#Daqiang

[harocat]

I know the post-series Weibo posts aren’t exactly the most canon thing, but one thing I love about them is how silly Xiao Lanhua is in them. She’s so fully herself.

She’s trying every food in Lucheng on New Year’s (DFQC buys them all for her of course), and she’s being confused but entertained by the opera, and she’s drawing terrible art, and she’s back to sleeping in sometimes. Even if you don’t consider the weibo posts and just use the canon epilogue, there’s such a ‘XLH will be XLH vibe to it.’

It’s nice because we don’t get to see that much post goddess XLH where she’s not pretending to be someone she’s not. The trauma and the grief are inevitably going to make her a more serious person at times, but she was already heading down that path anyway. She’d learned to take a serious, measured view of things even before she ‘dies.’ She views her roles as Moon Queen and Goddess as something she is genuinely dedicated to.

But now we know that despite all that, at least once DFQC returns, she’s still able to be the light-hearted, indulgent, gremlin of a character she is meant to be. And that’s very important to me.

[lynne-monstr]

Tiger and Crane | The real MVPs of Episode 4 (they got married after this, they told me personally)

[xinyuehui]

八卦 Bagua, 五行 Wuxing (five elements) within LBFAD

As I was writing the post for the historical China omegaverse and how 八卦Bagua comes into play. I haven't seen mentions of Bagua within LBFAD. There's a common misconception that Xun Feng's full name is Dong Fang Xun Feng. Even Wikipedia and MDL have it written that way. However, in the Chinese credits, it's simply "Xun Feng" with no surname, "Xun" is not his surname either. The name actually references Bagua (eight trigrams).

'巽xun' is one of the eight trigrams which symbol is the wind, and wind in Chinese is "feng", hence his name Xun Feng. Xun is associated with southwest - not relevant to east(dong fang).

Xun gua element: Wood

Xun gua symbol: Wind

While Dongfang is a compound surname in China. Dong Fang Qing Cang's surname is not Dongfang. Screenshot below taken from Baidu.

["Dongfang" is not a surname, his full name has no surname, nickname is "Daqiang".]

Although his name is not directly a reference to a gua, I'm taking a wild guess that "Dong Fang" refers to the position "east", which corresponds to '震 (Zhen)' in the trigram, whose symbol is thunder. This aligns with his thunder powers.

Zhen gua element: Wood

Zhen gua symbol: Thunder

Even though both are wood elements, in the context of 五行(wuxing, five elements). They represent different aspects of the wood element. Zhen reflects the explosive, initiating energy of wood, like a tree bursting forth in spring or a thunderstorm bringing new life. Xun embodies the more subtle, pervasive influence of wood, akin to the wind that shapes landscapes over time or the steady growth of trees.

I'm not sure if any of this was intentional on the author's part, but it all aligns with their personalities. Their element being wood also ties in with the speculation that DFQC's true form is a tree or plant of some sort.

[prolestariwrites]

WIP Wednesday

Trying to work on my new fic so I thought I'd share another little bit:

Xiao Lanhua makes her way to him, and he steps aside as he points to one particular lock. It is large with an intricate pattern decorating it. Sure enough, on the surface is her name, etched in Dongfang Qingcang’s bold script.

Xiao Lanhua!

Tears rise in her eyes. Her own Moon and Mountain Festival had been anything but happy. She recalls waiting on the bridge, dread growing in her chest as she refused to believe he would abandon her. He had promised, after all. Then seeing Dongfang Qingcang arrive, slowly walking towards her, and the kiss they had shared had melted away all doubt of how he felt about her. It had been that moment she knew for sure that he loved her, and she loved him, and she would never, ever let him go.

She rubs her thumb along her name. “Daqiang,” she sighs quietly.

“Xiao Lanhua…”

Her name catches her attention, and she looks up. To her surprise, Dongfang Qingcang is here, standing a few feet away and staring out over the mountain. “Da Matou!” she says excitedly. “I didn’t know you were coming!”

“Xiao Lanhua, why? Why did you do this?”

[clj-art-blog]

When XLH hid DFQC in Simingdian, she forced him to do chores. (How i see it)

XLH: Daqiang, you are tall, so go and wipe the dust. DFQC: !?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? XLH: … DFQC: Will this make you happy? XLH: This will make me joy. DFQC: Then I'll do some general cleaning for you.

