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ghost_valley2022-02-18 01:00 pm
shadaras) wrote in ghost_valley2022-02-18 01:00 pm
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[WoH Rewatch] Episode 35
Time to cry! This recap is shorter than usual because I kept being like “;_; I’m sad” and not wanting to write down many details.
List of Scenes
MHY scorns CWN and GX, then kills CWN
Qing Feng Sword Sect begins killing ghosts; WKX et al. join in
GX attempts to kill MHY and fails
YQF, LQQ, and LFM die (in that order)
Xie-wang watches from afar and explains his goals to Zhao Jing
MHY takes GX captive and demands the glazed armor from WKX
Xie-wang sends his drug men to slaughter everyone; MHY runs
GX dies in WKX’s arms; WKX rests her next to CWN
MHY and WKX fight; WKX nearly kills himself winning
Xie-wang arrives to take MHY’s glazed armor
ZZS prevents Xie-wang from killing WKX
Xie-wang leaves; ZZS and WKX stare at each other as WKX passes out
DPJ and Xie-wang discuss the aftermath of the battle and their plans
WKX dreams of GX
Chengling, Beiyuan, Wu Xi, and ZZS gather at CWN and GX’s graves
Everyone present learns that ZZS took the nails out and is dying
Timeline or Something
Most (possibly all!) of this episode takes place on the wedding day. It is deeply unclear if the final scenes (Xie-wang and DPJ; ZZS and his found family at CWN and GX’s graves) are on the same day as the wedding or an unknown number of days later. It’s implied, in ZZS’s oncoming death, that little time has passed; it’s just hard to tell if “little” is “like a few hours” or 1-2 days.
Recap
Qing Feng Sword Sect has just entered Ghost Valley. CWN and GX greet MHY, who scolds CWN and insults GX. GX attempts to play nice, and CWN defends her. This accomplishes nothing, though it’s nice seeing CWN explain how much he loves GX.
CWN begs MHY to accept his marriage to GX, despite how MHY obviously doesn’t want to (FHK, who would, isn’t there). There's a moment where MHY raises CWN up to his feet again where it seems like he might have changed his mind!
Then MHY moves from cradling CWN’s head to snapping his neck barehanded.
CWN falls as GX watches. MHY calls for his disciples to take action, and they begin fighting and killing those ghosts they’d been so chummy with seconds before.
GX falls to her knees beside CWN’s body and cradles him in her arms as he dies. Nobody comes to try and kill her while she cries over CWN.
One of the Qing Feng Sword Sect disciples pounds the drums, signalling the gate to open, and members of the Five Lakes Alliance swarm in and begin killing more ghosts.
WKX hears the drums from inside his hall and is confused. He and the other protags run out to see what’s happening.
GX sees the Five Lakes people swarming towards her. The fight is well and truly on now, and she joins in with a blank face, dangerous with swords and wedding robes as she attacks MHY. He disarms her, knocks off her headpiece, and slashes her gut, because she can’t have any nice things. GX charges MHY once more. He dodges and slashes through her back.
WKX joins the fray. He sees GX on the ground and starts slaughtering everyone about this. ZZS follows, equally deadly, but makes Chengling go hang out with Beiyuan (who Wu Xi is protecting).
YQF is in this fight, somewhere outside the main hall area. LQQ and LFM are there too. It’s cool getting to see them fight a little! YQF blocks a blow meant for LQQ, gets called crazy for it, and then LQQ stabs him because she doesn’t remember him. He falls to his knees, asking if she’s really forgotten him, and LQQ stays still a little too long, staring back; she gets stabbed too. LFM sees this and is Upset.
Meanwhile, Xie-wang watches this from another mountaintop.
Xie-wang comments on how everyone is fighting over the Glazed Armor without knowing he has all the pieces, including the key retrieved from fake WKX’s body. He looks down at Zhao Jing, who’s watching him, and explains that the key he found must be a fake and WKX had given Xie-wang the real key in exchange for Xie-wang’s cooperation in the resurrection scheme.
