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ghost_valley2021-06-11 10:21 am
shadaras) wrote in ghost_valley2021-06-11 10:21 am
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[WoH Rewatch] Episode 1
Okay! Let’s go! I am excited to begin this rewatch!
I’ll be doing one episode/post a week. They should be posted consistently on Fridays in my timezone (UCT-4), though I make no promises as to when on Fridays. If life happens such that this isn’t possible, I’ll let you know.
I’m watching on youtube, because it’s convenient, is an easily-shared context point, and lets me easily look at the Chinese subs when I'm curious about translations.
I am at my heart a text-based person. There will be some screencaps! I do not promise how many, because it's a different way of going through the show than I would otherwise do (and also I'm grabbing screencaps from youku, when I do, because youtube's a pain to get clean screencaps from).
So! Let’s begin!
Scenes in This Episode
A Rough Timeline of Events
Twenty years ago: Rong Xuan fights “the Five Lakes Alliance and other heroes” at Mount Qingya and dies.
Ten years ago: Founding of Tian Chuang.
Unspecified time in the past: ZZS teases Jiuxiao about his affection for Jing’an-junzhu.
Eighteen months before ZZS leaves Tian Chuang: ZZS puts in the first nail (one nail every three months from here on out)
About a year before ZZS leaves Tian Chuang: Qin Jiuxiao dies, ZZS faints from grief, and people start noticing that his injuries aren’t healing.
Plausibly up to a month before ZZS leaves Tian Chuang: ZZS and Tian Chuang kill Military Governor Li and Jing’an-junzhu.
Three months before ZZS and WKX meet: ZZS leaves Tian Chuang by taking the seventh nail.
Three months before ZZS and WKX meet: WKX sends the ghosts out to cause Glazed Armor-related trouble
WKX and ZZS meet in Yue, the town next to Mirror Lake Sect
Entirely Too Many Words of Recap/Commentary
(I promise it’s not just a recap; I have opinions and feelings in here too!)
As a warning: I meant it when I asked if too much text would be off-putting! But you all said that I could write as much as I wanted and you were excited, so! Here is 5.7k! (Please understand that I have fun doing this, it is meaningful to me, and I have the free time to spend on this effort.)
I had completely forgotten about the Immediate Infodump. By which I mean, I am 90% sure that by the time I’d finished watching episode 1 the first time I had no memory of any of the twenty-years-ago flashback. Now, it’s much more interesting because I have all this pre-existing knowledge!
For instance, I bet this picks up right after Long Que’s history lesson, which is more focused on Zhen Ruyu, leaves off.
We’re told about how Rong Xuan left behind “an armory that could let someone become invincible overnight” and that the Glazed Armor is necessary to open it. Interestingly, a lot of the shots we’re given while talking about the Glazed Armor seem to be from later in the show? Especially once we hit “Afterwards, as a nursery rhyme spread”, when we’re shown some shots I am fairly certain are from ep9, when the fake Glazed Armor is being actively fought over.
This infodump also tells us that Prince Jin is “starting to make his move”, right before we get tossed into the show proper.
We are not told that the leaders of the Five Lakes Alliance have the Glazed Armor. We are also not told that this nursery rhyme is a very recent thing that may not have even happened yet! These are both fascinating choices as far as how this opening information is presented.
The first scene is Military Governor Li’s mansion as the guards see the floating lanterns that signify Tian Chuang’s arrival, and we’re shown a figure we later learn is ZZS standing in front of one. I love this intro, now that I know who we’re supposed to care about—I came into this show knowing absolutely nothing beyond “people keep talking about it?”—because it does an incredible job of showing how dangerous Tian Chuang is.
I also think that appearing out of floating lanterns that the guards shoot down is really overdramatic of them, but it’s very fun and immediately places the tone of this show, so I’m here for it.
What makes it hilarious, really, is that Military Governor Li is writing about Prince Jin “secretly training assassins in the Window of Heaven.” How is this secret. They’re basically an army! Is that why it’s a secret? Do people assume that Tian Chuang is just Prince Jin’s personal army, and the assassin bit is what makes it morally questionable? (If so: Dora, that might explain the size problem we were talking about the other day.)
To be fair to him, Prince Jin having intentions to revolt is an important thing to tell people about either way. The part of me that’s fascinated by court politics really wishes that we knew more about what Prince Jin’s position is supposed to be and where he is in the line of succession. It’s not the focus, because SHL is at its heart a wuxia tale, but I still like the politics.
There’s some very pretty symbolic shots of a moth dying in a lantern as Military Governor Li learns that Tian Chuang is here for him. He’s got a good bodyguard, so he almost escapes.
Unfortunately, Zhou Zishu is better and also predicted their escape route.
We’re given a gorgeous rooftop duel. This is possibly the most extended combat ZZS has with any single combatant other than Wen Kexing, and we don’t even know the swordsman’s name—he’s just called “the swordsman in green”. He seems cool! I would love to know more about him! I actually cared about him rather a lot on the first watch, because he is so clearly skilled!
But he’s facing off against Zhou Zishu, so he isn’t going to win. He does manage to fight an extended duel and unmask ZZS, though, so that’s pretty rad. If he’d had help, he might have been able to get Military Governor Li away.
The Military Governor recognises Zhou Zishu! He calls him “Zhou-daren”, which pretty clearly indicates that he’s a known quantity in court somehow. I wonder what that position is supposed to be.
We aren’t really supposed to care, because this is all about making Zhou Zishu look incredibly cool as he kills the swordsman in green and his subordinates finish killing the guards and all kneel down in the courtyard below. And Zhou Zishu does look very cool as he turns to Military Governor Li.
“What you do to others will be inflicted upon you later,” Military Governor Li warns. “You’re helping the bad guys. The disaster in the future begins today.”
Zhou Zishu looks a little bad, but he still kills Military Governor Li.
Jing’an-junzhu is the governor’s daughter, and she calls ZZS “Zhou-shixiong”. He tells her that her dad was conspiring to revolt and was killed, which is clearly the line that Prince Jin has chosen.
She’s upset, of course, but Zhou Zishu doesn’t want to deal with it, instead thanking her for returning Qin Jiuxiao’s body to him “in the chaotic circumstances” and saying that he’ll never forget her kindness.
Honestly, I remember being confused by this at the time too but it’s even more confusing now that she’s Jing’an-junzhu—Princess Jing’an. Where does she get the princess status from? How is that related to her dad being the Military Governor? Why is she of high enough status that he’s offering her suicide by poison but her dad isn’t? Is that just because he’s got lingering fondness from his shidi’s love for her?
She’s asking plenty of these questions too, but she still takes the poison with no hesitation.
She asks where Jiuxiao was buried—Four Seasons Manor, where ZZS laid him next to their master—and holds a hairpin we learn he carved in her hands.
Jing’an-junzhu is the first one to say the line so deeply associated with Siji Major: “Flowers bloom in all four seasons, knowing everything in the world.”
ZZS notices the pin, and we get a flashback to when Jiuxiao was still alive. (Jiuxiao’s title is given, in this introduction, as shao-zhuangzhu (Young Manor Lord), which is frankly adorable. ZZS, for reference, is zhuangzhu.) It’s brightly colored, ZZS is smiling, and it’s an incredible contrast to the darkness of the assassination scenes and the blank seriousness of ZZS’s face as we’ve seen it previously. They’re still in Tian Chuang, though—its symbol is on the screens in the background.
ZZS returns to the present and seems surprised that Jiuxiao and Jing’an were an item. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have any time to process these feelings before Jing’an dies.
The scene cuts to Tian Chuang’s complex an unspecified amount of time later. We’re told “Everything is taken care of done” and “Only a few generals tried to resist; I killed them” (I wish I were better at recognising voices than I am; this voiceover happens while ZZS is walking through dimly-lit tunnels flanked by Han Ying and Duan Pengju; I suspect it’s DPJ talking but I’m not 100% sure.), which probably means that the revolt Prince Jin was planning has now happened.
I’m honestly surprised that there was someone he had to overthrow at all? Who else exists in the political sphere that he had to take control from? It’s not the emperor, because he’s still Jin-wang, but also if he was Jin-wang who has equal or higher rank than him in this area?
Apparently Bi Changfeng “made a big mistake” during the mission to assassinate Military Governor Li. I’m curious what kind of mistake is possible there, considering how many people there were and how cleanly everyone in that manor died, but hey, plot convenience. Really, the issue is that lao-Bi wants to leave Tian Chuang, and I suspect Prince Jin is just super mad about this and also down for excuses to get rid of the old Siji Manor folk.
