite disciple (and his favorite disciple is secretly an agent for Zhao Jing), and Gao Chong is definitely thinking about finding a more ambitious match for his only child- he makes plans to marry her off to the only survivor of Mirror Lake real darned fast.

5) Being trapped on the shore with a bunch of broken boats while having to watch the Mirror Lake Sect burning down.

6) Being the person who has to direct the clean-up of the Mirror Lake Sect before anybody else gets there- including making sure that the horribly tortured bodies of Zhang Yusen and his two older sons are laid out and properly covered up (The Trials and Tribulations of Me, [a list]: the realization that after Four Seasons Manor is rebuilt and Zhang Chengling and Deng Kuan are both there, they are going to have to have a conversation about this).

6a) I would say “getting yelled at by Shen Shen,” but really, Shen Shen is only the second-shoutiest of the Five Lakes Alliance sect leaders.

7) Getting dragged into Mu Yunge’s bad romance drama by being part of the entertainment one of the “guests” kidnapped by the Bureau of the Unfaithful for Mu Yunge’s wedding to the (deceased) Mo Yanwan.

8) Attempting to talk some sense into the other entertainment “guests” when they’re forced to participate in the festive wedding fight to the death, failing, and ending up as the seriously-injured last survivor.

9) Being drugged/brainwashed somehow after the fight to the death.

10) Staggering back to Yueyang only to be treated EXTREMELY rudely by the very snobbish guards who don’t recognize him.

11) Coma.

12) Brainwashed into making accusations and stabbing himself at the first Hero’s Conference.

13) Coma, again, but at least it keeps him out of a bunch of the drama.

14) Being drama-adjacent at the second Hero’s Conference- which you'd think would be less of a tribulation, but there is A LOT of drama to go round.

15) Unfortunate Mustache.

[princesswithabraidedcrown]

It is finished. Thank you to everyone involved in the production of Word of Honor. Y’all made me laugh and cry and generally have an excellent time.

Now that the sappy stuff is out of the way...farming? Yeah, yeah, really helped push the show through because it toes the company line. But seriously? Farming? Yes, you nomadic people groups that live in the freaking mountains. You obviously just need to farm about it.

At least I didn’t need to be annoyed too long at Xie’er and his skewed priorities because he was unceremoniously crushed by several thousand tons of snow. Man do I wish that the multiple investors didn’t pull out at the last second and leave us with a truncated show. It’s a brilliant truncated show, don’t get me wrong. But think of what could have been?

Many thanks to the various internet people that I do not remember (thank you adhd and also my chronic tendency to not look at usernames) that pointed out that WenZhou’s mountain is literally behind SiJi manor. That makes me oh so very happy. Also the lighting of two lanterns thing that somebody explained meant that two people were going to live.

I think I’ve just about adopted someone from the WoH discord’s headcanon that Chengling is aroace, so I firmly believe that him, Xiaolian, and Deng Kuan have a sort of queerplatonic relationship going on alongside their plethora of martial sects. Or he’s like the good shishu of Cao Weining. Anyway, they are a found family, brought together by the asshole immortals that live in their back 40 and nominally have something to do with sect leadership...but absolutely just give it all to Chengling.

I’m very happy that Youku was able to slide the happy ending in, because otherwise...I would definitely be asking myself what was that about the final scene. It ends very abruptly, so the bonus episode is a nice tidy bow on the situation.

[chalkrevelations]

OK, Word of Honor, Episode 9, and I know last time I got deep in the weeds about symbolism, but this week, I’m getting back to basics and rambling on (and on) about what this show is really about: Zhou Zishou and Wen Kexing and their relationship.

First, though, the usual warning: SPOILERS. Not just for this episode, but potentially for the entire show, so drive past and circle back around later if you want to watch all 36.5 eps unspoiled.

Bear with me on this one, because this ep spends a LOT of time on ZZS and WKX, and I think a lot of that time is ZZS making some Monumental Life Decisions, including how he’s going to proceed in this relationship and how he’s going to approach his life moving forward. But I’m finding myself needing to work through it chronologically, and it’s. A Lot. Also, let’s face it, ZZS has been my ride-or-die at least since he dropped to his knees and started disrobing in the middle of the throne room in Ep 1, so a chance to wallow in his emotional journey is a chance I’m gonna take.