Xie-wang pulls the round glazed armor out of his clothes to show it to Zhao Jing, then pulls a cloth from his robes and shows Zhao Jing the key and the glazed armor he says belonged to Tianchuang. He says that he’s going to get MHY’s glazed armor very soon too, thanks to the fighting going on. Xie-wang says he’s gotten everything Zhao Jing’s desired, and Zhao Jing flops back in his chair, deadeyed, as Xie-wang talks about ambition and how Zhao Jing’s nothing now.
GX forces herself to her feet, still facing MHY, and attacks him yet again. It still doesn’t work. This time, MHY takes her captive and calls for WKX to stop, threatening to kill GX if WKX makes another move. WKX does stop.
MHY demands the glazed armory and the armory key. WKX says he’d give MHY anything, if it saves GX, and MHY laughs at how WKX calls GX “a young girl”. MHY thinks GX is a terrible siren who bewitched both FHK and CWN and forced MHY to kill them.
Xie-wang plays the pipa, calls this “the last war”, and declares himself the oriole stalking MHY’s mantis and WKX’s cicada. Then he sends drug men out at everyone.
The oncoming drug men disrupt MHY and WKX’s stand-off, distracting WKX from giving MHY anything as they swarm through the battle and kill everyone.
Then MHY realises what’s happening and calls his men to retreat. MHY throws GX at WKX (having hit her hard enough that she’s dying). WKX catches GX and holds her in his arms as she swears to kill MHY. WKX is very sad, and he says he’s not GX’s master (主人) but her brother (哥). GX begs for him, as her brother, to kill MHY for her. WKX promises to do so, and then GX has a nice monologue about how she can’t take care of him anymore and dies in his arms.
WKX cries. Then he carries GX’s body to CWN’s and lets them sit next to each other. Once they’re nicely arranged, he cuts down some of the red gauze that had been decorating the hall so that it covers them.
Then the music shifts and WKX gets ready to murder.
MHY cuts his way through the drug men. WKX follows.
MHY reaches a clear area, realises that he’s been set up by Xie-wang, and curses this fact. WKX catches up to him and says he’s here to kill MHY. They fight. MHY uses a lot more flourishes than WKX does, and WKX is aided by his fan’s ranged attacks. Still, for each hit WKX lands, he takes one. Even when WKX slams his palm into MHY’s chest, that’s at the cost of allowing MHY to pierce his chest with his sword.
WKX gains the advantage at that point, tearing out MHY’s eyes and ripping MHY’s sword out of his body so he can stab MHY with his own blade. ASs if that’s not enough, WKX tosses MHY away by the throat. MHY dies.
WKX staggers back, coughs up some blood, and sits down at the base of an aesthetic tree. He apologises to GX for giving MHY an easy death and then says he’s coming to join her.
While WKX’s lying there prettily, Xie-wang and his people approach. Xie-wang greets WKX and asks how he ended up like this while Du Pusa retrieves MHY’s glazed armor. Xie-wang takes it from her and informs WKX of this. WKX tells him to get lost and to stop blocking the sunshine.
Du Pusa asks if she can kill WKX, and Xie-wang tells her he wants to do it himself. He pulls out his cool sword, which is made of interlocking segments, to strike WKX. Just in time, though, ZZS arrives! Baiyi knocks Xie-wang’s sword away, and then ZZS holds Baiyi’s tip to Xie-wang’s throat.
ZZS tells Xie-wang that he shouldn’t have hurt ZZS’s shidi, Xie-wang’s surprised by the increase in ZZS’s skill (it’s the lack of nails), and WKX calls ZZS a fool for being here. Xie-wang asks why they’re bothering; his drug men are everywhere in the valley and will kill everyone.
ZZS says that he’ll drag Xie-wang down into death with him, which Xie-wang says is boring. Xie-wang asks if they (as two clever men) can find another solution. ZZS tells Xie-wang that he can have the glazed armor,but ZZS wants WKX. Xie-wang, after a long moment, accepts this deal. He does call ZZS boring again, though, as he turns and walks away.
ZZS goes over to WKX, who’s on the verge of passing out but still reaches up to him like he’s the sun.