This whole sequence, with the dramatic lighting and the snow? Absolutely beautiful. The architecture doesn’t make sense to me, but that’s unrelated. Why would you have this throne room-looking hall where the “throne” has chains and a big opening for the weather to come in. Weird sort of dungeon, if you ask me.
I completely forgot who Bi Changfeng was on a first rewatch, but remembering his name makes the introduction of the kids who rescue ZZS in ep31 hit harder; one of them took his name.
This whole conversation about the fading of Siji Manor is very sad. It’s sadder the more of the show you know, I think!
When lao-Bi talks about the members of Siji Manor coming to Jin with ZZS, he’s referring to Jinzhou Prefecture/City, not Prince Jin! The Chinese subs are much more obvious about this than the English subs (especially since I don’t trust English subs not to drop characters’ titles erratically sometimes). I’m sure that Prince Jin is also meant to some degree, but it’s a specific location and the hanzi is clear about that.
I do love that lao-Bi says “What Siji Manor can there be?” and then ZZS immediately starts death-flag coughing. He’s been so in-control and powerful up until this point, but lao-Bi drives straight at his weak point and then starts asking why ZZS’s wounds haven’t healed.
Somehow, ZZS’s response to that is to quote the duties of Tian Chuang. He really just doesn’t want to talk about Siji Manor. Or about how taking the Nails and dying from them is worth even a day of freedom from “being Prince Jin’s dog”. Lao-Bi points out that he’s done so much for ZZS, but the Siji Manor folk were treated poorly by Prince Jin, so he doesn’t want to stay anymore.
There’s so much implied about ZZS’s relationship with Prince Jin packed into this. “I know you can’t help it, and I don’t blame you,” lao-Bi says, while ZZS stands there stock-still.
And then lao-Bi goes and sits on the prisoner’s throne and demands ZZS give him the nails. This whole thing gets more intense and sad on a re-watch when you know about ZZS’s nail problems.
ZZS agrees, and the show finally decides to introduce us to his subordinates, who have been watching this whole time! Han Ying, Commander of Tian Chuang; and Duan Pengju, Vice Leader of Tian Chuang. Lots of fun things to come with them, but for now they’re just standing in the background trading looks. Probably this isn’t a punishment used very often. I could see an argument for this being the first time someone has outright asked for them.
I love the box that the nails are kept in. It’s very cool, makes me think of Longyuan Pavillion and all their pretty tech. Zhou Zishu has a lot of feelings as he picks up the first nail (which, tbh, looks kind of like a very loosely-threaded screw), makes it hover with his qi, looks at it again, and then inserts it into lao-Bi. Though, like. Even though we’re only shown him picking up one, when we’re shown lao-Bi’s chest it’s got two nails inserted. We’re shown at least one more scene of him getting the nails put in, so… probably just minor continuity error, not a big deal.
Two Tian Chuang guards (the young one calls the old one “Zhang-ge”, but I think that’s the only name we get) have a chat about the Nails of Seven Torments and give us a nice info-dump about how they work. Amusingly, they say that speech is the first thing to go normally, but that’s definitely not something that troubles ZZS. Other senses, sure! Martial arts waning, maybe! But not speech.
We’re also shown Duan Pengju looking at lao-Bi get the nails and seeming very satisfied about this. Marked contrast to how Han Ying was looking down and swallowing earlier when lao-Bi talked about how Siji Manor was almost dead. He’s still looking down during all this, too.
Lao-Bi is left questionably alive, ZZS turns away, and the older guard suggests that the younger one pretend to die on a mission if he ever wants to leave Tian Chuang.
ZZS walks out of the hall with Duan Pengju following him, but not Han Ying. I suppose Han Ying stayed behind with lao-Bi, and this might actually be when he learned about the other disciples that lao-Bi and the rest of the Siji Manor folk trained.
ZZS tells off the guards for calling him zhuangzhu, and ZZS says that “the last person from Siji Manor is gone” and not to call him zhuangzhu again. (By the time Han Ying meets him again in ep8, ZZS doesn’t seem to care as much about being called zhuangzhu, because Han Ying definitely is still calling him that.)
ZZS walks into the snow, Duan Pengju no longer following him, and we get a song playing as ZZS thinks about how it’s been a decade of him being on “this path of no return” and angsts about Siji Manor’s death. He does more death-coughing while considering how he doesn’t deserve to die. “I can’t even save a single person I want to protect,” he thinks, and walks away to reveal that he’d coughed up some blood onto the snow.
Prince Jin sits in Lichun Palace, whining to Duan Pengju about how ZZS doesn’t come visit him. He asks if it’s because of ZZS’s injuries, and DPJ mentions that “the traitor has rallied many people who are skilled at martial arts” and that ZZS hadn’t fought anyone for a long time. (He’s just been hiding away being Sad, I suppose.) This is some amount of time after the previous scenes, since DPJ says “[ZZS] has been taking rest in isolation these days”.
We also learn that it’s been about a year since Qin Jiuxiao died! And that ZZS’s injuries have been healing noticeably slowly since then. This timing is interesting, since it means that ZZS started sticking nails in himself before Jiuxiao’s death—despite Prince Jin clearly blaming Qin Jiuxiao for his weakness, ZZS had begu nthis process well ahead of that.
“He became like this just for Qin Jiuxiao,” Prince Jin says scornfully, “He won’t be of great use.” And then he tells DPJ to summon ZZS to see him as soon as possible.
We cut to ZZS staring at the painting of Siji Manor’s symbolic branch and painting one of the last flowers red. Much angst. Very beautiful. God, he’s so gorgeous like this. I could have more opinions, I feel, but mostly I just think he’s pretty.
And then he strips! And tells us that it’s been “a year and a half” since he put the first nail in. We get told about how to survive the nails by putting them in once every three months as ZZS carves open his skin to reveal the nail heads. “You will retain half your martial arts,” we’re told, which is a terrifying statement about ZZS’s power if we see him throughout the show at roughly half his true skill level.
But hey, he only needs to survive “extreme pain that will last for three years and another eighteen months”, which implies that the Death Counter only really starts when the seventh nail is put in? Since the normal method restricts one to three years of life.
ZZS also hallucinates Jiuxiao, who is rightly upset with him for doing this to himself. ZZS asks what there is to cry about, and says this is what he deserves for letting the 81 brothers of Siji Manor die. He’s so sad about their lineage dying and not being able to protect any of them. Very angst. Much grief. Love this core character trait of his. He’s crying as he asks how he could ever face Jiuxiao after his death, and turns to reach for him and realises that it was all a hallucination.
He does hope that Jing’an and Jiuxiao have met up in death, though, and wishes them well in that as he starts laugh-crying over how much of a dick he’s been. Still shirtless. He spends a lot of this episode shirtless! It’s truly impressive.
Then ZZS goes to meet Prince Jin.
(Do you want to know how many times I’ve watched this specific scene? It’s so many. I have a lot of feelings about it and about fucking around with it for fic purposes.)
When Zhou Zishu enters Prince Jin’s hall, he’s announced as “Guard Zhou Zishu”, and the Chinese is “Shìwèi” (侍卫), which appears to specifically mean “imperial bodyguard”. Seems like a reasonable description of his public court role!
I really wonder what Prince Jin expected to happen in this audience. We’re shown that he’s got a lot of female servants lining the hall—and Duan Pengju—and they’re allowed to stay through this whole dramatic scene. (I wonder if they survive long past Zhou Zishu’s exit from this hall.)
Prince Jin really does seem fond of Zhou Zishu here. He starts off with so much praise for him, talking about Zhou Zishu as a “pillar of the country” and how he needs Zhou Zishu’s help to achieve his goals and the like. Zhou Zishu doesn’t really care though! “An ordinary man, only fit to be your weapon,” he says of himself. “Now that Hedong is peaceful, you need people who know about government.” Which is true.
Also, Hedong as a location in the real world doesn’t seem to line up with Jinzhou as a location in the real world, but that’s not a problem I feel like working out the answer to; Hedong at least seems to be a generic-enough name (east-of-the-river) that it could be used without needing a real-world referent.
Prince Jin does not like being told that ZZS cannot be helpful. He’s about to get told a lot more about how ZZS doesn’t want to be helpful, as ZZS kneels and begins taking off his belt.