So, we do have a brief opener when we find out Dead Guy who the Yueyang disciple was shrieking about at the end of the last ep is Fang Buzhi, AKA the Nine Clawed Fox, the guy who lifted WKX’s (Danyang) Glazed Armor (along with some replicas). He got got by mysterious somebodies in the previous episode, and we find out now that he has three tiny needles in his neck, which ZZS recognizes as a Tian Chuang technique. This leads ZZS to 1) assume it must have been Han Ying who did it, so the (Danyang) Glazed Armor is now in the hands of Tian Chuang, and 2) realize that maybe this is not the best place for the former leader of Tian Chuang to be hanging out right now, so he makes their excuses, because he knows that Gao Chong must be VERY BUSY now that he’s got this corpse on his hands, so they’ll just BE GOING, thanks so much. Gao Chong hopes to see them at the Hero’s Conference, and WKX responds in a Significant Tone that of course he’ll be at the Hero’s Conference, and now ZZS has his Thinky Face on again, because WKX is not nearly as subtle as he seems to think he is when he’s making Pronouncements.

The ZZS/WKX Show really starts kicking into gear that night, at the Getting Lucky Good Luck Inn, where we open on ZZS wandering contemplatively around his room, looking beautiful in the soft light of evening (your FACE, Zhang Zhehan) and ruminating on Prince Jin’s motives for wanting the Glazed Armor, like he’s never met this power-hungry asshole before. Also, he thinks to himself, wtf was that, with Gao Chong keeping anybody from seeing Chengling in the last ep? There’s a knock on the door, which momentarily confuses him - understandably, because as we’ll see, WKX doesn’t generally get the concept of announcing yourself and waiting to be invited in by knocking first, preferring to dramatically bust open doors (at least to ZZS’s bedroom) and grace you with his presence, whatever your thoughts on the matter are. He’s accompanied by waiters and dinner, and ZZS realizes his senses are going, presumably because he can’t smell this spread that WKX has procured in an attempt to prove what a good provider he is (what did I say about food and bonding? ZZS fed him in the market, and now it’s his turn to feed ZZS). WKX tells us that life is just three hots and a cot - which gives away more about your life than you would likely be comfortable with us knowing, Lao Wen, given how close to the vest you’re holding your cards – and that everything else can wait if you can have a meal with someone you like. :coff: (Also, remember this, it will come around again.)

Cut to dinner by flickering candlelight, the better for soft lighting to caress ZZH’s exquisite face, but ZZS isn’t into it at all, staring into space instead of eating WKX’s proffered Courtship Delicacies. This earns what’s possibly WKX’s most hypocritical and amusing comment yet, which is to ask ZZS, “What is it that you can’t tell me?” ZZS - apparently - is still feeling soft about WKX’s help against Tian Chuang’s Chengling-kidnapping attempt - or maybe he’s thinking that a little bit of opening up on his part will soften up WKX - because he hardly has to have a spoon dug into his ribs at all to admit that he’s wondering if it was a mistake to bring Chengling to Five Lakes Alliance. My dude, just steal him back, then. WKX laughs at him and tells him he’s got such a handsome face (true) along with a kind and innocent heart (false, he’s a former government spook and assassin, a part-time ill-tempered gremlin, and a whole-ass troll), and therefore girls will clearly go crazy for him (true, just ask me). ANYWAY, A-Xu, (WKX continues) now that the requisite random no-homo boilerplate is out of the way, are you really thinking of taking on Chengling as a disciple, because now is apparently not too soon to have the adoption conversation about Our Son. I almost expect him to pull out the adoption papers then and there. Instead, he pulls out a story - which is awkwardly placed and kind of clunky, actually, despite being thematically important - of a dog he had once, given to him by Someone Very Important, although of course he’s not going to say who that was (:facepalm:), and his mother warning him that he’d have to take care of it for life, and then he betrayed it.