ZZS isn’t allowed to crouch down and cradle WKX, which is a shame. As ZZS reaches for WKX’s hand, WKX faints and the scene fades.
An unknown amount of time passes!
A member of Tianchuang reports to DPJ and Xie-wang that they’ve found all the bodies of the top ten ghosts and explains how they all died. Xie-wang is surprised to hear that LQQ died in the battle. The Tianchuang mook says they couldn’t find MHY, FHK, or MWX; Xie-wang says he got rid of MHY, MHY killed FHK, and MWX is missing, so they shouldn’t bother with them.
DPJ is surprised by the power of the drug men army, and praises how it’ll help Jin-wang in his goals. DPJ seems delighted by how many people died and how the jianghu has been set back a whole generation. Xie-wang and his people seem less delighted; even Du Pusa is irritated with him. Not that DPJ seems to care.
Admittedly, DPJ’s speech about how the martial sects of the jianghu violate laws and hunger for fame and credit are on-point in regards to Zhao Jing’s whole deal, but… it’s not like Jin-wang is any better, as DPJ (unintentionally) points out in his next sentence about Jin-wang coming for this land.
Du Pusa suspects that everyone’s up to no good and keeps setting traps for each other, but she says it flirtily enough that DPJ doesn’t get mad about it. Xie-wang, on the other hand, is busy putting the glazed armor together and admiring it.
WKX dreams of being in ghost valley. He sits on his throne and GX approaches him in her wedding garb, calling out to him. He doesn’t respond, so GX approaches. She tells him that her parents thank him and want to talk to him; he tells her that should happen some other day. GX offers him a cup of tea. WKX says again that he’s tired and dismisses her. GX leaves, bidding her brother to take good care of himself, and as she does WKX finally realises what’s happening and calls out for her to stay. She, of course, still fades away.
ZZS sits at WKX’s bedside as he cries, wiping away his sleeping tears.
In the woods, Chengling, ZZS, Beiyuan, and Wu Xi have buried CWN and GX. ZZS thanks Beiyuan and Wu Xi for their help retrieving CWN and GX’s bodies and burying them, and they make sure to write their tombstones as if they had been married in truth.
Chengling asks how WKX is, and ZZS says he used Drunk-like-a-Dream to keep WKX asleep because ZZS doesn’t know how to face him. ZZS tells Chengling to take good care of WKX, which mostly just raises questions of ZZS disappearing.
Wu Xi is spurred by ZZS’s declaration that his fate is to wander the jianghu to grab at ZZS’s wrist and check his pulse. It’s frankly impressive that ZZS’s hidden this from him for so long, because Wu Xi is surprised once ZZS tears himself away as he realises what ZZS has done. Beiyuan is also surprised and asks when it happened!
ZZS doesn’t lie to them, at least; he tells them when and why he did this. ZZS says he must finish one last thing (stopping Jin-wang from opening the armory). Chengling asks why his days are running out, not wanting to believe that his shifu is dying.
Beiyuan clutches at Wu Xi’s arm, and it’s a bit hard to tell which of them is more upset about this and more frantic about how well ZZS looks vs how poorly his internals are doing. Beiyuan’s hoping that Wu Xi and YBY together could still cure ZZS, who turns and snaps that he’s taken Wu Xi’s fancy magic medicine already. Beiyuan says they could make another. Wu Xi looks like he’s about to throw up from Feelings, and Chengling and ZZS are both quietly crying.
ZZS repeats that it’s too late and he can’t be saved, so they shouldn’t bother trying to save him. Chengling asks if the Yin Yang Book could save him, and offers to exchange his life for ZZS’s. ZZS thinks this is ridiculous and tells Chengling to be good, and the episode ends.
General Commentary
For an episode that’s pretty focused on one event through the majority of the runtime, at the end it speeds up and noticeably changes direction. It’s important to get some sort of resolution to the glazed armor, I suppose, but I still wish we’d seen Xie-wang get his alliance with Tianchuang set up.