Prince Jin watches and doesn’t say anything as ZZS strips, though when ZZS unties his innermost shirt he does stand up and look confused and concerned. Duan Pengju is watching too, but the various servant ladies are, I suspect, trying very hard to not pay attention to whatever is about to happen here.
Everything about Prince Jin’s reactions to Zhou Zishu here gets so much more interesting in the light of him yelling “I thought you were my zhiji” in ep30. Since, y’know, this show is very clear that zhiji is being used as a deliberate way to get around gay censorship. We’re also given a reflection of the Prince Jin/ZZS relationship with Xie’er/Zhao Jing, which is yet more pointed about the heavily implied intimacy. So Prince Jin’s looking at ZZS’s naked chest, and having a lot of feelings about that, and probably also having a lot of feelings about the nail wounds that ZZS has helpfully made very visible to him by cutting off the old scar tissue.
This, also, is when even Duan Pengju isn’t looking anymore; he’s looking at the floor as Prince Jin descends to stand in front of ZZS.
“I want to return to my hometown,” ZZS says, which is something I’d been meaning to poke at the Chinese for because he sure doesn’t actually want to go back to any specific place for a while. He just wants to leave and return to the jianghu. It looks like the word/phrase being translated as “return home” (还乡, huánxiāng) could also be more figuratively “retire from public life”? Which fits with what he’s asking for very well.
ZZS also says he’s already left Tian Chuang. Prince Jin is mostly just sad and confused still; he hasn’t quite gotten to angry yet.
“If I put in one more, I’m afraid I can’t get to say goodbye to you.” There’s just so much going on in ZZS’s head, and in this (clearly prepared) speech, and I am still torn about whether I think he’s actually sad about this idea in this moment. On the one hand, fuck Prince Jin, he’s a dick. On the other, ZZS bound his life up with Prince Jin for a decade or more, and he’s got a ton of feelings about the man by this point.
Prince Jin’s grief starts moving towards anger now! But it’s definitely still covering grief, even as he draws Duan Pengju’s sword to threaten ZZS with. Duan Pengju and the other servants all fall to the ground, begging for Prince Jin to calm down, which has exactly as much effect as this ever does in cdramas. (that is to say: none.)
“If you don’t want to live, I can let you die! Why go through all this trouble?” Prince Jin shouts, which is a fair point. But we’ve heard the answer to that already, from lao-Bi: Even one day of freedom is worth the utmost suffering.
That’s not what ZZS says, though. He tells Prince Jin that “You saved my life,” and then “If you grant it, I can drag this crippled body along for two more years.”
...I continue to have Questions about the timeline of the nails, but here I mostly think that ZZS is lying about the length of time he’d survive. He sure is saying two years, but that doesn’t line up with either “three years starting from the first nail” or “three years starting from the last nail”, which are the other options we’ve been given! It’d be a year and a half or three years! But whatever, liang nian is more dramatic to say or something I guess!
But hey he does also tell Prince Jin that it’s okay if Prince Jin would prefer to just kill him outright.
Prince Jin lunges at him with the sword, ZZS doesn’t flinch, and I have spent entirely too much time thinking about how clearly this is a prop sword. It presses against ZZS’s chest (Lightly, yes! But still, it should be a good blade, and sharp!) but there’s no blood. Prince Jin’s hand shakes, and then he throws the sword over ZZS’s head very dramatically because Prince Jin loves ZZS too much to kill him.
“You all lied to me! Yunxing left. Beiyuan...” (he’s almost crying now, the last vestige of Helian Yi in Prince Jin.) “Beiyuan’s gone too.” He is using a word that has the correct connotations of “dead” (没了, méile) but in the english that comes across more from his facial expressions and tone than the translation. (Yunxing is a reference back to Qi Ye and the character He Yunxing; he was indeed part of Helian Yi’s close friend group.)
Prince Jin wants to know if ZZS was lying about leaving, and if he’ll keep helping if Prince Jin spares him, and ZZS simply repeats his request for the last nail.
Just as ZZS asked lao-Bi if he’d rather take the nails than serve under ZZS, Prince Jin is asking the same thing. The scenes mirror each other beautifully. Neither of them really need an answer, because Prince Jin then declares he understands ZZS’s intentions and demands that ZZS stay alive. He promises that within those three years remaining to ZZS, he’ll ascend the throne and “show you that I’m the chosen one and will be successful no matter what”.
ZZS agrees, bows, and Prince Jin tells DPJ to “do what he says” and that he’s now the leader of Tian Chuang.
DPJ still looks to ZZS for confirmation, and ZZS stands and reveals the seventh nail that he’d somehow been holding in his hand. “Congratulations to us both,” he says, “we both got what we wanted today.”
Seriously, the power struggle that this implies has been going on between ZZS and DPJ is really interesting but gets basically no screen-time because ZZS is too busy leaving Tian Chuang to give a shit.
We cut to ZZS riding off, the title theme playing, and Prince Jin watching him leave and quoting dramatic proverbs. He promises he’ll get ZZS later.
In a nice cottage hidden in a green forest, ZZS puts on his disguise and we all make sad faces because it’ll be another four-and-a-half episodes before we see his face without a mask and his mask is so awful.
Everything’s so green and blooming in the jianghu, and ZZS turns his face up to the sun, and then we cut to Ghost Valley.
I’m pretty sure someone’s identified who the Buddhas carved into Ghost Valley’s walls are, but I don’t remember where I saw that (beyond ‘twitter, probably’) and that isn’t my field of study. Suffice to say: I’m pretty sure that information is out there somewhere, if you’re curious, and that it’s a meaningful choice!
Hanging Ghost fights a lot of generic ghosts with his wires! It’s honestly really cool! It’s a nice establishing scene of how powerful the Ten Devils are, and of the cutting wires that’ll be plot devices across other early episodes.
Hanging Ghost escapes by diving into an abyss, and we see him looking at the Soul-Winding Box in his hand for a moment (it's the source of his wires, I'm pretty sure, but also just a dramatic box in this moment). Then a red-clothed arm reaches out, grabs his throat, shoves him against the wall, and breaks his neck. Say hi to Wen Kexing, though we don’t see his face for a while.
It’s only after Hanging Ghost dies and slumps to the ground that we’re given the location card for Ghost Valley, as the scene cuts to the dramatic stony hall that’s almost unrecognisable in this dim lighting as the same place where Gu Xiang and Cao Weining’s wedding happens.
We see a very fake-looking tree with what are definitely maple leaves (it’s in a perfectly circular pool of water. amazing.), some big drum, and a red-robed figure stalking towards the edge of a cliff overlooking a number of ghosts and all the remaining Devils. (Some members of the Bureau of the Unfaithful are also here, in the back!)
The camera is so careful not to show us WKX’s face! His hair is styled to block a view from the side, and the shots are framed to only show the back of his head or cut off at the shoulders! It’s impressive work, and a fascinating choice.
Also, WKX’s got some walnuts in his hand that he’s playing with, which is a lovely nod to TYK as well.
I feel very bad for the ghost who had to report Hanging Ghost’s “treachery” to WKX. Someone had to do it, but he’s a nameless and faceless person who isn’t even claimed by any Devil in particular.
A brief shot of the top half of WKX’s face! Starring his evil red eyeliner and some sparkly nude eyeshadow that someone pointed out to me and I can’t unsee now that I know it’s there.
We see panning shots of most of the Devils (though Xisang Gui is quite out of focus), and then Changing Ghost takes the lead in scolding the nameless ghost. He asks where Hanging Ghost’s body is, and we’re told there wasn’t a body under the cliff. WKX must have hidden it, then, which isn’t surprising considering what his goal for all of this is.
WKX starts to laugh, the ghost starts begging for mercy, and WKX cracks the walnuts in his hand. He jumps down, grabs the ghost, and tosses him into the ground. This seems to kill the ghost! Poor man.
I’m still fascinated by the choice to have his bangs hiding his eyes and mouth from sight when viewed from the side. It makes him much more mysterious, and I don’t think we ever see this styling again in the show.
WKX laughs again, and Changing Ghost urges the Devils to kneel and beg forgiveness.
We then hear WKX declare that Hanging Ghost stole his Glazed Armor! People with better memories than I did for immediate info-dumps might have remembered about this from the opening info-dump but I do not believe I did on the first viewing!