So, there’s a lot going on here. We’ll eventually find out that ZZS gave Zhen Yan a puppy, so will this story of a gift dog jog ZZS’s memory into realizing that WKX is Zhen Yan without WKX actually telling him, so that WKX can tell his Bundle of Neuroses that it’s not reeeaaallly WKX’s fault ZZS figured it out? Also, WKX sees ZZS being like this about Chengling, and in the Chengling = Zhen Yan equation we’ve already established, is it possible this will prime ZZS to remember another disciple/young boy he took responsibility for, at one point? Of course, on ZZS’s side of things, it’s possible that hearing about this dog that WKX failed is likely to remind him of the way he failed his own responsibility to all the other disciples of Siji Manor, so, excellent way to take a stab at his heart, WKX! However, ZZS breaks the miserable tone we’ve become mired in by smacking WKX, chiding him for comparing their son to a dog, and getting them drinking. See, here, Chengling is the dog. Earlier, the two sisters A-Xiang rescued were the dog. Later, A-Xiang will be the dog. Unfortunately, WKX is going to have a blind spot and never quite realize that, in the Ghost Valley schema he’s set up, the Department of the Unfaithful is also the dog, but we’ll get to that in later eps. For now, cut to later that night: After dinner and a washup, ZZS sits on his bed, and we get some special effects to indicate that his hearing is also giving him problems, so he deploys his special Nightly Nails Torment meditation pose, and then we get the second instance of WKX playing the xiao to help him meditate and rest. (Junjun, your hands on that xiao …) ANYWAY, we get a gorgeous little bit of physical acting from ZZH here that could easily have been overplayed but is nicely restrained and subtle, with just the slightest smile when ZZS realizes WKX is playing, and then his whole body visibly relaxing as he allows himself to sink into WKX’s now-familiar musical embrace the meditation. It is :chef’s kiss:

Cut to next AM, when ZZS is now a very cranky boy, and I get this, because I also am exceedingly irritated when people bust into the room where I’m sleeping with an abundance of cheerfulness and try to get me to interact and do things without at least half an hour to creep my way out of bed, two cups of coffee, and an hour of silence before any attempts to converse like a reasonable human being (I’m looking at YOU, mom), and I don’t even have the excuse of seven Nails pinning me. Also, when WKX whips off the blankets, we learn that ZZH dresses to the right. :hands: I’m just making an observation. So, WKX wants to go to Yuefan Tower like some kind of wide-eyed tourist, and despite some smacking and scowling and death threats, we then smash-cut to the Tower, where ZZS has apparently come to the conclusion that the only way to deal with the ADHD gremlin crawling into his bed is to humor him about this daytrip. I think you could have come up with some more creative ideas that didn’t involve leaving bed, but I guess you’re not the fast one in this relationship, Zhou-ge. Srsly, though, I’m sure WKX would have been happy to do all the work, my dude. (I don’t always have strong top-bottom preferences, but you probably aren’t going to have much luck convincing me that ZZS is not a pillow princess who wants to just lay back and be spoiled. “Aren’t you a very capable man?” indeed. WKX has to do ALL THE WORK, god. I don’t know if I’m swimming against the current here – god knows I was in Inception fandom, where I felt the same way about Eames - but here we are.) Also, I can’t believe WKX didn’t just sit in the bedroom and creep on A-Xu’s beautiful sleeping profile for at least the amount of time it would have taken to drink a pot of tea, another viable option if it was me in this scenario. Tch. What kind of stalker are you, Lao Wen?

ANYWAY, at Yuefang Tower, ZZS tells us about the Four Sages of Anji, a senior-citizen polycule of soulmates who are, conveniently, at this very moment, on a boat in the lake beside the tower, playing music and sword-dancing. This is the first time they’ve been seen in 10+ years, after they put down their various swords and ran off together to live like hippies off-the-grid in the woods, probably skipping around naked, drinking “tea,” and having lots of sex. ZZS sighs wistfully while recounting this tale and calls them “a breath of fresh air.” There’s some discussion and poetry quoting and literary references to soulmates, and somewhere in here we get a shot of ZZS and WKX from behind which makes it super-obvious how hard they’re working the costumes to make Gong Jun look as broad as possible. He’s got the power shoulders on this set of robes, compared to Laopo ZZS’s soft, unstructured, flowing robes, and with those shoulders tapering down to the belted waist, they’ve got Junjun seriously working the Chris Evans Dorito silhouette. Meanwhile, focus back on their conversation: ZZS thinks that “the world is not important, finding a soulmate is,” giving some MAJOR FORESHADOWING for the end of the show (which we are accepting as “Ep” 37 because WE ARE), when we get that icy separation from the rest of the world but they have each other. WKX gives him a yearning look. ZZS looks back … there’s really no other way to put this … coyly, not meeting WKX’s gaze directly. This offers WKX and us a chance to admire his profile once again, thank you, Laopo. ZZS waits until WKX looks back out at the lake before looking at him directly, and his face journey, y’all. He’s thinking that it might not be bad to spend his remaining time with this soulmate, I think he’s starting to re-think the slow suicide, and he’s also thisclose to just letting WKX have him. Y’all, he seriously wants WKX so bad, here. It may be the first time we’ve seen this level of interest from him - it may be the first time, in all that we’ve seen of him, that he allows himself to even have that kind of interest. I think this is the next big step from Ep 6, when he allowed himself to enjoy being desired - now he’s allowing himself to desire, to want something again, other than a chance to drink himself to death in the gutter. This, right here, is a crucial point when he makes the decision to spend whatever time he’s got left living rather than just dying, and I’m flailing on the couch. This is the face of a man who’s ready to Make Some Declarations while getting railed within an inch of his life. SOMEONE IS GETTING SOME TONIGHT. Or he would if he wasn’t going to turn out to be such a fuckup. FFS, WKX.