I would also love to have a sense of how much time passes between the end of the fight and the final scenes of this episode. It can’t have been that much time, but… I would like to know!
So many of my feelings about Cao Weining and Gu Xiang’s deaths are in the context of comparing/contrasting them to how things went down in the novel. I will try not to get into that too much, but suffice to say: wow the changed context makes it feel really different.
It’s so frustrating, in this context, that Gu Xiang doesn’t even get a single blow in on Mo Huaiyang. I know she hasn’t been set up as a supremely skilled martial artist, but it makes her death even sadder to see Mo Huaiyang defeat her so easily.
And the way Cao Weining dies is so gut-wrenchingly personal. There’s layers of it: Mo Huaiyang using his own hands, Mo Huaiyang denying him a martial death or even an honorable one with a sword, Mo Huaiyang acting like he’d perhaps given in to Cao Weining’s begging…
It just really sucks.
In less sucky things about this sequence, have some sword nerdery!
Gu Xiang fights Mo Huaiyang with a (pair of) dao, which is mostly interesting to me because she grabs them from a pair of Five Lakes Alliance people (most members of the righteous jianghu use jian). The ghosts tend to carry curved blades, and the Scorpions use even more dramatically curved blades (to the point that I’d call them scimitars—or maybe even sickles sharpened on the wrong side—rather than sabers).
I don’t think we’ve seen Gu Xiang fight with any blades before this? Regardless, the dao Gu Xiang picks up for this scene are only lightly curved (similar to a katana), which is more typical for dao/sabers.
In the second heroes conference, we’re told that Mo Huaiyang is a really good martial artist (and implicitly shown that by how good he makes Zhao Jing look). When he fights Wen Kexing on equal ground, that skill becomes much more explicit.
Wen Kexing ignoring his own well-being in order to get revenge for Gu Xiang is also sad! But not particularly surprising; he and Zhou Zishu both have really strong self-sacrifice impulses that they’re utter hypocrites about.
I am unfortunately incapable of taking the scene where Baiyi is at Xie-wang’s throat seriously, because Baiyi is pressing into his skin enough that Xie-wang should be bleeding but he isn’t. It’s just denting his skin. I can’t unsee this and it ruins some of the emotion because I’m just there like “this is a stage sword and they can’t even do the right make-up/special effects to make this seem sharp”.
Also please consider that Zhou Zishu got to watch Wen Kexing: fake his death (at White Deer Cliff), almost die (this episode), and then (next episode) try and sacrifice himself for Zhou Zishu (to save Zhou Zishu’s life).
I’d forgotten that Mo Weixu was established to be missing. It’d be cool if he returned post-canon! He’s a neat loose thread that could be picked up in post-canon fics more, I think, especially since he’s positioned to inherit Qing Feng Sword Sect.
Zhou Zishu wearing black robes again (like he once did in Tianchuang), but in the same jianghu style he’s primarily been in this whole time feels very sad.
And, of course, I still want to know how Zhou Zishu hid the fact that he’d removed the nails from Wu Xi. Was it just that things kept happening all at once? Did Wu Xi realise that Zhou Zishu was being evasive? I do not quite understand how that worked!
Discussion Prompts/Questions
Please don’t feel limited to these. They’re starting points for anyone who wants them, not the only things to talk about!
1. Mo Huaiyang is the worst! Discuss. (Includes any and all deaths of people he killed.)
2. Zhou Zishu drugging Wen Kexing to avoid saying that he’s dying is about as dickish a move as Wen Kexing faking his death without telling Zhou Zishu, so I guess they’re even? Thoughts?
3. Xie-wang might have gotten what he wanted but he sure doesn’t look happy about it. What do you think about his alliance with Duan Pengju here?
Next Time: The end! The mountain, the armory, and the epilogue!