Changing Ghost seems surprised that the Glazed Armor is a thing WKX has access to, but WKX doesn’t care. He orders “all 3,000 ghosts in Mount Qingya” to “go out and kill the traitor”. He even promises that he’ll promote the person who gets his Glazed Armor back to head of the Ten Devils.
Honestly one of the most interesting things about this, from a rewatch perspective, is that WKX isn’t wearing his usual hairpin here. He’s wearing a golden guan styled more like a crown.
(He also never had any Glazed Armor, of course, but that’s a revelation for later. The piece revealed to be in the Soul-Winding Box in ep6 is probably Lu Taichong’s? I think that’s the only one unaccounted for by the other Five Lake Alliance sects at that time. I suppose it might be Zhao Jing’s instead; I’ll need to pay closer attention to all the sect politics and thefts going on in these early episodes.)
Three months later, in Yue!
Such a cheerful bustling town full of ordinary people going about pleasant lives. It’s a huge contrast to all the night-time scenes we’d been given with the assassination, nails, and Ghost Valley.
The camera eventually pans over to WKX and Gu Xiang eating a meal together, and we continue to only get partial shots of WKX’s face (though we get a full visual of Gu Xiang’s). From there, we’re shown ZZS settling down in the sun at the end of a bridge and drinking wine. He’s very pleased with his life, commenting about how a beggar wouldn’t want to change places with the emperor.
And, finally, as Gu Xiang calls attention to him, we see a full shot of WKX’s face. Now his hair only frames his face instead of hiding it, we’re told his name, and he doesn’t have any of his murder-makeup on. It’s telling about how much I do not recognise faces and instead use context clues that I think I made it to the end of this episode, the first time, going “...is this the same person as the hot evil valley lord guy?” and was mostly only sure they were the same person because contextually it made more sense that way.
Anyway, even if I love his evil outfit best, these white robes are very pretty too.
WKX’s first expression towards ZZS is a smile, as amused by Gu Xiang (who thinks ZZS is a fool) as by ZZS looking up at the sun through his hand. He accurately points out that ZZS is enjoying the sun, and Gu Xiang has no idea what there could be to enjoy in the sun. Poor little ghost-girl, doesn’t know how to enjoy life yet.
She is right about ZZS looking like he could die at any time, though, even if she’s wrong about him not having had a full meal in three years.
I do love that Gu Xiang’s comfortable enough with WKX and whatever they’re doing to want to make a bet with him for fun about if ZZS’s a beggar. The stakes being that WKX will play cards with her, win or lose, is honestly adorable, as is how he smiles in response.
Zhang Chengling shows up, a servant (called xiao-Wu) trailing him! The subs give his title as “Mirror Lake Manor Young Master,” but I think more accurately it’d be “Third Young Master”? San-gongzi, regardless. It’s a different “young master” than the one given to Jiuxiao in that flashback, which was what I was most curious about.
(Also Zhang Chengling is carrying a fan in the same idle way WKX does, and now I kind of really want something where WKX teaches Chengling fan fighting skills.)
His immediate instinct is to give this beggar some money, by which we mean have his servant give ZZS money. The servant tosses money on ZZS, ZZS brushes it off, and Gu Xiang is very confused by the whole thing. So is the servant really, even as Zhang Chengling gently chastises him for throwing the money on ZZS.
Gu Xiang stands up and shouts for ZZS’s attention, offering to treat him to a meal. ZZS asks instead for a drink, and Gu Xiang continues making bets with WKX before grabbing the jug of wine from their table and jumping down to offer it to ZZS.
ZZS accepts it, drinks, and Gu Xiang reveals her own Ghost Valley-induced paranoia by asking if he’s worried that it’s poisoned in some way. He calls the wine good, toasts Gu Xiang as a kind lady, and then keeps drinking while Gu Xiang kicks the rejected coins into the air, catches them, and gives them back to Chengling (who praises her martial arts).
Gu Xiang calls ZZS picky, and ZZS says that he’s not a beggar and is simply here to enjoy the sunshine. Gu Xiang turns back to WKX, who looks over, and we’re treated to the first time WKX and ZZS’s gazes meet.
Gu Xiang’s mad about being tricked, even though she easily could’ve avoided this by asking first, and tries to snatch the wine back. ZZS doesn’t give it back, and thus begins their very silly and rather destructive duel.
ZZS’s using as little energy as possible during this whole thing (and trying to pretend to be less skilled than he really is), I’m pretty sure, and Gu Xiang is just consistently surprised by how good ZZS is. WKX, on the other hand, is fascinated. He can definitely see through ZZS’s pretense of stumbling around and acting sick and a little drunk.
Chengling tries to stop Gu Xiang from “bullying a sick person”, because he’s an utter sweetheart. “Martial artists should help the poor and the weak,” he says, too, which must be something he got from his dad. It’s a kind sentiment, and I wish we knew more about Mirror Lake Manor.
This argument doesn’t work, because Gu Xiang holds grudges and is also very much still in ghost mode, but it’s a nice attempt.
She pulls out her whip, ZZS continues dodging, and it’s all quite dramatic and destructive.
Absolutely everyone’s watching by this point, of course, and we end with Gu Xiang sending her whip towards ZZS and WKX catching it.
Or, well, we see a white-clad arm reaching out and grasping it, but it’s WKX. Of course it is. Very sweet of the episode to leave us on the first instance of WKX protecting ZZS (even though he doesn’t really need to, in this case; it does mean that the fight gets cut short, though, which ZZS likely wouldn’t have managed so easily on his own).
General Comments
There’s so much set-up in this episode! We meet every single main character, and a lot of the important secondary characters! We hear about the Glazed Armor and the World’s Armory, though it’s hard to tell how important they are yet! Prince Jin and Tian Chuang are established as a powerful threat that ZZS is running from!
This whole set-up is wonderful for introducing us to a ZZS who’s incredibly sad and angsty all the time, just to make the contrast to when he’s in the jianghu wandering around and just wanting to drink and sunbathe all the clearer. He starts to care in the jianghu in a way that he just can’t here in the midst of all his depression. The seasons even align with it: It’s snowing all the time when ZZS’s with Tian Chuang, but when we skip to three months later, in Yue, the first shot is of flowers blooming.
This episode is very focused on setting up WKX and ZZS’s backstories and the emotional states they enter the narrative with. ZZS’s the central character here, because his backstory is simpler and also he’s the orthodox entry point into the jianghu; someone who has cast aside politics and wants a simpler life. WKX’s whole deal unravels throughout the show, but ZZS’s very clear about what he wants from the start: To leave Tian Chuang and live a free and happy life for the few years remaining to him.
Exactly what those goals are change throughout the show, as does whether he wants to accept that death, but the main idea stays the same.
WKX’s complexity can’t be explained so easily, so of course he only gets one full scene and a supporting role in a few others. He’s compelling from the start, of course, because he’s beautiful and dramatic and so clearly full of secrets. It’s a different pull to continue watching than what we get from ZZS; WKX asks “do you want to learn who I am?” while ZZS asks “do you want to know if I can be happy?”
I feel like I always forget how sharp Gu Xiang’s tongue is at the start. She’s so young! She tells WKX not to look down on her for her lack of life experience, and that lack shows so strongly in everything she says and does! She grows so much throughout the show, from half a child into a young woman in her own right, and learns so much of kindness and love.
I love this introduction to Chengling; he’s a very sweet young master, and the first thing we know about him is how big his heart is. We don’t even know for sure that he’s from a martial arts family—Mirror Lake Manor doesn’t inherently imply it—but we do know that he’s impressed by martial arts and thinks highly of martial artists as peacekeepers.
Tune in next week for yet more feelings about WKX and ZZS, opinions about Mirror Lake Manor, and the plot really kicking in!
Questions!
Please feel free to comment about any of those questions—or any other thoughts and feelings about the episode!—at any time! There is no time limit! The post will always be here and we'll be excited to hear what you have to share/add! <3
I’ll be doing one episode/post a week. They should be posted consistently on Fridays in my timezone (UCT-4), though I make no promises as to when on Fridays. If life happens such that this isn’t possible, I’ll let you know.
I’m watching on youtube, because it’s convenient, is an easily-shared context point, and lets me easily look at the Chinese subs when I'm curious about translations.
I am at my heart a text-based person. There will be some screencaps! I do not promise how many, because it's a different way of going through the show than I would otherwise do (and also I'm grabbing screencaps from youku, when I do, because youtube's a pain to get clean screencaps from).
So! Let’s begin!