[mind-of-a-mundane]

When Daqiang wanted Fairy Orchid to be happy 🥹❤️

[cursivequestion]

What kind of food do you like to eat? Were there any of the foods in LBFAD you wished you could reach into your screen and snack on?

Oh my gosh yes!! I would really like to try Lanhua's flower soup (maybe not Daqiang's version tho lol). Stews and soups are some of my favorite foods so that one definitely caught my eye.

And the flower cakes lanhua makes look so good! I definitely like tasty treats:)

And then.... those sugar spun animals they eat in Lucheng are so fun looking!

So yeah I love stew and sweets:)

[dannyfeargas]

Greetings,

It's the light pollution grad student. For ease I've just copied my reference list. most should be accessible but some might require a log in. They're each published in a few journals so you should be able to get access without paying even if you don't have a university or other professional affiliation.

Burt, Carolyn S., Jeffrey F. Kelly, Grace E. Trankina, Carol L. Silva, Ali Khalighifar, Hank C. Jenkins-Smith, Andrew S. Fox, Kurt M. Fristrup, and Kyle G. Horton. 2023. “The Effects of Light Pollution on Migratory Animal Behavior.” Trends in Ecology & Evolution 38, no. 4 (January). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2022.12.006.

Cao, Miao, Ting Xu, and Daqiang Yin. 2023. “Understanding Light Pollution: Recent Advances on Its Health Threats and Regulations.” Journal of Environmental Sciences 127, no. May (May): 589–602. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jes.2022.06.020.

Chepesiuk, Ron. 2009. “Missing the Dark: Health Effects of Light Pollution.” Environmental Health Perspectives 117, no. 1 (January). https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.117-a20.

Dobbyn, Paula. 2024. “Environmental Groups Sue Maui Resort over Endangered Seabird Injuries.” Honolulu Civil Beat. May 3, 2024. https://www.civilbeat.org/2024/05/environmental-groups-sue-maui-resort-over-endangered-seabird-injuries/.

Grossman, Lisa. 2023. “New Data Show How Quickly Light Pollution Is Obscuring the Night Sky.” ScienceNews. January 19, 2023. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/light-pollution-night-sky-bright-citizen-science.

Marrow, Erica N, and Shawn A Hutton. 2000. “Chicago Alley Lighting Project: Final Evaluation Report | Office of Justice Programs.” Www.ojp.gov. 2000. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/chicago-alley-lighting-project-final-evaluation-report.

National Park Service. 2016. “Light Pollution Sources - Night Skies (U.S. National Park Service).” Nps.gov. 2016. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nightskies/sources.htm.

Ouyang, Jenny Q., Maaike de Jong, Roy H. A. van Grunsven, Kevin D. Matson, Mark F. Haussmann, Peter Meerlo, Marcel E. Visser, and Kamiel Spoelstra. 2017. “Restless Roosts: Light Pollution Affects Behavior, Sleep, and Physiology in a Free-Living Songbird.” Global Change Biology 23, no. 11 (June): 4987–94. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13756.

Owens, Avalon C.S., Précillia Cochard, Joanna Durrant, Bridgette Farnworth, Elizabeth K. Perkin, and Brett Seymoure. 2020. “Light Pollution Is a Driver of Insect Declines.” Biological Conservation 241, no. 108259 (January): 108259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.108259.

Smolensky, Michael H., Linda L. Sackett-Lundeen, and Francesco Portaluppi. 2015. “Nocturnal Light Pollution and Underexposure to Daytime Sunlight: Complementary Mechanisms of Circadian Disruption and Related Diseases.” Chronobiology International 32, no. 8 (September): 1029–48. https://doi.org/10.3109/07420528.2015.1072002.

Steinbach, Rebecca, Chloe Perkins, Lisa Tompson, Shane Johnson, Ben Armstrong, Judith Green, Chris Grundy, Paul Wilkinson, and Phil Edwards. 2015. “The Effect of Reduced Street Lighting on Road Casualties and Crime in England and Wales: Controlled Interrupted Time Series Analysis.” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 69, no. 11 (July): 1118–24. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2015-206012.

Happy reading!

Thank you so much!

[birbfeeder2artisticboogaloo]

noOOOOOO MY WIFE IS GOOOOONE well at least what's his face went along with her. small mercies lol :'D orchid's BORINGGG now tho, it's a shame 😩 i do love the framing of these shots with chidi nuzi & ronghao, and orchid & daqiang!!! such good sense of mise-en-scene, u LOVE to see it ;A;

[harocat]

Found this Daqiang BTS pic I hadn’t seen today, and I really love it for some reason.

