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I'm reading DMBJ Vol. 10 - Sand Sea, and I just now realized the reason for something - in volume 1 when Xiaoge mercilessly killed King Shang of Lu, it was because he was the one who cause Xiaoge to end up in the situation he did. He was the reason Xiaoge's life was miserable from the moment he could remember.

Because the three thousand year old baby was all a little scheme set up by King Shang himself, and Zhang Qiling was the one who had to endure such hardship and pure despair due to this ancient man's selfish desires and ambitions. Xiaoge's merciless killing of King Shang was the closest to retribution a person could ask for -- yet, one could only wonder if it only made him feel all the more alone and empty in the end.

As they say, the thoughts, feelings, and emotions one feels after taking revenge are rarely ever fully positive.

This just solidifies the idea that Wu Xie was truly the one thing Xiaoge could see in a positive light, and keep close and protect by his own will and with all of his strength. Protecting him is the one thing he had true control over in his life. So in a way, protecting Wu Xie is his true form of retribution that maybe even he himself hasn't fully realized yet.

And this got me thinking: perhaps this is the true meaning of love -- protecting someone not because you have to, but because you can choose to by your own will. And to get something in return -- in this case, Wu Xie's continued support and gratitude -- might just be the thing that one would continue to love and live for.

The kind of pure human love, that isn't always romantic, doesn't come from appearance, whims, or desires, but from emotional and physiological understanding and comfort, and the interpersonal sharing of pain/hardship, and happiness/contentment.

#dmbj #dmbj meta #my meta #my rambles #zhang qiling #wu xie #pingxie #sand sea #盗墓笔记 #daomu biji #dmbj spoilers

The Tale of Lushang-wang Redux: Sidebar - Legend of Zang Hai's Ghost Seal

Okay. So. Some explanation required here. Once upon a time, a new Daomu Biji drama provisionally labelled Zang Hai Zhuan | Hidden Sea Opera was advertised, about the Ming Dynasty architect Wang Zanghai (who built the Xisha Shipwreck Tomb and stuff).

Sometime in the production process it was split off into an independent drama, now translated into English as Legend of Zang Hai. Some names were changed: Wang Zanghai to Zang Hai, Ming Dynasty to Yong Dynasty etc. and presumably there were other tweaks though I don’t know what they are. Certainly there are still significant details shared between canons – a Ghost/Gui Seal, the Dongxia Tribe, Iron Mask Scholar. Equally certainly, some of those details are handled very differently.

We cannot take Zang Hai canon at face value for Daomu Biji matters.

But Daomu Biji loves unreliable canon like meat loves salt, so here we go.

Xiang Antu: What is written in this manuscript seems to be what happened in that year. … The capital city was about to fall. At the time when Queen Minglv Huda faced peril and despair, a strategist named Zhang Mie advised her that she may be able to follow the example of Dongxia’s first queen and use the Gui Seal to repel the enemy army. At this point, Dongxia was already facing total destruction. After much hesitation, the Queen sent Zhang Mie to enter Mount Dansui. Zhang Mie, who was well-versed in geomancy, successfully retrieved the Gui Seal from the relics left behind by Queen Fu Xian. This was the battle that dictated the survival of Dongxia. The Queen summoned 30,000 soldiers to the front line and held a sacrificial ceremony in front of the army. As she offered wine, she told the crowd that she had prayed to the heavens to send ghost soldiers for vengeance. On the battlefield, the soldiers beat war drums and shouted, “Ghost soldiers will come. Great Yong will be defeated.” But the ghost soldiers did not come. It turned out that the Gui Seal contained a rare poison. Zhang Mie soaked the Gui Seal with his own blood and poured the poison from the Gui Seal into the wine. The soldiers who drank the poisoned wine realized that they could no longer feel pain, and their wounds were healing rapidly. The army was invincible and won every battle after that. Swifter than the beacon fires were the rumors spread. Everyone believed that these soldiers, who needed no food or bandages, were ghost soldiers who fell from the sky. Dongxia’s army continued to move south and captured several cities of Great Yong. They were about to capture Dancheng, which was an important gateway to the capital region … but Queen Minglv Huda realized that the soldiers who had been turned into ghost soldiers would gradually become delirious and unable to distinguish between enemies and friends. They could only kill brutally. As a descendant of the Lady of Kunlun, in order to stop them from wreaking more havoc, the Queen used her royal blood to neutralize the Gui Seal’s poison. After exhausting her life, she finally stopped the Gui Seal. From Dongxia came the sad news of the Queen’s death, and the military’s morale collapsed as a result. Before her death, the Queen left her dying instructions, ordering Zhang Mie to build a shrine to seal away the Gui Seal and the ghost soldiers forever. No one would ever be able to open it. Zang Hai: So, this is the truth about ghost soldiers. Xiang Antu: Turns out Dongxia’s royal blood was not used to open the Gui Seal but to stop it. (Legend of Zang Hai, Ep 39, Viki subs)