Scenes in This Episode
- Opening monologue/history lesson
- The assassination of Military Governor Li and Jing’an-junzhu
- Flashback to Jiuxiao and ZZS being adorable
- Bi Changfeng is given the Nails
- Duan Pengju and Prince Jin scheme
- ZZS paints and angsts about his own Nails
- ZZS has an audience with Prince Jin and asks to leave
- ZZS rides away and puts on his disguise
- Hanging Ghost “steals the Glazed Armor” and dies
- WKX orders his ghosts to go hunt Hanging Ghost
- ZZS is an idle sunbathing beggar; WKX and Gu Xiang discuss him
- Chengling tries to give ZZS some money
- Gu Xiang fights ZZS, and WKX stops the fight
A Rough Timeline of Events
Twenty years ago: Rong Xuan fights “the Five Lakes Alliance and other heroes” at Mount Qingya and dies.
Ten years ago: Founding of Tian Chuang.
Unspecified time in the past: ZZS teases Jiuxiao about his affection for Jing’an-junzhu.
Eighteen months before ZZS leaves Tian Chuang: ZZS puts in the first nail (one nail every three months from here on out)
About a year before ZZS leaves Tian Chuang: Qin Jiuxiao dies, ZZS faints from grief, and people start noticing that his injuries aren’t healing.
Plausibly up to a month before ZZS leaves Tian Chuang: ZZS and Tian Chuang kill Military Governor Li and Jing’an-junzhu.
Three months before ZZS and WKX meet: ZZS leaves Tian Chuang by taking the seventh nail.
Three months before ZZS and WKX meet: WKX sends the ghosts out to cause Glazed Armor-related trouble
WKX and ZZS meet in Yue, the town next to Mirror Lake Sect
Entirely Too Many Words of Recap/Commentary
(I promise it’s not just a recap; I have opinions and feelings in here too!)
As a warning: I meant it when I asked if too much text would be off-putting! But you all said that I could write as much as I wanted and you were excited, so! Here is 5.7k! (Please understand that I have fun doing this, it is meaningful to me, and I have the free time to spend on this effort.)
I had completely forgotten about the Immediate Infodump. By which I mean, I am 90% sure that by the time I’d finished watching episode 1 the first time I had no memory of any of the twenty-years-ago flashback. Now, it’s much more interesting because I have all this pre-existing knowledge!
For instance, I bet this picks up right after Long Que’s history lesson, which is more focused on Zhen Ruyu, leaves off.
We’re told about how Rong Xuan left behind “an armory that could let someone become invincible overnight” and that the Glazed Armor is necessary to open it. Interestingly, a lot of the shots we’re given while talking about the Glazed Armor seem to be from later in the show? Especially once we hit “Afterwards, as a nursery rhyme spread”, when we’re shown some shots I am fairly certain are from ep9, when the fake Glazed Armor is being actively fought over.
This infodump also tells us that Prince Jin is “starting to make his move”, right before we get tossed into the show proper.
We are not told that the leaders of the Five Lakes Alliance have the Glazed Armor. We are also not told that this nursery rhyme is a very recent thing that may not have even happened yet! These are both fascinating choices as far as how this opening information is presented.
The first scene is Military Governor Li’s mansion as the guards see the floating lanterns that signify Tian Chuang’s arrival, and we’re shown a figure we later learn is ZZS standing in front of one. I love this intro, now that I know who we’re supposed to care about—I came into this show knowing absolutely nothing beyond “people keep talking about it?”—because it does an incredible job of showing how dangerous Tian Chuang is.
I also think that appearing out of floating lanterns that the guards shoot down is really overdramatic of them, but it’s very fun and immediately places the tone of this show, so I’m here for it.
What makes it hilarious, really, is that Military Governor Li is writing about Prince Jin “secretly training assassins in the Window of Heaven.” How is this secret. They’re basically an army! Is that why it’s a secret? Do people assume that Tian Chuang is just Prince Jin’s personal army, and the assassin bit is what makes it morally questionable? (If so: Dora, that might explain the size problem we were talking about the other day.)
To be fair to him, Prince Jin having intentions to revolt is an important thing to tell people about either way. The part of me that’s fascinated by court politics really wishes that we knew more about what Prince Jin’s position is supposed to be and where he is in the line of succession. It’s not the focus, because SHL is at its heart a wuxia tale, but I still like the politics.
There’s some very pretty symbolic shots of a moth dying in a lantern as Military Governor Li learns that Tian Chuang is here for him. He’s got a good bodyguard, so he almost escapes.
Unfortunately, Zhou Zishu is better and also predicted their escape route.
We’re given a gorgeous rooftop duel. This is possibly the most extended combat ZZS has with any single combatant other than Wen Kexing, and we don’t even know the swordsman’s name—he’s just called “the swordsman in green”. He seems cool! I would love to know more about him! I actually cared about him rather a lot on the first watch, because he is so clearly skilled!
But he’s facing off against Zhou Zishu, so he isn’t going to win. He does manage to fight an extended duel and unmask ZZS, though, so that’s pretty rad. If he’d had help, he might have been able to get Military Governor Li away.
The Military Governor recognises Zhou Zishu! He calls him “Zhou-daren”, which pretty clearly indicates that he’s a known quantity in court somehow. I wonder what that position is supposed to be.
We aren’t really supposed to care, because this is all about making Zhou Zishu look incredibly cool as he kills the swordsman in green and his subordinates finish killing the guards and all kneel down in the courtyard below. And Zhou Zishu does look very cool as he turns to Military Governor Li.
“What you do to others will be inflicted upon you later,” Military Governor Li warns. “You’re helping the bad guys. The disaster in the future begins today.”
Zhou Zishu looks a little bad, but he still kills Military Governor Li.
Jing’an-junzhu is the governor’s daughter, and she calls ZZS “Zhou-shixiong”. He tells her that her dad was conspiring to revolt and was killed, which is clearly the line that Prince Jin has chosen.
She’s upset, of course, but Zhou Zishu doesn’t want to deal with it, instead thanking her for returning Qin Jiuxiao’s body to him “in the chaotic circumstances” and saying that he’ll never forget her kindness.
Honestly, I remember being confused by this at the time too but it’s even more confusing now that she’s Jing’an-junzhu—Princess Jing’an. Where does she get the princess status from? How is that related to her dad being the Military Governor? Why is she of high enough status that he’s offering her suicide by poison but her dad isn’t? Is that just because he’s got lingering fondness from his shidi’s love for her?
She’s asking plenty of these questions too, but she still takes the poison with no hesitation.
She asks where Jiuxiao was buried—Four Seasons Manor, where ZZS laid him next to their master—and holds a hairpin we learn he carved in her hands.
Jing’an-junzhu is the first one to say the line so deeply associated with Siji Major: “Flowers bloom in all four seasons, knowing everything in the world.”
ZZS notices the pin, and we get a flashback to when Jiuxiao was still alive. (Jiuxiao’s title is given, in this introduction, as shao-zhuangzhu (Young Manor Lord), which is frankly adorable. ZZS, for reference, is zhuangzhu.) It’s brightly colored, ZZS is smiling, and it’s an incredible contrast to the darkness of the assassination scenes and the blank seriousness of ZZS’s face as we’ve seen it previously. They’re still in Tian Chuang, though—its symbol is on the screens in the background.
ZZS returns to the present and seems surprised that Jiuxiao and Jing’an were an item. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have any time to process these feelings before Jing’an dies.
The scene cuts to Tian Chuang’s complex an unspecified amount of time later. We’re told “Everything is taken care of done” and “Only a few generals tried to resist; I killed them” (I wish I were better at recognising voices than I am; this voiceover happens while ZZS is walking through dimly-lit tunnels flanked by Han Ying and Duan Pengju; I suspect it’s DPJ talking but I’m not 100% sure.), which probably means that the revolt Prince Jin was planning has now happened.
I’m honestly surprised that there was someone he had to overthrow at all? Who else exists in the political sphere that he had to take control from? It’s not the emperor, because he’s still Jin-wang, but also if he was Jin-wang who has equal or higher rank than him in this area?
Apparently Bi Changfeng “made a big mistake” during the mission to assassinate Military Governor Li. I’m curious what kind of mistake is possible there, considering how many people there were and how cleanly everyone in that manor died, but hey, plot convenience. Really, the issue is that lao-Bi wants to leave Tian Chuang, and I suspect Prince Jin is just super mad about this and also down for excuses to get rid of the old Siji Manor folk.