[oleanderedits]

There's a couple implications in this statement but it likely got past censorship because the character of Orchid would still be a woman desiring to have a man.

Some personal thoughts on how this could be argued:

1. The awkwardness of the situation of being in a man's body would prevent anything from happening prior to a switch back. And if a guy does fall for her while she's a 'man', the situation it handled like most of the girl-pretends-to-be-a-guy-and-causes-confusing-feelings-for-the-male-love-interest romantic premises in CDrama: before anything happens it's revealed she's actually been a woman in disguise this whole time so the man can safely pursue his interest because it's still hetero.

2. It's meant to be a meta joke at Orchid's expense because: '"she's so bad at getting a man in her own body, guys, even another man's body would give her better chances, hahaha" which, if never seriously followed up on makes it easier to argue as an intended comedic bit.

Other potential IC implications of the statement not related to censorship:

1. She can use his status as Moon Supreme to order/command men to sleep with her in his body (the assumption that Shangque was implied to have thought by how he reacted to being called in)

2. Daqiang is aware he's attractive physically (and politically, probably) to both men and women (and probably beings of other genders)

3. Daqiang is assuming that because she doesn't think highly of herself as a 'catch' (assumed, because she told him several times that there are other, prettier fairies and women to woo and she has stressed that while her low status doesn't remove her from 'the list', it also doesn't mean she's likely to be picked) she'd be more inclined to use a more attractive body to finally get herself a man (but she already has one. It's him. He's so jealous she finds other guys attractive)

*after having body-switched* man in a woman's body telling a woman in a man's body that she can now find men to sleep with because she has his body!?!?!??

[utterlyhooked]

source

Talking about kisses!!!

I should cover my eyes or look away... but... WHOA!!! *fans self*

Understandable that they edited it (so much!?) for the final cut. The censors would probably go apoplectic if they did not!

* I feel like I'm intruding while watching but I can't look away!

[aikaterini-drag]

Don’t mind me. Just Setting the mood for when the 1st Epilogue airs tomorrow 💞💞💞💞

Please give us many sweet scenes of our fav couple. We are thirstyyyyyy

[pnmndd]

He's so fine😍

[himboblackdragon]

Thank you for these detailed recaps! I don’t think my commentary will fit in the tags, so I’m going to paste them here.

- a correction: Ronghao doesn’t live in the mortal realm. I think he is more worried about getting to and from Haishi

- I like how you connect his lack of explaining here with later in the series

- and yes! his arc from not caring about her to caring about her more than his own existence

- I’ve watched this show three times and I don’t remember the conversation about snow at all…is this a headcanon?

- I like the idea/insight that she is more bothered by the thought of daqiang leaving than losing her place at fountain palace

- yes I love Danyin

- the drama does explain that placing chidi’s spirit in the mortal world is a way of keeping her alive, perhaps through the power-ups provided by succeeding at tribulations. the healing power of tribulations seems to be a trope in xianxia, it shows up in Love You Seven Times and Till the End of the Moon at least

- I thought in the novel they were actually her punishment for changing her appearance and therefore going against the will of heaven. you’re right about the thousand mortal trials though. also I don’t remember her raising a-Hao from the dead in the novel. he was badly injured by DFQC and maybe she did bargain for his life but I don’t think he actually died.

Reflections on Ep. 7 of LBFAD on rewatch

Shuyu Forest, Day 10: Xiao Lanhua (XLH) drew a possessed Yingzhao away from the other fairies but is about to become Yingzhao fodder! (where is her Xilan magic when she needs it?!) Our dashing anti-hero knocks the beast unconscious, saving both of their lives once more! DongFang QingCang (DFQC) can’t believe how close he came to dying again due to the insufferable one-heart curse and XLH’s reckless actions!! Where the hell was SQ?! He is about to kill Yingzhao but XLH stops him. In her gentle way, she purifies Yingzhao of evil qi, heals him, and captures him with a Demon Pill.

As Dieyi lurks in the trees behind them, DFQC, barely glancing in her direction, blasts her shoulder with excruciating Hellfire. DFQC rebukes XLH for her soft-hearted nature which led to her placing herself in danger. “I will remove this nature from you completely so you won’t be in danger again” he says, intending to add an emotion-repressive component to their regular training sessions. In the past few days, he had spent hours with her every day trying to improve her cultivation and powers, although progress had been slow (as he complained to Shangque in ep. 6).