#dmbj #meta #dmbj meta #wu xie's private notes #time raiders 2025 #legend of zang hai #the tale of lushang-wang #lost tomb 1

❝Zhang Qiling's Birthday Congratulations❞

𝓗𝓪𝓹𝓹𝔂 𝓫𝓲𝓻𝓽𝓱𝓭𝓪𝔂, 𝓧𝓲𝓪𝓸𝓰𝓮! ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝⋆✧˚

On this special month, let's get to know 'the soul character' of Daomu Biji, the one who always gives Wu Xie a sense of security, Zhang Qiling aka Men You Ping aka Xiaoge in a deeper understanding. Who doesn't know him? He is one of the protagonists and the spiritual leader of the Iron Triangle!

©Divider by @saradika-graphics

Source: NPSS's WeChat or here

Since Daomu Biji is in Wu Xie's first person POV, it's difficult to know what Xiaoge is thinking and what kind of character Xiaoge is. Let's get to know him bit by bit through some info that I found in Chinese fandom and my meta hehe. Please note that I'm not fluent in Chinese, so this post contains a heavy amount of MTL, and people tend to have a different perception and understanding of things, so just take it easy, okay? (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

※ Contents List ※

Zhang Qiling's Appearance

Zhang Qiling's Body Type

Zhang Qiling's Personality

Zhang Qiling's Character Origin/Prototype

Zhang Qiling's Character Development (a simple meta by me)

#zhang qiling birthday month #daomu biji #dmbj #dmbj meta #zhang qiling #pingxie #pingxie only #盗墓笔记 #张起灵 #瓶邪 #瓶邪only #congratulatory post

name a weirder villain than cox hendry, go on i'll wait. names make no sense in either order. sits around most of the time with his eyes closed, as if listening to an inaudible violin concerto or maybe internally screaming. speaks english with flawless esperanto accent. mouth never matches his words. proudly serves wu erbai the pissy tea. wears cravat with a safari jacket but never leaves his tent. i don't know what we did to deserve this paragon of post-colonial pan-european gentry but there he sits, smiling faintly, to all appearances extremely stupid. i hope xie yuchen negs him to death

#cox hendry #hendry cox #what even is his name #ultimate note #dmbj #dmbj meta #I GUESS #qiu dekao

first tentative meta post about wu xie my beloved, more specifically about his characterization in his less than stellar moments, sparked by a discussion with @thelaithlyworm about whether or not the lost tomb 2.5 is in character for wu xie according to the books. i figured i'd take the rest of my thoughts to a separate post since our exchange was clogging up poor OP’s replies, and because i feel like a difference in opinion like this is worth being made public if only so people can get both sides of a rare discussion about the books and reach their own conclusions, so for those who are interested here’s a link to the original post where this discussion takes place in the replies if you'd like the full context. sorry in advance for how long this will likely be, and i hope there's no problem with me directly tackling some of the arguments that were made in favor of lost tomb 2.5 being an accurate adaptation of book wu xie's characterization, which is a take i strongly disagree with

i think much of the problem in the discussion simply lies in the fact that we seem to have fundamentally different interpretations of wu xie’s character in the books, because as i see it, none of the insistences that were quoted prove that wu xie has ever acted the way he does in 2.5 in the books—if anything, they disprove it. the quote from ch. 92 of sand sea that was brought up goes as follows:

this is where i believe the problem of different interpretations is at play, and to be fair some of it is ambiguous so there is some leeway, but i read this recollection very differently from how @thelaithlyworm seems to. as i see it, wu xie is recalling a time where pangzi, understandably concerned about his friend because he sees the toll the sha hai plan is taking on wu xie, and the lengths he’s having to go to in order to set it in motion, tells him it’s not too late to stop and turn back. to which wu xie replies that even if he had decided to stop and live his life blissfully unaware of the extent of the wangs' reach and their machinations, things would have caught up to him eventually given they’d infiltrated the jiumen to the extent they had.