This whole sequence, with the dramatic lighting and the snow? Absolutely beautiful. The architecture doesn’t make sense to me, but that’s unrelated. Why would you have this throne room-looking hall where the “throne” has chains and a big opening for the weather to come in. Weird sort of dungeon, if you ask me.
I completely forgot who Bi Changfeng was on a first rewatch, but remembering his name makes the introduction of the kids who rescue ZZS in ep31 hit harder; one of them took his name.
This whole conversation about the fading of Siji Manor is very sad. It’s sadder the more of the show you know, I think!
When lao-Bi talks about the members of Siji Manor coming to Jin with ZZS, he’s referring to Jinzhou Prefecture/City, not Prince Jin! The Chinese subs are much more obvious about this than the English subs (especially since I don’t trust English subs not to drop characters’ titles erratically sometimes). I’m sure that Prince Jin is also meant to some degree, but it’s a specific location and the hanzi is clear about that.
I do love that lao-Bi says “What Siji Manor can there be?” and then ZZS immediately starts death-flag coughing. He’s been so in-control and powerful up until this point, but lao-Bi drives straight at his weak point and then starts asking why ZZS’s wounds haven’t healed.
Somehow, ZZS’s response to that is to quote the duties of Tian Chuang. He really just doesn’t want to talk about Siji Manor. Or about how taking the Nails and dying from them is worth even a day of freedom from “being Prince Jin’s dog”. Lao-Bi points out that he’s done so much for ZZS, but the Siji Manor folk were treated poorly by Prince Jin, so he doesn’t want to stay anymore.
There’s so much implied about ZZS’s relationship with Prince Jin packed into this. “I know you can’t help it, and I don’t blame you,” lao-Bi says, while ZZS stands there stock-still.
And then lao-Bi goes and sits on the prisoner’s throne and demands ZZS give him the nails. This whole thing gets more intense and sad on a re-watch when you know about ZZS’s nail problems.
ZZS agrees, and the show finally decides to introduce us to his subordinates, who have been watching this whole time! Han Ying, Commander of Tian Chuang; and Duan Pengju, Vice Leader of Tian Chuang. Lots of fun things to come with them, but for now they’re just standing in the background trading looks. Probably this isn’t a punishment used very often. I could see an argument for this being the first time someone has outright asked for them.
I love the box that the nails are kept in. It’s very cool, makes me think of Longyuan Pavillion and all their pretty tech. Zhou Zishu has a lot of feelings as he picks up the first nail (which, tbh, looks kind of like a very loosely-threaded screw), makes it hover with his qi, looks at it again, and then inserts it into lao-Bi. Though, like. Even though we’re only shown him picking up one, when we’re shown lao-Bi’s chest it’s got two nails inserted. We’re shown at least one more scene of him getting the nails put in, so… probably just minor continuity error, not a big deal.
Two Tian Chuang guards (the young one calls the old one “Zhang-ge”, but I think that’s the only name we get) have a chat about the Nails of Seven Torments and give us a nice info-dump about how they work. Amusingly, they say that speech is the first thing to go normally, but that’s definitely not something that troubles ZZS. Other senses, sure! Martial arts waning, maybe! But not speech.
We’re also shown Duan Pengju looking at lao-Bi get the nails and seeming very satisfied about this. Marked contrast to how Han Ying was looking down and swallowing earlier when lao-Bi talked about how Siji Manor was almost dead. He’s still looking down during all this, too.
Lao-Bi is left questionably alive, ZZS turns away, and the older guard suggests that the younger one pretend to die on a mission if he ever wants to leave Tian Chuang.
ZZS walks out of the hall with Duan Pengju following him, but not Han Ying. I suppose Han Ying stayed behind with lao-Bi, and this might actually be when he learned about the other disciples that lao-Bi and the rest of the Siji Manor folk trained.
ZZS tells off the guards for calling him zhuangzhu, and ZZS says that “the last person from Siji Manor is gone” and not to call him zhuangzhu again. (By the time Han Ying meets him again in ep8, ZZS doesn’t seem to care as much about being called zhuangzhu, because Han Ying definitely is still calling him that.)
ZZS walks into the snow, Duan Pengju no longer following him, and we get a song playing as ZZS thinks about how it’s been a decade of him being on “this path of no return” and angsts about Siji Manor’s death. He does more death-coughing while considering how he doesn’t deserve to die. “I can’t even save a single person I want to protect,” he thinks, and walks away to reveal that he’d coughed up some blood onto the snow.
Prince Jin sits in Lichun Palace, whining to Duan Pengju about how ZZS doesn’t come visit him. He asks if it’s because of ZZS’s injuries, and DPJ mentions that “the traitor has rallied many people who are skilled at martial arts” and that ZZS hadn’t fought anyone for a long time. (He’s just been hiding away being Sad, I suppose.) This is some amount of time after the previous scenes, since DPJ says “[ZZS] has been taking rest in isolation these days”.
We also learn that it’s been about a year since Qin Jiuxiao died! And that ZZS’s injuries have been healing noticeably slowly since then. This timing is interesting, since it means that ZZS started sticking nails in himself before Jiuxiao’s death—despite Prince Jin clearly blaming Qin Jiuxiao for his weakness, ZZS had begu nthis process well ahead of that.
“He became like this just for Qin Jiuxiao,” Prince Jin says scornfully, “He won’t be of great use.” And then he tells DPJ to summon ZZS to see him as soon as possible.
We cut to ZZS staring at the painting of Siji Manor’s symbolic branch and painting one of the last flowers red. Much angst. Very beautiful. God, he’s so gorgeous like this. I could have more opinions, I feel, but mostly I just think he’s pretty.
And then he strips! And tells us that it’s been “a year and a half” since he put the first nail in. We get told about how to survive the nails by putting them in once every three months as ZZS carves open his skin to reveal the nail heads. “You will retain half your martial arts,” we’re told, which is a terrifying statement about ZZS’s power if we see him throughout the show at roughly half his true skill level.
But hey, he only needs to survive “extreme pain that will last for three years and another eighteen months”, which implies that the Death Counter only really starts when the seventh nail is put in? Since the normal method restricts one to three years of life.
ZZS also hallucinates Jiuxiao, who is rightly upset with him for doing this to himself. ZZS asks what there is to cry about, and says this is what he deserves for letting the 81 brothers of Siji Manor die. He’s so sad about their lineage dying and not being able to protect any of them. Very angst. Much grief. Love this core character trait of his. He’s crying as he asks how he could ever face Jiuxiao after his death, and turns to reach for him and realises that it was all a hallucination.
He does hope that Jing’an and Jiuxiao have met up in death, though, and wishes them well in that as he starts laugh-crying over how much of a dick he’s been. Still shirtless. He spends a lot of this episode shirtless! It’s truly impressive.
Then ZZS goes to meet Prince Jin.
(Do you want to know how many times I’ve watched this specific scene? It’s so many. I have a lot of feelings about it and about fucking around with it for fic purposes.)
When Zhou Zishu enters Prince Jin’s hall, he’s announced as “Guard Zhou Zishu”, and the Chinese is “Shìwèi” (侍卫), which appears to specifically mean “imperial bodyguard”. Seems like a reasonable description of his public court role!
I really wonder what Prince Jin expected to happen in this audience. We’re shown that he’s got a lot of female servants lining the hall—and Duan Pengju—and they’re allowed to stay through this whole dramatic scene. (I wonder if they survive long past Zhou Zishu’s exit from this hall.)
Prince Jin really does seem fond of Zhou Zishu here. He starts off with so much praise for him, talking about Zhou Zishu as a “pillar of the country” and how he needs Zhou Zishu’s help to achieve his goals and the like. Zhou Zishu doesn’t really care though! “An ordinary man, only fit to be your weapon,” he says of himself. “Now that Hedong is peaceful, you need people who know about government.” Which is true.
Also, Hedong as a location in the real world doesn’t seem to line up with Jinzhou as a location in the real world, but that’s not a problem I feel like working out the answer to; Hedong at least seems to be a generic-enough name (east-of-the-river) that it could be used without needing a real-world referent.
Prince Jin does not like being told that ZZS cannot be helpful. He’s about to get told a lot more about how ZZS doesn’t want to be helpful, as ZZS kneels and begins taking off his belt.
Prince Jin watches and doesn’t say anything as ZZS strips, though when ZZS unties his innermost shirt he does stand up and look confused and concerned. Duan Pengju is watching too, but the various servant ladies are, I suspect, trying very hard to not pay attention to whatever is about to happen here.