But it is XLH who rubs off on him instead. She explains to him gently that if she and the other fairies hadn’t cared about each other and worked together, Yingzhao would have devoured them all. Placing a soft hand on his shoulder, she says that no matter how dark and painful his past was (she has no idea!), she and others are there to help him through it.

Their tender interlude is interrupted by Changheng (CH) calling for her. XLH entreats DFQC to leave. “If CH sees me with you, he’ll think that I…” “What will he think?” he taunts her with a long stare, feeling irrationally infuriated by her infatuation with CH. “That you’ve been colluding and fornicating with a criminal?” He wants CH to believe that they are lovers, that he has irrevocably claimed her for himself, and she is off-limits to CH forever. The thought is delicious…he wants to kiss her in front of CH right now…

But for now, he lets go of this fantasy and disappears. It is too early to reveal himself to his enemies. A panicked CH grabs XLH’s arms and is relieved she is unhurt (no thanks to you CH! You’re hardly ever there when she’s in danger :P ) Appearing soon after, Ronghao (RH) now knows that XLH, the target of his failed assassination attempt, is CH’s secret crush. Lady Sansheng and Supreme Liyuan (LY) also appear and LY is very suspicious of how exactly XLH managed to subdue the rabid Yingzhao. Her priority is, of course, to protect DFQC, and she refuses to mention his presence there.

But she is worried when RH retrieves the evil qi she had dispelled and LY claims that only members of the Moon Tribe or celestial criminals could have reared such an evil force! Does that mean…that Da Qiang might have been responsible? This seem unlikely to her, but then, who else here could have done it? She does not suspect RH at all – ah RH, you are too good of an actor! Nobody ever suspects you of anything!

Fountain Palace: LY and CH believe there must still be an escaped criminal from Haotian Tower at large, and LY decides to seal off the Heavenly Spirit Lock gate until they are captured. This presents a problem for RH, who lives in the Mortal Realm and rarely visits Shiyuntian.

Arbiter Hall: That evening, XLH receives a message from Lady Sansheng congratulating her for achieving first place in the fairies’ examination that day! She is overjoyed! :D

Due to use of the evil qi, DFQC has realised that the people of Haishi who tried to kill XLH made another attempt today, and that it is connected to Lady Chidi’s destiny leaf. XLH interrupts his talk with Shangque by asking him to join her for a chat. Still suspicious of why he was in Shuyu Forest that day, she asks whether he is connected to the evil qi. DFQC never explains his actions to anyone, and so, his ambiguous denial is not enough to satisfy her. On a side note, he has this habit down to a fault! After returning to Cangyan Sea, he doesn’t explain to Xunfeng, or the elderly lady of the hunters’ camp, or to anyone, what he had been up to for the past 30,000 years. Xunfeng believes he had been living in Shiyuntian all that time, as he challenges XLH in DFQC’s body in ep. 12: “you’ve lived in Shiyuntian for 30,000 years. Have you forgotten our rules now?”

But for the first time, DFQC’s evasion backfires on him, as XLH takes him by the hand and uses the Xilan seal to make him turn himself in! He is forced to compromise his usual behaviour and explain that he had been in Shuyu forest to protect her. Yingzhao would have killed her if he hadn’t been there! “If you die, I will die too. Your life is as important to me as my own life” he tells her resentfully. Note that the value of her life to him changes over the series. At the start, it is equal to the value his life only because of the physicality of the one-heart curse. Soon after, it is equal to his life due to his growing love for her. But soon, it surpasses even that, and her life becomes much more valuable to him than his own life! In ep. 26, he tells her not to use her blood to heal or revive others, not even himself. When she dies, he cannot bear to live, despite no longer being bound by the Xilan curse. And by the end, he sacrifices all that he is…his life, his spirit, his very existence, and is prepared to sacrifice even the memory of his existence…to save her.

XLH is overwhelmed by his sweet proclamation and by the fact that he has saved her life yet again. As they sit down to tea together in their usual idyllic alcove, she reminisces about the joyful memories they have created together over the past ten days or so. Just yesterday, during one of their regular teatime chats, she had happily recounted to him how she had seen snow fall in Haishi for the first time recently. To her delight, he had created snow around Arbiter Hall for her, and a little campfire to warm themselves by as they watched the falling snowdrifts together. In this little alcove, they had eaten her flower cakes together every day, both having a fondness for sweets, and curled up with books next to each other. He had helped her with chores around Arbiter Hall whenever she had asked, folding sheets and blankets with her and even cleaning (she mentions in ep. 9 that she got him to do chores). In the lead up to the examination, he had spent hours with her every day trying to train her powers – something nobody else had ever cared enough to do. With her damaged roots, no one else had thought she could improve, except for him – he was the only one who believed in her.