“and at that time you’ll have already left me one by one, leaving me to foolishly face those fists” is the most ambiguous as to what exactly it's referring to, but i personally see it as referencing either the fact wu xie and his friends would have by then eventually drifted apart or they'd have stopped giving him their support should he have decided to ignore the truth and sit around doing nothing, or more sinisterly, would have potentially all been replaced by then if there hadn't been a plan in motion. it's likely a little bit of both. to which pangzi replies that he’s right, conceding and agreeing that wu xie never truly had a choice about his involvement to begin with, which is more or less the entire point of sand sea and the wider narrative of the main story.

no part of this conversation is reminiscent of the open conflict between them in 2.5 in that neither of them here are angry, and neither of them are even aggressive or antagonistic towards each other or in general. this is quite a calm if resigned conversation wu xie is recalling that also fits the overall cynical tone of the chapter itself, and wu xie’s certainly not acting out and pushing his friends away in a bid to deal with everything himself. if anything the entire point of sand sea is to show that despite each character acting independently, the sha hai plan only succeeded because they worked together and not alone, and that wu xie needed his support system to create an invisible yet tangilble network that could take down the wangs. so no part of this particular passage reads as though pangzi is saying he ever considered bailing on wu xie because of his behavior, and even if that were the case, it would still be referring to a hypothetical situation and not their current one.

wang meng's behavior in ten years later is also not the greatest example to use as an argument to prove 2.5 wu xie’s characterization is present in the books, mostly because it's actually wang meng himself who's more so the one acting like that than wu xie himself. wang meng, in his concern for wu xie, tries to guilt trip him into letting go of his obsession with xiaoge, and he is the one who instigates a conflict with wu xie that culminates in him staging xiaoge's "death" as a last ditch effort once spewing bottled up vitriol at wu xie and threatening to take over wushanju don't work.

it's however misguided at best given that not only did all of wu xie's close friends who participated in the sha hai plan agree to do so willingly (i’m of course not talking about li cu and co among others who very much did not consent) and so accusing wu xie of having coerced them takes away from their own agency, but the sha hai plan was a necessity beyond freeing xiaoge, which is something wang meng fails to understand. wang meng makes the mistake many people in the fandom do of pinning wu xie’s determination to see that plan through solely on his desire to free xiaoge, and of course that’s an important part of it, but the narrative makes a point of building up over the course of the main books and tibetan sea flower that wu xie’s entire family was at stake as well, and had been for several generations, so on a personal level it went beyond xiaoge alone. but again, whatever truth there is to wang meng’s words (which is an interesting but entirely different topic) still doesn’t make it true that wu xie was either actively petty or vitriolic towards his friends as a way to vent his own frustrations.

several moments in which wu xie objectively does terrible things or acts horribly were listed as a way of justifying that his behavior in 2.5 is in character and in line with how he acts in the books. and of course these moments do happen, and it's very true in sand sea especially that wu xie does terrible things (it's part of what makes him such an interesting character). but again, this argument feels somewhat in bad faith in that it conflates all negative behavior and traits together regardless of what specific shape those negative behaviors take in order to justify that his portrayal in 2.5 is faithful to the books simply because he displays negative behavior in that adaptation, completely disregarding that his less than stellar actions and emotions aren't expressed in the same ways in the books and in 2.5. my dislike of wu xie in 2.5 doesn't stem from him doing unlikeable things, otherwise i wouldn't like wu xie as a character in general. wu xie absolutely does do a lot of terrible things in sand sea especially, but the inherent problem with 2.5 is that none of the things he does or the way he acts in the books ever lines up with the specific way he acts in 2.5.

