The Renheng Iceberg Explained
Alright so there's this renheng iceberg on twitter that I was recently informed about. I'm wayyy too deep into the lore so I skipped to the bottom and everything there was stuff I was already more than familiar with.
So I figured why not put all this information to some use and make a post explaining the more obscure items on the iceberg and leaving out the self-explanatory ones, doing my best to reference as well as possible.
Blade gazing at Imbibitor Lunae statue
This was a hidden interaction where you could find Blade standing near the statue of Imbibitor Lunae at the scalegorge after revealing Dan Heng's vidyadhara form. He says he is 'mourning for folly' and asks you if Dan Heng is happy. You can watch a video about this here.
Good friends who are bad for each other
This is Kafka's description of what she knows about Blade and Dan Heng's history in her companion quest. This answer is a "truth" in her game of truth and lies.
"Apparently, they used to be good friends... Well, good friends who were bad for each other. Bladie forgot nearly everything, so he doesn't remember well. Together, they did something bad — something terrible. It led to horrific consequences. That's the information I managed to piece together. Bladie refused to tell me the details."
Dan Heng gets nightmares about blade
We see this in-game in the cinematic leading up to the Xianzhou questline. This is also suggested in the Only Silence Remains lightcone description.
There is also a vidyadhara egg that says:
"You edge closer to the pearlescent shell and have a dream in which you are a Pearlkeeper who rides the waves, and travels across the ancient sea with your true love. The time you have spent with your lover is full of happiness, but the time of hatching rebirth is determined by destiny. You secretly put a jade pendant in your mouth so your lover can recognize each other in the next life."
And considering that DH:IL 4 story has him refusing to speak during the entirety of his interrogation, death sentence, and final verdict, it definitely leaves room for imagination.
This one encompasses a few of the other ones on the iceberg, too. Really, it's worth reading the entirety of the Passerby of Wandering Clouds relic set lore. Keep in mind all relic sets are in chronological order of head/gloves/body/feet. The bracer also mentions this part about 'That owner also once shared company and drinks with the unnamed, the two of them simply gazing at the moon with no words exchanged.' This has an interesting meaning in CN that tells us this drinking was an engagement ceremony. People thought this must be a typo but, despite many tickets from people, their only response has been that they're unable to comment further. They still haven't changed it as of patch 1.4.
Dan Heng polishes and gaze longingly at Cloud Piercer
A recent addition in patch 1.4 where Pom-pom now says:
"Passenger Dan Heng often carefully maintains and polishes his spear. Although the Express is very safe, it seems that he is not willing to drop his guard. Hmm, Pom-Pom can tell that when he polishes his spear, there isn't just alertness in his eyes, but a glint of longing, too. Don't underestimate me, Pom-Pom had dealt with all kinds of different passengers!"
I'm sure by now everyone knows that cloudpiercer was made by Yingxing (Blade).
You can see screenshots of this interaction in this post.
Apparently, a big part of CN character design focuses around the concept of inverted colour palette designs for ships. Because Blade and Dan Heng share inverted colours, this is considered a good sign for the ship as it indicates they were most likely designed together.
Danmei is the CN genre for mlm. It has a lot of stereotypical tropes that are very common in this genre and apply to renheng also. My personal opinion is that renheng is very similar to something written by Meatbun in particular - this is a danmei author who wrote erha, yuwu, and casefile compendium. The associated tropes are:
Lovers to enemies back to lovers angst timeline often including misunderstandings involving tragic betrayal
Black/red character x white/blue/green character
Amnesia and/or reincarnation themes
Protag did something that made everybody turn on them + complicated political drama plot
Redemption in death/isolation/retreating from the world at the end
Waiting frankly ridiculous amounts of time to be with the lover again
One character pursuing the other character literally
One character considered dead or demonic in some capacity, the other is ethereal and godly
Afterlife/spirit realm shenanigans usually involving fractured souls as a result of torment
Contrasting personalities + others don't think they should get along/are bad for each other (usually the deviant personality is considered to be corrupting the noble/revered personality in some way which often involves a rebellion)
Their ultimate animation sequences are very similar with close eyes with weapon - open eyes - attack.