List of Scenes
MHY scorns CWN and GX, then kills CWN
Qing Feng Sword Sect begins killing ghosts; WKX et al. join in
GX attempts to kill MHY and fails
YQF, LQQ, and LFM die (in that order)
Xie-wang watches from afar and explains his goals to Zhao Jing
MHY takes GX captive and demands the glazed armor from WKX
Xie-wang sends his drug men to slaughter everyone; MHY runs
GX dies in WKX’s arms; WKX rests her next to CWN
MHY and WKX fight; WKX nearly kills himself winning
Xie-wang arrives to take MHY’s glazed armor
ZZS prevents Xie-wang from killing WKX
Xie-wang leaves; ZZS and WKX stare at each other as WKX passes out
DPJ and Xie-wang discuss the aftermath of the battle and their plans
WKX dreams of GX
Chengling, Beiyuan, Wu Xi, and ZZS gather at CWN and GX’s graves
Everyone present learns that ZZS took the nails out and is dying
Timeline or Something
Most (possibly all!) of this episode takes place on the wedding day. It is deeply unclear if the final scenes (Xie-wang and DPJ; ZZS and his found family at CWN and GX’s graves) are on the same day as the wedding or an unknown number of days later. It’s implied, in ZZS’s oncoming death, that little time has passed; it’s just hard to tell if “little” is “like a few hours” or 1-2 days.
Recap
Qing Feng Sword Sect has just entered Ghost Valley. CWN and GX greet MHY, who scolds CWN and insults GX. GX attempts to play nice, and CWN defends her. This accomplishes nothing, though it’s nice seeing CWN explain how much he loves GX.
CWN begs MHY to accept his marriage to GX, despite how MHY obviously doesn’t want to (FHK, who would, isn’t there). There's a moment where MHY raises CWN up to his feet again where it seems like he might have changed his mind!
Then MHY moves from cradling CWN’s head to snapping his neck barehanded.
CWN falls as GX watches. MHY calls for his disciples to take action, and they begin fighting and killing those ghosts they’d been so chummy with seconds before.
GX falls to her knees beside CWN’s body and cradles him in her arms as he dies. Nobody comes to try and kill her while she cries over CWN.
One of the Qing Feng Sword Sect disciples pounds the drums, signalling the gate to open, and members of the Five Lakes Alliance swarm in and begin killing more ghosts.
WKX hears the drums from inside his hall and is confused. He and the other protags run out to see what’s happening.
GX sees the Five Lakes people swarming towards her. The fight is well and truly on now, and she joins in with a blank face, dangerous with swords and wedding robes as she attacks MHY. He disarms her, knocks off her headpiece, and slashes her gut, because she can’t have any nice things. GX charges MHY once more. He dodges and slashes through her back.
WKX joins the fray. He sees GX on the ground and starts slaughtering everyone about this. ZZS follows, equally deadly, but makes Chengling go hang out with Beiyuan (who Wu Xi is protecting).
YQF is in this fight, somewhere outside the main hall area. LQQ and LFM are there too. It’s cool getting to see them fight a little! YQF blocks a blow meant for LQQ, gets called crazy for it, and then LQQ stabs him because she doesn’t remember him. He falls to his knees, asking if she’s really forgotten him, and LQQ stays still a little too long, staring back; she gets stabbed too. LFM sees this and is Upset.
Meanwhile, Xie-wang watches this from another mountaintop.
Xie-wang comments on how everyone is fighting over the Glazed Armor without knowing he has all the pieces, including the key retrieved from fake WKX’s body. He looks down at Zhao Jing, who’s watching him, and explains that the key he found must be a fake and WKX had given Xie-wang the real key in exchange for Xie-wang’s cooperation in the resurrection scheme.
Xie-wang pulls the round glazed armor out of his clothes to show it to Zhao Jing, then pulls a cloth from his robes and shows Zhao Jing the key and the glazed armor he says belonged to Tianchuang. He says that he’s going to get MHY’s glazed armor very soon too, thanks to the fighting going on. Xie-wang says he’s gotten everything Zhao Jing’s desired, and Zhao Jing flops back in his chair, deadeyed, as Xie-wang talks about ambition and how Zhao Jing’s nothing now.
GX forces herself to her feet, still facing MHY, and attacks him yet again. It still doesn’t work. This time, MHY takes her captive and calls for WKX to stop, threatening to kill GX if WKX makes another move. WKX does stop.