in the books, even before sand sea, yes wu xie is manipulative (re: threatening bodily harm to himself to force wu erbai into sharing information with him), yes he cut up bodies and sent them to li cu among other extremely morally questionable things, yes he kidnapped li cu and made him go through literal hell, and likely did much the same to other people before him (hence the seventeen scars on his arm). he has and continues to have even in recent book canon re: yucun biji the ability and will to inflict permanent psychic damage on people he deems to be deserving of it or a threat. he’s by no means perfect or even overly kind, and if someone were to say that a number of the earlier drama adaptations especially soften his character and make him much more wide-eyed and innocent than he actually is in the books, i would absolutely agree with them. i would also agree if someone said that gap in characterization is why some people don’t like him much in the sand sea drama. but the fact is for all the negative traits and behavior he displays at varying points in the books, none of them are ever expressed in the very specific way they are in 2.5.

@thelaithlyworm rightfully mentions wu xie's ptsd as justification for much of his more "toxic" reactions to things, and his ptsd is incredibly important in understanding how wu xie works as a character and what his experiences have forged him into, to the point it's a topic that deserves its own in-depth post. but saying we have different definitions of what ptsd is is both accurate to the complex nature of ptsd, and a bit disingenious because of the complex nature of ptsd, because the emotional dysregulation and impaired decision-making it entails won’t necessarily manifest in the same ways in different people.

in 2.5 wu xie, ptsd manifests in the form of vitriol and anger he directs at pretty much everyone in his immediate vicinity, more especially pangzi, because it has no other outlet in that situation than outwards. and i’m not saying ptsd expressing itself like that never happens, because it very much does. what i'm saying is that book wu xie's ptsd, while very real, doesn't manifest in the way it does in 2.5 wu xie.

in book wu xie, ptsd manifests in much more internalized ways, and so he’s far more prone to directing the anger and pent-up emotions inwards through self-harm, both mental and physical (i.e. the scars on his arm, his persistent self-hatred, etc.), and the emotional dysregulation very often comes not in the form of chaotically expressed emotions, but rather abnormal lack of them, as arguably wu xie's bad coping mechanism is emotional dissociation, and when the emotions are truly too strong to be distanced from, they come out in the form of panic attacks he often doesn’t recognize as such (i.e. when he finds xiaoge and believes he’s dead in book 8, or when he has flashbacks on their way to motuo in yucun traveling notes) or of general breakdowns (i.e. wu xie stays numb once xiaoge disappears behind the gate up until he starts crying in the street once he returns to hangzhou).

it’s incredibly rare that wu xie’s trauma directs itself outwards towards his loved ones, and while he might do so in his head quite frequently (which we the readers see since most of the books are from wu xie's point of view), it's rare he actually externalizes it, and since his comments can only lead to conflict if they're extrernalized, there's rarely ever genuine conflict between him and his friends. one of the only times it happens with pangzi specifically is in tibetan sea flower were he makes an honestly cruel dig at pangzi about yuncai because pangzi’s withheld information about xiaoge from him:

but even this scene, which is the closest to anything that's portrayed in 2.5 between them, plays out differently, not only because wu xie knows very well he’s going too far, his mention of yuncai isn't solely an outlet for his anger. he’s very consciously trying to bait pangzi into telling him what he knows, and so aims at where he knows will hurt most. it's targeted and mean because it's meant to be, but it's also not a gratuitious outlet either unlike his comments are more often than not in 2.5. it's manipulation, and he's certainly not trying to push pangzi away, nor is it driving a wedge between them despite how uncalled for his comment it. and more importantly, pangzi once again proves himself to be the most emotionally stable of the iron triangle by not stooping to that level or making light of the conversation. he knows perfectly well what wu xie is doing, so any conflict is diffused before it can even take root, and stays an isolated incident, whereas in 2.5, conflict is an underlying theme.

ironically there are more examples of this type directed at xiaoge, but even those don't showcase the same blind anger or gratuitous meanness that 2.5 wu xie consistently displays, and it's that specifically that's out of character. while wu xie vents his frustrations at xiaoge in book 4 over being kept in the dark, he's more serious about it than angry, and very quickly realizes his foot-in-mouth comment and backtracks accordingly:

he's at his most openly angry with xiaoge at the end of book 8 when xiaoge leaves them all in banai, and even goes as far as trying to have xiaoge detained by qiu dekao in a last ditch effort to force him to stay (which in itself is the real manifestation of him not being able to control his emotions correctly and reason going out the window where xiaoge is concerned, and it only ever really happens in relation to xiaoge, but that's also a topic for another post):

but again, while he's visibly angry and upset, and is looking for support from others around him to validate his upset at xiaoge leaving, he never actually spews any vitriol at xiaoge himself despite his anger being obvious, never actually calls him names outside of his own head despite the rare quality of his anger, never tries to instigate conflict for the sake of venting his overflowing emotions, nor does he ultimately stop xiaoge from leaving. even later as he follows xiaoge up changbai mountain, his desperation eventually turns into resignation and acceptance, not venting.