But first, we cut to a scene of them back at the marketplace, wandering through as WKX mocks various sects in town for the conference – including the Mount Hua boys, who apparently look like virgins make their first trip to a brothel – and ZZS supplies background info on them. WKX asks if ZZS can tell what sect WKX is from, and ZZS calls him a messy bitch before asking if WKX can please stop making him play guessing games about everything and just tell him what WKX so clearly wants ZZS to know. (I know, right? But no, because then WKX might get what he wants, and he’s way too terrified for that, so you have to guess. That way, it’s not his fault when you figure out who he is and reject him, as anyone clearly will do because he’s unlovable and unforgiveable and not even really human, A-Xu.) WKX immediately changes the subject to ramble about the Hero’s Conference and how laughable all the sects are for wanting to be seen as heroes, blah blah blah, rinse and repeat. ZZS comments that only inexperienced people want to be heroes, that experienced people know “every character of the word hero is written in blood,” and yes, the character they’re using for hero, “ying,” is still the same character used in Han Ying’s name (which is not, by the way, the “ying” used in Wei Ying’s name, to cross streams for a moment). ZZS says he’s too old to be a hero (I and my knees feel you, my dude), now he’s just a wanderer, and he asks if WKX wants to be a hero or a wanderer, and WKX says that as a wanderer, all he needs is ZZS, and I’m telling you, someone absolutely would be getting some tonight if only he wasn’t such a fuckup, Lao Wen.

I’m’a try to wrap this up soon, because it’s gotten v. long, but we then cut to that night at the Getting Lucky Inn, ZZS drinking in his room, WKX busting in with his usual dramatic flair, with wine, inviting ZZS up to the roof to drink and look at the moon. He clearly has ulterior motives, but unfortunately for everyone, we’re going to discover they’re not the ulterior motives ZZS is expecting. As they lean back on the roof together, hands almost-but-not-quite touching, a romantic tune playing, WKX tells ZZS that he’s like, really happy! Just super happy! So happy! Ask me why I’m so happy, A-Xu! Spoiler alert: It is, unfortunately, not because he’s getting ready to get some from his laopo. This is particularly unfortunate, because ZZS chooses this moment to take another big step in this relationship, telling WKX that he’s not going to ask about things WKX doesn’t want to tell him, that he’ll wait for whatever WKX wants to tell him. On the surface, this comes off a little bit like, I’m done with asking when you’re not going to answer anyway, but in context – particularly on the back of the earlier scene when ZZS watched WKX turn on a dime and immediately change the subject to avoid exposing anything when ZZS asked WKX to stop making him guess everything – this is as good as a declaration of going all-in. ZZS is committing to this relationship on faith, without having all – or even most – of the answers about WKX, and his approach is going to be to wait until WKX is ready to reveal whatever information he feels safe and comfortable revealing. In practice, he’s going to end up being better or worse at this, depending on the day, but what it reminds me of, already, is that moment in the 20s (Ep 21? 22?) when A-Xiang and Cao Weining are arguing about her killing the beggar guy, he approaches her, she yells at him and points to the ground to indicate exactly how close he’s allowed to get to her, and his respect of that boundary she lays down is instantaneous and absolute. That’s what ZZS is saying he’s going to at least try to do, here. It also reminds me of the way he’s going to respect WKX’s decision on whether or not WKX is going to claim his place as a disciple of Siji Manor, without it affecting their relationship, so we really are starting as ZZS means to go on, here.