And both of their ultimates take place in different versions of the same location:
Vidyadharas can't identify items belonging to their past yet Dan Heng got the bracer, jade pendant(?), and cloud piercer
There is an NPC named Lingling in the alchemy commission who is responsible for assisting in vidyadhara hatching rebirth. She collects the personal belongings of vidyadhara who claim that they want to keep the items for their next life. She says that:
From what I've seen, most Vidyadhara lack emotions fresh after their rebirth, and are unable to understand the sentiments of their previous selves. Not a single one has ever been able to identify which one of these items used to belong to them.
This is a big indicator that DH = DF and that their romance will be continuing in this life, too. We know from Passerby of Wandering Clouds relic set that Dan Heng is still in possession of the bracer because of the line: "His fingertips could still faintly feel the temperature from the other."
The stars always accompany the moon
This is a reference to their names in CN where the Xing in Yingxing means moon and the Yue in Yinyue jun (Imbibitor Lunae) means Moon. Their ship name Xingyue means Star and Moon, which is often why you will see them referred to with the Star/Moon emojis as well as the sword/leaf emoji.
Blade came to see Dan Heng blushing when Xiyan asked him to act the character in his story
This is referring to this video on weibo where Dan Heng is talking to Xiyan. You can see the characters in the crowd then Dan Heng starts blushing. The next time you see the crowd, Blade has arrived third from the right.
"Eternal Regrets of a High Elder" and "Dreams from a Past Life"
These are arias from the Cloudcry Songbook written by a Vidyadhara named Lingjie who reincarnated into Chunfen. Lingjie was an opera singer and apparently a big fan of Dan Feng and his romantic life.
My friend wrote the poem analysis of both of these arias. I would strongly recommend reading her translations.
TW: These translations do include mentions of a new leaked poem. Some of the content is NSFW.
Dan Heng named himself "Dan Heng" due to the "Dan" character carved by Yingxing/Blade
We know that Vidyadhara do not usually name themselves based on their past lives as they have no attachment to them. The other iteration of Dan Heng was named Yubie for example. Dan Heng's name in CN is 丹恒. The Dan 丹 means red/pellet/powder/cinnabar. You can see Dan is inscribed on his spear that Yingxing made for him, thus the logical conclusion is that Dan Heng saw the inscription and chose it as his name.
The Star of the East (Jupiter, Wood Star)'s god is Ying Xing, and their guardian beast is Azure Dragon/Canglong/Qinglong
This one is the only one I didn't understand when I first saw it, so I had to request the help of my CN knowing friends to figure it out.
Yingxing's name is 应星 (where the 星 means star).
The CN god of Jupiter Taisui Xingjun 太岁星君 is known as Yin Jiao 殷交
Jupiter is the planet associated with the Chinese wood element, known as the wood star
Azure Dragon is known as Canglong or Qinglong in CN. This is the guardian of Jupiter (the wood star).
Blade's fansong equates Yingxing with 听星 (judging star) which is an alias for Taisui Xingjun
You can read my friend's explanation of the relevant line in the fansong below.
Dan Feng's crime was inspired by Chang'E, the moon goddess for stealing an elixir of immortality and Yingxing was inspired by Hou Yi, a mortal and husband of Chang'E (he was given immortality but didn't, this parallels and contrasts Yingxing's immortality)
So there's actually a bit more to this. I'm going to just use my friend's explanation here:
According to Shang dynasty’s Guicang, It is said that there is a moon maiden who escaped to the moon after stealing an immortality pill. This story was eventually given more details:
The moon maiden became known as Heng’e 姮娥, who was the wife of Hou Yi - the hero who shot down the 9 suns. Hou Yi was given an immortality pill/herb as a reward, but Heng’e stole it and flew to the moon. In some versions, upon finding out, Hou Yi tried to shot down her to prevent her from floating to the moon, but he hesitated and ended up choosing not to in the end because he still loved her. In the moon, Heng’e stayed in a palace called 廣寒宮 (the Vast Palace of Coldness) and cursed to be separated from her husband, alone with only the moon rabbits and the immortal osmanthus tree forever. Later on, her name was changed to Chang’e 嫦娥 because Emperor Wen of Han’s name was 劉恆 Liu Heng, and so the 姮 Heng part of her name became a taboo.
The interesting here is that 姮 (Heng’e), 恆 (Liu Heng), 恒 (Dan Heng) are all alternative ways to write the same character, 姮, which originally means moon, Heng’e. In addition, we also have a lot of official artworks depicting Dan Heng with the moon and osmanthus flowers:
Yeah so I think that just about covers everything. I left out the ones that were self-explanatory but if anyone is still confused about any of them I can try to elaborate further in the replies.
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