this post is way too long, but my entire point here as it has been from the start of this discussion is that while wu xie in the books does get angry, he does have ptsd, it does manifest in the ugliest ways and he's certainly not an angel, his anger in general never veers into extended open conflict or gratuitous vitriol thrown at his loved ones as a misguided form of venting his own emotions like it does throughout the vast majority of lost tomb 2.5, just like a number of the conflicts he gets into with other characters stem from out of character reactions from those characters to begin with (i.e. xiao hua absolutely losing it over wu xie hiding wu sanxing's betrayal of xie lianhuan in 2.5 vs. this information being very casually received in book 7). and that's where my point of contention with that adaptation lies.

i feel as though this is a case of agreeing to disagree as far as interpretation of wu xie's character goes, and that's absolutely fine, but in the same way that it's alright to dislike things simply because, it's equally as alright to like things for the same reasons. it's fine to like lost tomb 2.5, and my opinion of it is purely my own, but liking it doesn't necessarily have to be rooted in whether it's adapting the books correctly, even if it can be.

my dislike of 2.5 stems from how i consider it to be out of character by comparison to the books, and my entire point here has been to explain that different interpretations of any particular source material can exist, and therefore yes, it's entirely possible to view 2.5 wu xie as out of character, just as it's entirely possible to dislike that adaptation for the same reason. and i'm far from the only person to have this interpretation. so no, my dislike of 2.5 doesn't come from not liking it when wu xie’s doing unlikeable things, or else i wouldn't like wu xie as a character, nor is it because i don’t understand what ptsd is given the particular ways in which it can manifest from one specific person to another

#i just have strong opinions about this sorry if it's coming off strong #and i'm perfectly willing to debate with quotes etc #but lbr there's a reason lost tomb 2.5 is more or less unanimously the most disliked adaptation across the board #both in the western fandom and chinese fandom #though tbf the chinese fandom doesn't tend to like the dramas all that much in general #which is valid sometimes tbh given some of the takes i've seen about dmbj as a whole from people who refuse to touch the books but well #still #first wu xie meta #exciting #dmbj #dmbj meta #wu xie #dmbj novels #lost tomb 2.5

I was idly going through a few Ultimate Note episodes and then I landed at the scene in the cave with Xiao Hua and Wu Xie after they had been attacked by the bugs trapped in the corpses. And Wu Xie is sitting on the ground with a gaping wound on his elbow, where we can still see a large worm sticking out.

The conversation at this point is purely to allow Xiao Hua to pull the bug out with his tweezers and Wu Xie being an absolute wuss about it, which, let's be fair, is harrowing enough for anyone who is new to the tomb raiding world. Now, Wu Xie's not exactly new to this, but he's not so used to it as to be completely desensitised to the gross aspects of it, and pain is always a powerful motivator. So, Wu Xie has all the right in the world to flinch and look away as Xiao Hua tricks him into answering a question as he yanks the bug out of the wound.

But what struck me suddenly was that an almost parallel of this scene exists in Tomb of the Sea episodes 12-3, where Wu Xie is cavalierly dissecting corpses and being a little too knife-happy (or should I say, cleaver-happy, since he was wielding a cleaver for the autopsy and then proceeded to wipe it off on his sleeve and use that same blade on Li Cu's arm, RIP Li Cu). He shows no response to either the matter of the death or slicing up human bodies to find out the cause behind their deaths. If someone's only introduction to Wu Xie is during this moment in Tomb of the Sea, then they would absolutely not be able to imagine that a man who flinched at the sight of bugs sticking out of an open wound is the same man who is coldly conducting these ad hoc autopsies in the desert and has no qualms about using the same blade on himself when Li Cu finds himself unable to cut Wu Xie open the way he's asking him to.