Unfortunately, we then find out that what WKX is actually so happy about is that his plan to burn down the jianghu is starting its next big step, and their romantic evening is interrupted by a bunch of dudes fighting and killing each other over a bunch of fake Glazed Armor. WKX mentions that he’s so happy the show’s started; he’s alternately amused, satisfied, and smug as they watch various fights; he seems to be expecting ZZS to also be amused; and I feel like the implication is that this was his real motive for inviting ZZS out onto the roof, to be able to watch this show with him. ZZS – who’s spent enough time standing ankle-deep in blood for six lifetimes and was working hard just a few weeks ago at drinking himself to death to try to forget what that feels like - is displeased and horrified, rather than very proud of what WKX has accomplished; he pushes WKX away from him when WKX approaches him to ask if he doesn’t think it’s all so very amusing; and he calls WKX crazy, then turns his back on him and walks away. To make things worse, the next morning, after WKX brings breakfast to ZZS’s room and actually knocks, only to find that ZZS has left in the middle of the night, WKX will witness an angry mob gathered outside the house in the woods where the Four Sages of Anji are staying for the Hero’s Conference, demanding a piece of the Glazed Armor the Sages are supposedly holding for Gao Chong, and eventually leading to the deaths of all four of these peaceful aging hippies whose commune in the woods was ZZS’s ultimate dream, leaving WKX horrified by the fact that his actions have consequences, including some that are going to make his boyfriend even more pissed off at him.

SO. All that happened. There were some other people in the episode, too:

We see A-Xiang and Cao Weining having lunch. She asks him why he’s not eating, calls him fat and cute, then proceeds to tell him about Ghoul, who likes to eat the faces of pretty boys. Her conversation skills could still use some work. Cao Weining vows to kill the ghosts of Ghost Valley who would do such awful things. A-Xiang actually ignores this slander about the evil of the residents of the Ghost Valley in a way that she doesn’t usually – usually she looks kind of unhappy when the Evilness of the Evil Inhabitants of the Evil Ghost Valley comes up, going all the way back to ZZS’s comments in Ep 2. Right now, she’s too busy pumping Pooh Bear for information, asking about why the Ghost Valley would have left a pile of heads on Yueyang’s doorstep if the Five Lakes Alliance is so great, so what is Five Lakes going to maybe, perhaps, do about this? Cao-dage is suspicious … that A-Xiang might be scared, but don’t worry, he’ll protect her. Oh, sweetheart. I could eat you up with a spoon, right along with Ghoul. Also, it finally registers that A-Xiang called him cute, but she has to step away for a quick confab with a henchwoman.

We also have to watch Chengling get bullied some more by a Yueyang shixiong who I think is Gao Shan, who we’ll later see bullying some prisoners in the Yueyang dungeon as he admits that he’s doing it to relieve his own frustrations and make himself feel better -  fantastic disciples you’ve got there, Gao Chong, I’m super-impressed by the morality and ethics you’re instilling as a sect. Once again, I have to consider WKX’s position on the jianghu as a hive of scum and villainy. Anyway, once Bullying Hour is over, Chengling runs into A-Xiang, and he can’t manage to prevent the waterworks as he confesses that he thought he’d never see any of them again and that ZZS didn’t want him. UGH. Zhou Zishu, come and get your child back. He’s at least somewhat mollified by Xiang-jie telling him she’s been sent to take care of him, and god knows she’s managed to keep WKX fed and clothed this long, so she has some experience as a minder, as counterintuitive as that seems.

We get a quick shot of Han Ying (My Beloved) with two identical pieces of Glazed Armor, apparently realizing that there are fakes out there.

Deng Kuan shows up, beaten and stumbling, and nearly gets turned away at the front gates of his own sect as a beggar – have I mentioned how unimpressed I am by the Yueyang disciples? Deng Kuan appears to be the only one of them worth anything – before they realize who he is. He is put to bed and tenderly nursed by Gao Xiaolian, who cries over him as he won’t wake up.

Finally, Gao Chong, Shen Shen and Zhao Jing (uh-huh) are horrified to discover that there’s fake Glazed Armor fk’n everywhere in town, making Five Lakes Alliance look ridiculous, which is just fabulous as the Hero’s Conference is coming up, guys. Shen Shen, because everything is a nail, vows to kill anyone who makes problems. Later, Hei Zi, who plays Gao Chong, has an utterly fantastic moment after the deaths of the Four Sages (wow, I did not remember that we wrapped up their entire storyline within a single ep), when he’s haranguing Beggar Gang Chief and is literally all, “You want the Glazed Armor? :pulls a piece out of his robe: HERE. You want some more? :pulls another piece out of his robe: TAKE IT.” It’s a great acting moment, his delivery is perfection.