Everything about Prince Jin’s reactions to Zhou Zishu here gets so much more interesting in the light of him yelling “I thought you were my zhiji” in ep30. Since, y’know, this show is very clear that zhiji is being used as a deliberate way to get around gay censorship. We’re also given a reflection of the Prince Jin/ZZS relationship with Xie’er/Zhao Jing, which is yet more pointed about the heavily implied intimacy. So Prince Jin’s looking at ZZS’s naked chest, and having a lot of feelings about that, and probably also having a lot of feelings about the nail wounds that ZZS has helpfully made very visible to him by cutting off the old scar tissue.
This, also, is when even Duan Pengju isn’t looking anymore; he’s looking at the floor as Prince Jin descends to stand in front of ZZS.
“I want to return to my hometown,” ZZS says, which is something I’d been meaning to poke at the Chinese for because he sure doesn’t actually want to go back to any specific place for a while. He just wants to leave and return to the jianghu. It looks like the word/phrase being translated as “return home” (还乡, huánxiāng) could also be more figuratively “retire from public life”? Which fits with what he’s asking for very well.
ZZS also says he’s already left Tian Chuang. Prince Jin is mostly just sad and confused still; he hasn’t quite gotten to angry yet.
“If I put in one more, I’m afraid I can’t get to say goodbye to you.” There’s just so much going on in ZZS’s head, and in this (clearly prepared) speech, and I am still torn about whether I think he’s actually sad about this idea in this moment. On the one hand, fuck Prince Jin, he’s a dick. On the other, ZZS bound his life up with Prince Jin for a decade or more, and he’s got a ton of feelings about the man by this point.
Prince Jin’s grief starts moving towards anger now! But it’s definitely still covering grief, even as he draws Duan Pengju’s sword to threaten ZZS with. Duan Pengju and the other servants all fall to the ground, begging for Prince Jin to calm down, which has exactly as much effect as this ever does in cdramas. (that is to say: none.)
“If you don’t want to live, I can let you die! Why go through all this trouble?” Prince Jin shouts, which is a fair point. But we’ve heard the answer to that already, from lao-Bi: Even one day of freedom is worth the utmost suffering.
That’s not what ZZS says, though. He tells Prince Jin that “You saved my life,” and then “If you grant it, I can drag this crippled body along for two more years.”
...I continue to have Questions about the timeline of the nails, but here I mostly think that ZZS is lying about the length of time he’d survive. He sure is saying two years, but that doesn’t line up with either “three years starting from the first nail” or “three years starting from the last nail”, which are the other options we’ve been given! It’d be a year and a half or three years! But whatever, liang nian is more dramatic to say or something I guess!
But hey he does also tell Prince Jin that it’s okay if Prince Jin would prefer to just kill him outright.
Prince Jin lunges at him with the sword, ZZS doesn’t flinch, and I have spent entirely too much time thinking about how clearly this is a prop sword. It presses against ZZS’s chest (Lightly, yes! But still, it should be a good blade, and sharp!) but there’s no blood. Prince Jin’s hand shakes, and then he throws the sword over ZZS’s head very dramatically because Prince Jin loves ZZS too much to kill him.
“You all lied to me! Yunxing left. Beiyuan...” (he’s almost crying now, the last vestige of Helian Yi in Prince Jin.) “Beiyuan’s gone too.” He is using a word that has the correct connotations of “dead” (没了, méile) but in the english that comes across more from his facial expressions and tone than the translation. (Yunxing is a reference back to Qi Ye and the character He Yunxing; he was indeed part of Helian Yi’s close friend group.)
Prince Jin wants to know if ZZS was lying about leaving, and if he’ll keep helping if Prince Jin spares him, and ZZS simply repeats his request for the last nail.
Just as ZZS asked lao-Bi if he’d rather take the nails than serve under ZZS, Prince Jin is asking the same thing. The scenes mirror each other beautifully. Neither of them really need an answer, because Prince Jin then declares he understands ZZS’s intentions and demands that ZZS stay alive. He promises that within those three years remaining to ZZS, he’ll ascend the throne and “show you that I’m the chosen one and will be successful no matter what”.
ZZS agrees, bows, and Prince Jin tells DPJ to “do what he says” and that he’s now the leader of Tian Chuang.
DPJ still looks to ZZS for confirmation, and ZZS stands and reveals the seventh nail that he’d somehow been holding in his hand. “Congratulations to us both,” he says, “we both got what we wanted today.”
Seriously, the power struggle that this implies has been going on between ZZS and DPJ is really interesting but gets basically no screen-time because ZZS is too busy leaving Tian Chuang to give a shit.
We cut to ZZS riding off, the title theme playing, and Prince Jin watching him leave and quoting dramatic proverbs. He promises he’ll get ZZS later.
In a nice cottage hidden in a green forest, ZZS puts on his disguise and we all make sad faces because it’ll be another four-and-a-half episodes before we see his face without a mask and his mask is so awful.
Everything’s so green and blooming in the jianghu, and ZZS turns his face up to the sun, and then we cut to Ghost Valley.
I’m pretty sure someone’s identified who the Buddhas carved into Ghost Valley’s walls are, but I don’t remember where I saw that (beyond ‘twitter, probably’) and that isn’t my field of study. Suffice to say: I’m pretty sure that information is out there somewhere, if you’re curious, and that it’s a meaningful choice!
Hanging Ghost fights a lot of generic ghosts with his wires! It’s honestly really cool! It’s a nice establishing scene of how powerful the Ten Devils are, and of the cutting wires that’ll be plot devices across other early episodes.
Hanging Ghost escapes by diving into an abyss, and we see him looking at the Soul-Winding Box in his hand for a moment (it's the source of his wires, I'm pretty sure, but also just a dramatic box in this moment). Then a red-clothed arm reaches out, grabs his throat, shoves him against the wall, and breaks his neck. Say hi to Wen Kexing, though we don’t see his face for a while.
It’s only after Hanging Ghost dies and slumps to the ground that we’re given the location card for Ghost Valley, as the scene cuts to the dramatic stony hall that’s almost unrecognisable in this dim lighting as the same place where Gu Xiang and Cao Weining’s wedding happens.
We see a very fake-looking tree with what are definitely maple leaves (it’s in a perfectly circular pool of water. amazing.), some big drum, and a red-robed figure stalking towards the edge of a cliff overlooking a number of ghosts and all the remaining Devils. (Some members of the Bureau of the Unfaithful are also here, in the back!)
The camera is so careful not to show us WKX’s face! His hair is styled to block a view from the side, and the shots are framed to only show the back of his head or cut off at the shoulders! It’s impressive work, and a fascinating choice.
Also, WKX’s got some walnuts in his hand that he’s playing with, which is a lovely nod to TYK as well.
I feel very bad for the ghost who had to report Hanging Ghost’s “treachery” to WKX. Someone had to do it, but he’s a nameless and faceless person who isn’t even claimed by any Devil in particular.
A brief shot of the top half of WKX’s face! Starring his evil red eyeliner and some sparkly nude eyeshadow that someone pointed out to me and I can’t unsee now that I know it’s there.
We see panning shots of most of the Devils (though Xisang Gui is quite out of focus), and then Changing Ghost takes the lead in scolding the nameless ghost. He asks where Hanging Ghost’s body is, and we’re told there wasn’t a body under the cliff. WKX must have hidden it, then, which isn’t surprising considering what his goal for all of this is.
WKX starts to laugh, the ghost starts begging for mercy, and WKX cracks the walnuts in his hand. He jumps down, grabs the ghost, and tosses him into the ground. This seems to kill the ghost! Poor man.
I’m still fascinated by the choice to have his bangs hiding his eyes and mouth from sight when viewed from the side. It makes him much more mysterious, and I don’t think we ever see this styling again in the show.
WKX laughs again, and Changing Ghost urges the Devils to kneel and beg forgiveness.
We then hear WKX declare that Hanging Ghost stole his Glazed Armor! People with better memories than I did for immediate info-dumps might have remembered about this from the opening info-dump but I do not believe I did on the first viewing!
Changing Ghost seems surprised that the Glazed Armor is a thing WKX has access to, but WKX doesn’t care. He orders “all 3,000 ghosts in Mount Qingya” to “go out and kill the traitor”. He even promises that he’ll promote the person who gets his Glazed Armor back to head of the Ten Devils.