This is what I find utterly fascinating about this franchise. It treats character growth and transformation in such a wonderfully real way, which is not always linear; and instead of plotting a straight line of a character's trajectory, it has these little rest stops in the middle of adaptations where it's possible to take stock of what we already know about these characters and work them into what is currently happening to them.

If you think about it, it's a proper multiverse franchise, almost a garden of forking paths if you will, where each adaptation traces what happens to a character once they step into a certain passageway, with completely different possibilities stretching out in front of them with respect to their individual character arcs and actions (not unlike fanworks, but I won't digress here).

Coming back to the two scenes: it offers such a nice little parallel with Xiao Hua and Wu Xie, and then Wu Xie and Li Cu, with their positions vis a vis each other, and also ties in the whole narrative of tomb raiding being an inherently inherited business. I say, inherited, because not unlike closed cliques where proteges are trained to master the skills of their mentors, the tomb raiding world transmits knowledge only through hands-on experience and tutelage.

While Xiao Hua and Wu Xie are technically the same age when they met in UN, Xiao Hua's experience as leader of the Xie clan marks him out to be the field senior, and despite not being part of active field missions, Xiao Hua still has more experience than Wu Xie at this point, which is apparent in the first scene.

From there to the stone-cold Wu Xie of Tomb of the Sea is certainly a trip, and to fans of the franchise, it opens up the weight of what Wu Xie has had to go through in order to become this person, while to casual viewers, makes Wu Xie appear a riveting enough character who fills in the proverbial 'hot cold boss' role with panache.

#ultimate note #tomb of the sea #spoliers #episode spoilers #the lost tomb #dmbj meta #wu xie #xiao hua #li cu #rambles

i find wu xie’s relationship to xiao ge and hxz so interesting specifically because of his failures of empathising with them & the way in which he comments on their loneliness and how different they are from other people, how they seem inhuman to him, how even in TSF he doesn't know if xiao ge and him are even friends... it's such an interesting take on friendships between mortals and immortals

#dmbj #dmbj meta #barely but hey #wu xie #zhang qiling #hei xiazi #told teddy my first post back would be this after a discussion we had today so. here we are #wu xie meta......... who am i #dmbj: all #mydmbj #this post is v specifically not shippy thank you

Tomb of the Sea: Lingering Questions

I finished watching Tomb of the Sea (Sha Hai, Sand Sea) not too long ago, and I definitely recommend it if you like any of the Lost Tomb stories, and/or if you are a Wu Lei fan. I do, however, have some lingering questions that I’ll share here. Spoilers!

1. How is it that relatively ordinary-looking actor Qin Hao is the hottest Wu Xie? This has something to do with me being 53 years old, right?

2. If it’s so fucking hard to get to Gutongjing for the first half of the story, how is the entire Jiumen Association able to roll up on it as soon as they decide to go?

3. Correlary: Gutongjing is super dangerous for the first half of the story, but it’s just a little bit snakey in the second half. Have all the traps been tripped so it’s ok now?

4. Correlary to the Correlary: how come the Wang dudes can go in that one deadly tomb of hallucination-and-sharp-wires without any problems?

5. It’s an absolutely epic scene, peak romance in its completely crazy way, but how does a person not go blind from getting maced in the middle of the desert with no water nearby?

6. Incidentally, how did Zhang Rishan and Liang Wan get home from the desert and where did they go to change their clothes on the way? Did they walk or did he just park his car really really far from the door for this scene?

7. Is anything better than Su Nan saying that good looking boys always lie, in that particular moment? Such a truth bomb, and she doesn’t even know yet about Wu Xie’s status at that point. (Note: lying to someone who is openly trying to kill you is fair, of course. But that doesn’t mean she’s wrong).

8. How is it that mean, creepy, kind of ugly, macho jerk Wang Can and bitchy, pretty, ethereal man-puppy Liu Sang (in Reunion) are played by the same actor?

9. “They put snakes in their eyebrows.” What?

10. Does that wind tune mean anything? Other than being something snakes like to listen to?

11. Did Li Cu’s dad spend literally 4 months in a room without anyone telling him what was happening? Not that he doesn’t deserve it, but he seems super calm about it.