MHY demands the glazed armory and the armory key. WKX says he’d give MHY anything, if it saves GX, and MHY laughs at how WKX calls GX “a young girl”. MHY thinks GX is a terrible siren who bewitched both FHK and CWN and forced MHY to kill them.
Xie-wang plays the pipa, calls this “the last war”, and declares himself the oriole stalking MHY’s mantis and WKX’s cicada. Then he sends drug men out at everyone.
The oncoming drug men disrupt MHY and WKX’s stand-off, distracting WKX from giving MHY anything as they swarm through the battle and kill everyone.
Then MHY realises what’s happening and calls his men to retreat. MHY throws GX at WKX (having hit her hard enough that she’s dying). WKX catches GX and holds her in his arms as she swears to kill MHY. WKX is very sad, and he says he’s not GX’s master (主人) but her brother (哥). GX begs for him, as her brother, to kill MHY for her. WKX promises to do so, and then GX has a nice monologue about how she can’t take care of him anymore and dies in his arms.
WKX cries. Then he carries GX’s body to CWN’s and lets them sit next to each other. Once they’re nicely arranged, he cuts down some of the red gauze that had been decorating the hall so that it covers them.
Then the music shifts and WKX gets ready to murder.
MHY cuts his way through the drug men. WKX follows.
MHY reaches a clear area, realises that he’s been set up by Xie-wang, and curses this fact. WKX catches up to him and says he’s here to kill MHY. They fight. MHY uses a lot more flourishes than WKX does, and WKX is aided by his fan’s ranged attacks. Still, for each hit WKX lands, he takes one. Even when WKX slams his palm into MHY’s chest, that’s at the cost of allowing MHY to pierce his chest with his sword.
WKX gains the advantage at that point, tearing out MHY’s eyes and ripping MHY’s sword out of his body so he can stab MHY with his own blade. ASs if that’s not enough, WKX tosses MHY away by the throat. MHY dies.
WKX staggers back, coughs up some blood, and sits down at the base of an aesthetic tree. He apologises to GX for giving MHY an easy death and then says he’s coming to join her.
While WKX’s lying there prettily, Xie-wang and his people approach. Xie-wang greets WKX and asks how he ended up like this while Du Pusa retrieves MHY’s glazed armor. Xie-wang takes it from her and informs WKX of this. WKX tells him to get lost and to stop blocking the sunshine.
Du Pusa asks if she can kill WKX, and Xie-wang tells her he wants to do it himself. He pulls out his cool sword, which is made of interlocking segments, to strike WKX. Just in time, though, ZZS arrives! Baiyi knocks Xie-wang’s sword away, and then ZZS holds Baiyi’s tip to Xie-wang’s throat.
ZZS tells Xie-wang that he shouldn’t have hurt ZZS’s shidi, Xie-wang’s surprised by the increase in ZZS’s skill (it’s the lack of nails), and WKX calls ZZS a fool for being here. Xie-wang asks why they’re bothering; his drug men are everywhere in the valley and will kill everyone.
ZZS says that he’ll drag Xie-wang down into death with him, which Xie-wang says is boring. Xie-wang asks if they (as two clever men) can find another solution. ZZS tells Xie-wang that he can have the glazed armor,but ZZS wants WKX. Xie-wang, after a long moment, accepts this deal. He does call ZZS boring again, though, as he turns and walks away.
ZZS goes over to WKX, who’s on the verge of passing out but still reaches up to him like he’s the sun.
ZZS isn’t allowed to crouch down and cradle WKX, which is a shame. As ZZS reaches for WKX’s hand, WKX faints and the scene fades.
An unknown amount of time passes!
A member of Tianchuang reports to DPJ and Xie-wang that they’ve found all the bodies of the top ten ghosts and explains how they all died. Xie-wang is surprised to hear that LQQ died in the battle. The Tianchuang mook says they couldn’t find MHY, FHK, or MWX; Xie-wang says he got rid of MHY, MHY killed FHK, and MWX is missing, so they shouldn’t bother with them.