Honestly one of the most interesting things about this, from a rewatch perspective, is that WKX isn’t wearing his usual hairpin here. He’s wearing a golden guan styled more like a crown.
(He also never had any Glazed Armor, of course, but that’s a revelation for later. The piece revealed to be in the Soul-Winding Box in ep6 is probably Lu Taichong’s? I think that’s the only one unaccounted for by the other Five Lake Alliance sects at that time. I suppose it might be Zhao Jing’s instead; I’ll need to pay closer attention to all the sect politics and thefts going on in these early episodes.)
Three months later, in Yue!
Such a cheerful bustling town full of ordinary people going about pleasant lives. It’s a huge contrast to all the night-time scenes we’d been given with the assassination, nails, and Ghost Valley.
The camera eventually pans over to WKX and Gu Xiang eating a meal together, and we continue to only get partial shots of WKX’s face (though we get a full visual of Gu Xiang’s). From there, we’re shown ZZS settling down in the sun at the end of a bridge and drinking wine. He’s very pleased with his life, commenting about how a beggar wouldn’t want to change places with the emperor.
And, finally, as Gu Xiang calls attention to him, we see a full shot of WKX’s face. Now his hair only frames his face instead of hiding it, we’re told his name, and he doesn’t have any of his murder-makeup on. It’s telling about how much I do not recognise faces and instead use context clues that I think I made it to the end of this episode, the first time, going “...is this the same person as the hot evil valley lord guy?” and was mostly only sure they were the same person because contextually it made more sense that way.
Anyway, even if I love his evil outfit best, these white robes are very pretty too.
WKX’s first expression towards ZZS is a smile, as amused by Gu Xiang (who thinks ZZS is a fool) as by ZZS looking up at the sun through his hand. He accurately points out that ZZS is enjoying the sun, and Gu Xiang has no idea what there could be to enjoy in the sun. Poor little ghost-girl, doesn’t know how to enjoy life yet.
She is right about ZZS looking like he could die at any time, though, even if she’s wrong about him not having had a full meal in three years.
I do love that Gu Xiang’s comfortable enough with WKX and whatever they’re doing to want to make a bet with him for fun about if ZZS’s a beggar. The stakes being that WKX will play cards with her, win or lose, is honestly adorable, as is how he smiles in response.
Zhang Chengling shows up, a servant (called xiao-Wu) trailing him! The subs give his title as “Mirror Lake Manor Young Master,” but I think more accurately it’d be “Third Young Master”? San-gongzi, regardless. It’s a different “young master” than the one given to Jiuxiao in that flashback, which was what I was most curious about.
(Also Zhang Chengling is carrying a fan in the same idle way WKX does, and now I kind of really want something where WKX teaches Chengling fan fighting skills.)
His immediate instinct is to give this beggar some money, by which we mean have his servant give ZZS money. The servant tosses money on ZZS, ZZS brushes it off, and Gu Xiang is very confused by the whole thing. So is the servant really, even as Zhang Chengling gently chastises him for throwing the money on ZZS.
Gu Xiang stands up and shouts for ZZS’s attention, offering to treat him to a meal. ZZS asks instead for a drink, and Gu Xiang continues making bets with WKX before grabbing the jug of wine from their table and jumping down to offer it to ZZS.
ZZS accepts it, drinks, and Gu Xiang reveals her own Ghost Valley-induced paranoia by asking if he’s worried that it’s poisoned in some way. He calls the wine good, toasts Gu Xiang as a kind lady, and then keeps drinking while Gu Xiang kicks the rejected coins into the air, catches them, and gives them back to Chengling (who praises her martial arts).
Gu Xiang calls ZZS picky, and ZZS says that he’s not a beggar and is simply here to enjoy the sunshine. Gu Xiang turns back to WKX, who looks over, and we’re treated to the first time WKX and ZZS’s gazes meet.
Gu Xiang’s mad about being tricked, even though she easily could’ve avoided this by asking first, and tries to snatch the wine back. ZZS doesn’t give it back, and thus begins their very silly and rather destructive duel.
ZZS’s using as little energy as possible during this whole thing (and trying to pretend to be less skilled than he really is), I’m pretty sure, and Gu Xiang is just consistently surprised by how good ZZS is. WKX, on the other hand, is fascinated. He can definitely see through ZZS’s pretense of stumbling around and acting sick and a little drunk.
Chengling tries to stop Gu Xiang from “bullying a sick person”, because he’s an utter sweetheart. “Martial artists should help the poor and the weak,” he says, too, which must be something he got from his dad. It’s a kind sentiment, and I wish we knew more about Mirror Lake Manor.
This argument doesn’t work, because Gu Xiang holds grudges and is also very much still in ghost mode, but it’s a nice attempt.
She pulls out her whip, ZZS continues dodging, and it’s all quite dramatic and destructive.
Absolutely everyone’s watching by this point, of course, and we end with Gu Xiang sending her whip towards ZZS and WKX catching it.
Or, well, we see a white-clad arm reaching out and grasping it, but it’s WKX. Of course it is. Very sweet of the episode to leave us on the first instance of WKX protecting ZZS (even though he doesn’t really need to, in this case; it does mean that the fight gets cut short, though, which ZZS likely wouldn’t have managed so easily on his own).
General Comments
There’s so much set-up in this episode! We meet every single main character, and a lot of the important secondary characters! We hear about the Glazed Armor and the World’s Armory, though it’s hard to tell how important they are yet! Prince Jin and Tian Chuang are established as a powerful threat that ZZS is running from!
This whole set-up is wonderful for introducing us to a ZZS who’s incredibly sad and angsty all the time, just to make the contrast to when he’s in the jianghu wandering around and just wanting to drink and sunbathe all the clearer. He starts to care in the jianghu in a way that he just can’t here in the midst of all his depression. The seasons even align with it: It’s snowing all the time when ZZS’s with Tian Chuang, but when we skip to three months later, in Yue, the first shot is of flowers blooming.
This episode is very focused on setting up WKX and ZZS’s backstories and the emotional states they enter the narrative with. ZZS’s the central character here, because his backstory is simpler and also he’s the orthodox entry point into the jianghu; someone who has cast aside politics and wants a simpler life. WKX’s whole deal unravels throughout the show, but ZZS’s very clear about what he wants from the start: To leave Tian Chuang and live a free and happy life for the few years remaining to him.
Exactly what those goals are change throughout the show, as does whether he wants to accept that death, but the main idea stays the same.
WKX’s complexity can’t be explained so easily, so of course he only gets one full scene and a supporting role in a few others. He’s compelling from the start, of course, because he’s beautiful and dramatic and so clearly full of secrets. It’s a different pull to continue watching than what we get from ZZS; WKX asks “do you want to learn who I am?” while ZZS asks “do you want to know if I can be happy?”
I feel like I always forget how sharp Gu Xiang’s tongue is at the start. She’s so young! She tells WKX not to look down on her for her lack of life experience, and that lack shows so strongly in everything she says and does! She grows so much throughout the show, from half a child into a young woman in her own right, and learns so much of kindness and love.
I love this introduction to Chengling; he’s a very sweet young master, and the first thing we know about him is how big his heart is. We don’t even know for sure that he’s from a martial arts family—Mirror Lake Manor doesn’t inherently imply it—but we do know that he’s impressed by martial arts and thinks highly of martial artists as peacekeepers.
Tune in next week for yet more feelings about WKX and ZZS, opinions about Mirror Lake Manor, and the plot really kicking in!
Questions!
- Please assure me I’m not the only person who took forever to be certain that the Valley Master and Wen Kexing were the same person…
- How do you think WKX set up Hanging Ghost to get in a fight and frame him for stealing the Glazed Armor he doesn't have?
- How much do you think people in the political sphere know about Tian Chuang? What official role do you think they play for Prince Jin?
- Why do you think ZZS started putting the nails in? It’s not Jiuxiao’s death, clearly, no matter how strongly the show likes implying that. (I can’t remember if this is ever outright addressed later in the show.)
- How much of that opening history lesson did you remember before rewatching this episode?
- What do you think about the whole Prince Jin’s rebellion thing? Did you remember it was something that happened?
- Do you have any opinions about or refinements of the timeline of events we’re given in this episode?
Please feel free to comment about any of those questions—or any other thoughts and feelings about the episode!—at any time! There is no time limit! The post will always be here and we'll be excited to hear what you have to share/add! <3
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