Every day, Da Qiang had collected dew for her, and taken her to see the sun. Usually for the first rays of sunrise, but sometimes he let her sleep in and took her to see the late morning sun. XLH was not a fast flyer and Yunzhong Water Pavillion was a great distance away, so he would inevitably carry her there and back again ensconced in his strong arms, while she also held onto him. She enjoyed that part very much, although it made her heart race to be so close to him.

But the sweetness of these memories only made her heart ache all the more. It was bad enough that she would have to cancel her result of winning first place in the exam, as she couldn’t accept a result that wasn’t completely her own. In giving this up, she would be giving up the one dream that had kept her going over the past hundreds of years, of working at Fountain Palace. But what was even worse was the thought that one day Da Qiang might be gone. She tried to tell him how she felt, that he was like sugar to someone who was used to taking bitter medicine. She wished he could stay with her forever, that she would never have to taste bitterness again.

DFQC did not quite understand, but she had given him much to think about with her speeches on the value of emotions. As he watched her sleeping that night, a vague memory came to him once more of being tortured to the point of longing for death, to have his emotions removed so he could control Hellfire. He was not fully aware of the reasons for this, but the Moon Tribe had been facing imminent genocide at the hands of Shiyuntian and their lethal spirit-vanishing arrow formation, to which they had no defence (mentioned in ep. 16). In the end, everything his father had done, to his father’s own unimaginable suffering, had been to save DFQC’s life, as well as the existence of their people, both of which could only be protected through his son’s control of Hellfire.

Haishi: RH, twisted as he is, is trying to remember his beloved Master by forcing another helpless woman to disguise herself as Chidi. His relationship with Chidi was not romantic; rather, he revered her as the magnificent Goddess of War that she was. He had been a blind and unwanted little flute boy, abandoned by his family and by the world, who had condemned him to a miserable death. Nobody had cared to give him a scrap of food or warm clothing against the bitter cold. Lady Chidi had given him a new life, one where he had sight, power, wealth, immortality, and most importantly, was cared for. How could any other woman even come close to his formidable Master? His guards wait in the wings to carry another corpse away the moment the maidservant slips up.

Arbiter Hall, Day 11: XLH finds a firefly in her greenhouse! Luring it with food, similar to her way with Yingzhao, she captures it in the Magical Jade Firefly stone CH had given her. She plans to return it to CH while cancelling her examination result, thus giving up her dreams of both Fountain Palace and of CH. “Everything will return to its original place,” she says sadly but with acceptance.

Yujing: Danyin, in an awesome growth arc, threatens to beat XLH into a pulp if she talks about cancelling her exam result again! As a judge, CH will not hear of it either, and persuades her to keep the Firefly stone.

Haishi: RH, having tricked XLH into purifying evil qi and resurrecting an Ice Jade plant with green Xilan energy, realises that she is the Goddess of Xishan! And also, that she is under the protection of the Moon Supreme, who had used Hellfire on Dieyi, and on inspection, has escaped from Haotian Tower. Our power couple have been discovered! Rotten friend that he is, RH does not tell CH that the woman he loves is actually his fiancée :D Instead, he tells the unconscious body of his Master that they will be reunited soon. The drama never explains why Chidi is undergoing mortal tribulations. In the novel, however, they are her punishment for resurrecting RH through unnatural means. Despite her resounding victory over DFQC, the cruel ruler of Shiyuntian had condemned her to live through 1,000 mortal trials, and in each one, she would be doomed to be murdered by the one she loved D:

Here is a link back to my episode 1 review, which has been extensively revised since its original posting (contains spoilers). More reviews to come. All reviews can be viewed with the tag #lbfad ep review (hyperlinked)

[mind-of-a-mundane]

That episode explaining the root of pain and hatred Daqiang had for his father.

His father removing the root of his love tree.

I'm rewatching this but it still clenches my heart.

i felt so sorry for Daqiang in this scene. He's struggling so much bearing the pain of memories coming back feeling it all over again.

if it weren't for their responsibility to take care of the three realms, they wouldn't have to go this much length to severe their relationship intentionally.

Daqiang 🥺🥺💔💔💔