DPJ is surprised by the power of the drug men army, and praises how it’ll help Jin-wang in his goals. DPJ seems delighted by how many people died and how the jianghu has been set back a whole generation. Xie-wang and his people seem less delighted; even Du Pusa is irritated with him. Not that DPJ seems to care.
Admittedly, DPJ’s speech about how the martial sects of the jianghu violate laws and hunger for fame and credit are on-point in regards to Zhao Jing’s whole deal, but… it’s not like Jin-wang is any better, as DPJ (unintentionally) points out in his next sentence about Jin-wang coming for this land.
Du Pusa suspects that everyone’s up to no good and keeps setting traps for each other, but she says it flirtily enough that DPJ doesn’t get mad about it. Xie-wang, on the other hand, is busy putting the glazed armor together and admiring it.
WKX dreams of being in ghost valley. He sits on his throne and GX approaches him in her wedding garb, calling out to him. He doesn’t respond, so GX approaches. She tells him that her parents thank him and want to talk to him; he tells her that should happen some other day. GX offers him a cup of tea. WKX says again that he’s tired and dismisses her. GX leaves, bidding her brother to take good care of himself, and as she does WKX finally realises what’s happening and calls out for her to stay. She, of course, still fades away.
ZZS sits at WKX’s bedside as he cries, wiping away his sleeping tears.
In the woods, Chengling, ZZS, Beiyuan, and Wu Xi have buried CWN and GX. ZZS thanks Beiyuan and Wu Xi for their help retrieving CWN and GX’s bodies and burying them, and they make sure to write their tombstones as if they had been married in truth.
Chengling asks how WKX is, and ZZS says he used Drunk-like-a-Dream to keep WKX asleep because ZZS doesn’t know how to face him. ZZS tells Chengling to take good care of WKX, which mostly just raises questions of ZZS disappearing.
Wu Xi is spurred by ZZS’s declaration that his fate is to wander the jianghu to grab at ZZS’s wrist and check his pulse. It’s frankly impressive that ZZS’s hidden this from him for so long, because Wu Xi is surprised once ZZS tears himself away as he realises what ZZS has done. Beiyuan is also surprised and asks when it happened!
ZZS doesn’t lie to them, at least; he tells them when and why he did this. ZZS says he must finish one last thing (stopping Jin-wang from opening the armory). Chengling asks why his days are running out, not wanting to believe that his shifu is dying.
Beiyuan clutches at Wu Xi’s arm, and it’s a bit hard to tell which of them is more upset about this and more frantic about how well ZZS looks vs how poorly his internals are doing. Beiyuan’s hoping that Wu Xi and YBY together could still cure ZZS, who turns and snaps that he’s taken Wu Xi’s fancy magic medicine already. Beiyuan says they could make another. Wu Xi looks like he’s about to throw up from Feelings, and Chengling and ZZS are both quietly crying.
ZZS repeats that it’s too late and he can’t be saved, so they shouldn’t bother trying to save him. Chengling asks if the Yin Yang Book could save him, and offers to exchange his life for ZZS’s. ZZS thinks this is ridiculous and tells Chengling to be good, and the episode ends.
General Commentary
For an episode that’s pretty focused on one event through the majority of the runtime, at the end it speeds up and noticeably changes direction. It’s important to get some sort of resolution to the glazed armor, I suppose, but I still wish we’d seen Xie-wang get his alliance with Tianchuang set up.
I would also love to have a sense of how much time passes between the end of the fight and the final scenes of this episode. It can’t have been that much time, but… I would like to know!
So many of my feelings about Cao Weining and Gu Xiang’s deaths are in the context of comparing/contrasting them to how things went down in the novel. I will try not to get into that too much, but suffice to say: wow the changed context makes it feel really different.
It’s so frustrating, in this context, that Gu Xiang doesn’t even get a single blow in on Mo Huaiyang. I know she hasn’t been set up as a supremely skilled martial artist, but it makes her death even sadder to see Mo Huaiyang defeat her so easily.
And the way Cao Weining dies is so gut-wrenchingly personal. There’s layers of it: Mo Huaiyang using his own hands, Mo Huaiyang denying him a martial death or even an honorable one with a sword, Mo Huaiyang acting like he’d perhaps given in to Cao Weining’s begging…
It just really sucks.
In less sucky things about this sequence, have some sword nerdery!
Gu Xiang fights Mo Huaiyang with a (pair of) dao, which is mostly interesting to me because she grabs them from a pair of Five Lakes Alliance people (most members of the righteous jianghu use jian). The ghosts tend to carry curved blades, and the Scorpions use even more dramatically curved blades (to the point that I’d call them scimitars—or maybe even sickles sharpened on the wrong side—rather than sabers).
I don’t think we’ve seen Gu Xiang fight with any blades before this? Regardless, the dao Gu Xiang picks up for this scene are only lightly curved (similar to a katana), which is more typical for dao/sabers.
In the second heroes conference, we’re told that Mo Huaiyang is a really good martial artist (and implicitly shown that by how good he makes Zhao Jing look). When he fights Wen Kexing on equal ground, that skill becomes much more explicit.
Wen Kexing ignoring his own well-being in order to get revenge for Gu Xiang is also sad! But not particularly surprising; he and Zhou Zishu both have really strong self-sacrifice impulses that they’re utter hypocrites about.
I am unfortunately incapable of taking the scene where Baiyi is at Xie-wang’s throat seriously, because Baiyi is pressing into his skin enough that Xie-wang should be bleeding but he isn’t. It’s just denting his skin. I can’t unsee this and it ruins some of the emotion because I’m just there like “this is a stage sword and they can’t even do the right make-up/special effects to make this seem sharp”.
Also please consider that Zhou Zishu got to watch Wen Kexing: fake his death (at White Deer Cliff), almost die (this episode), and then (next episode) try and sacrifice himself for Zhou Zishu (to save Zhou Zishu’s life).
I’d forgotten that Mo Weixu was established to be missing. It’d be cool if he returned post-canon! He’s a neat loose thread that could be picked up in post-canon fics more, I think, especially since he’s positioned to inherit Qing Feng Sword Sect.
Zhou Zishu wearing black robes again (like he once did in Tianchuang), but in the same jianghu style he’s primarily been in this whole time feels very sad.
And, of course, I still want to know how Zhou Zishu hid the fact that he’d removed the nails from Wu Xi. Was it just that things kept happening all at once? Did Wu Xi realise that Zhou Zishu was being evasive? I do not quite understand how that worked!
Discussion Prompts/Questions
Please don’t feel limited to these. They’re starting points for anyone who wants them, not the only things to talk about!
1. Mo Huaiyang is the worst! Discuss. (Includes any and all deaths of people he killed.)
2. Zhou Zishu drugging Wen Kexing to avoid saying that he’s dying is about as dickish a move as Wen Kexing faking his death without telling Zhou Zishu, so I guess they’re even? Thoughts?
3. Xie-wang might have gotten what he wanted but he sure doesn’t look happy about it. What do you think about his alliance with Duan Pengju here?
Next Time: The end! The mountain, the armory, and the epilogue!
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2) Yeah, they both have a tendency to do stuff like this in an effort to avoid hurting people they care about (and this reminds me a bit of ZZS drugging Qin Jiuxiao's equivalent in Lord Seventh).
3) Xie'er really didn't think about collateral damage w/r/t his plan. It feels a bit like he's still trying to impress ZJ, tbh. I like that both he and Du Pusa look devastated at the news of LQQ's death (and tbh I'm kinda surprised that both Du Pusa and Qiao Luohan survive the series). And all three of the Scorpions look so done with Duan Pengjun.
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3. ZZS did also drug Qin Jiuxiao. xD Slightly different circumstances, but he's previously been shown to use this method of avoiding confrontation in the show too!
3. I don't think anyone thinks about collateral damage in this show, between WKX's fake glazed armor and Xie'er's surprise that people he liked also died. (And yeah, it's cool that Du Pusa and Qiao Luohan survive, but the death count is so high that it's a surprise!)