#lhl

[bbcphile]

MLC Amnesia Fic (What's Sealed Away)

It was one thing to know what his qi felt like in his meridians–although he didn’t know what his neili was called, only that it had a name–and to know that, if he started running his sword forms, his arms and legs would guide him where his mind couldn’t. Muscle memory felt familiar. Reliable. But this? This free-floating knowledge, not connected with any event, any memory, any movement or motion? Just facts appearing in his mind? Assertions he was supposed to accept unquestioningly as truth? With no memory of how he learned them? Nothing to prove their validity? He clenched his hand around his dao’s scabbard. There had to be a better way than this.

NOTES:

I had a ton of feels about the differences between DFS and a-Fei, different types of memory and what is and isn’t lost in the sheer mindfuckery that is amnesia (very loosely inspired by my own experiences with amnesia), and a desire to explain some of the weird behaviors in the amnesia arc (why a-Fei spends so much time away from everyone else in the Mountains Red arc–-which LLH justifies with a lie about a-Fei sleeping instead, why LLH never tells FDB that it’s dangerous and painful for a-Fei to get his memories back, etc.), and thus this fic was born.

TW/CW: amnesia, body horror (finding the mind control bug), panic attack (to skip the panic attack, stop at “he pressed his shaking hands against the sheets” and start again at “His pulse finally started to slow.”)

Thanks to @momosandlemonsoda for being an amazing beta reader!!

Relationship: Di Feisheng/Li Lianhua (with hints of future difanghua)

[nutcasewithaknife]

Fang Duobing character of all time. He commits identity fraud to become a detective because his mom won't let him. He imprints like a duckling onto the guy who scammed him. Onscreen kill count higher than the Jianghu's most infamous guy. On the run from a royal engagement. Absolute zero spending sense with money, a spoiled often inconsiderate brat. He's relentless and stubborn as a donkey and will get up every time he's kicked down. He bonds with his mom over the technical and practical applications of torture devices. He doesn't hesitate for a moment to choose the family that loves him. He has a celebrity crush on his shifu. He keeps getting left out of the loop. He changes his entire future plans in a matter of weeks to include the cunning old fox of a quack who is now his zhiji. He's sooo so so loved. He tries to reform the Jianghu's most evil man while the latter has amnesia. He doesn't eat watermelon. He can pick locks and is smug about it. Xiaobao my beloved

[qpjianghu]

"All these years, he’s been alone. You are the only friend I’ve seen him with."

Li Lianhua & Fang Duobing | Mysterious Lotus Casebook (2023)

[potahun]

when you've accidentally tamed your a-fei

(difang is so important to me)

[watch-grok-brainrot]

Three Times Fang Duobing was Abandoned and the One Time He Was Not

Mysterious Lotus Casebook (莲花楼）

Eps 3, 5, and 13.

[seventh-fantasy]

我怎么可能为你停留 how could i possibly stay for you

一阵风

[tiny-breadcrumbs]

They said, you can hear the bonk from across the river

[harrylights]

present day H&L but give them both long hair <3 done as a req for @loustomlinson ✨

[ruiconteur]

li lianhua's final letter to di feisheng

i hear the official eng subs weren't great so here's my own attempt at a translation (under a read more bc fuck it's Long)

edit: translated qiao wanmian’s letter to li xiangyi as well, which mirrors this one!

十年前

Ten years ago,

东海一决

during the duel of the eastern sea,

李某蒙兵器之利

this unworthy Li made benefit of whetted blade

借沉船之机与君一战犹不能胜

and capsizing boat whilst battling thee but was yet unvictorious.

君武勇之处

Thy martial prowess and valiance

世所罕见

are unexampled in this world.

心悦诚服

Mine heart delights in it, and by mine own will yields to thine eminence.

今事隔多年

The affairs of today are by many years separated.

沉疴难起

By pains alone would a lingering malady be cured.

剑断人亡

The sword hath broken—the man hath perished,

再不能赴东海之约

and can no more honour the accord to duel by the eastern sea.

谓为憾事

Such is the cause for most sincere regret.

余感念君所赠之忘川

I recall in deepest gratitude the flower of oblivion bequeathed by thee,

然终有负君之所望

yet did forsake all thou hadst longed for in the end.

江山多年

The rivers and mountains of this land have many years endured,

变化万千

their changes reckoned in the tens of thousands.

去去重去去

Partings upon partings, farewells upon farewells;

来时是来时

the coming times shall be the coming times.

方多病习我之功法

Fang Duobing hath been studied in my skills,

资质上佳

and his own endowments of the utmost excellence.

不暇多日

Shouldst he not keep idle days,

定不在明月沉西海之下

he shall surely be not beneath the bright moon sinking into the western sea.

君今无意逐鹿

Thou hast not now any desire to pursue the throne,

但求巅峰

but instead to seek the height of skill.

李某已去

This unworthy Li hath since gone;

若君意不平

if thy desire be not appeased,

足堪请其代之

he shall suit, shouldst thou bid him succeed me.

李相夷绝笔

Thus end the last words of Li Xiangyi.

footnotes

i've translated this letter into (my best attempt at) early modern english to try and reflect the formality li lianhua is writing in. also because he uses 君 for di feisheng throughout, which is a literary second-person pronoun, and i wanted to emphasise that. i know thou is actually the informal pronoun, but given how archaic it sounds in comparison to you, the actual formal pronoun in early modern english, i thought it a better fit. (for all the feihuas out there: 君 was also used by women to address their husbands, so actually i thought the informality might work in my favour here LOL)

if you saw this post before, you might have noticed that my translation of the third and fourth lines changed slightly lmao. ty to @/presumenothing for the reminder and ofc my fav @/bat1lau4can4 for talking through it with me and being the 文言文 expert i need <3

for the purposes of my goal in the above footnote, i've had to take some creative liberties in my choice of vocabulary. for example: unexampled is not quite an accurate translation of 罕见, which actually means rarely seen.

i phrased 心悦诚服 as mine heart ... yields but that's a somewhat liberal interpretation of the phrase lol. there is a heart in it; it's just maybe not the thing that's yielding, to be precise. close enough imo though!

江山 literally translates to rivers and mountains but is often used as a metaphor for a country as a whole, hence my translating it as the rivers and mountains of this land.

grammar is not as important as Vibes.

逐鹿, which i've translated as pursue the throne, literally means to chase the deer, and stems from the 《史记》 / records of the grand historian.

绝笔, rendered here as last words, specifically refer to the last words written by one before their death.

[peridot-tears]

NARRATIVE FOIL THIS NARRATIVE FOIL THAT HOW ABOUT DI FEISHENG AND SHAN GUDAO ARE NARRATIVE FOILS BECAUSE BOTH WERE MALADJUSTED KIDS WHOSE CARETAKERS WEREN'T GREAT AT CARETAKING THEM AND THEY GREW INTO MARTIAL ARTS ADDICTS WHO WERE DETERMINED TO BE THE BEST EXCEPT DI FEISHENG DESPITE LITERALLY BEING THE ONE RAISED IN A DEATH CULT STILL DEVELOPED THE MORAL COMPASS TO PLAY FAIR WITH LI XIANGYI AND SIGN A PEACE TREATY WHEREAS SHAN GUDAO'S DEEPLY-ROOTED INFERIORITY COMPLEX DROVE HIM TO JUST MANIPULATE EVERYONE INTO WARFARE INCLUDING HIS OWN BROTHER

[emmytheferret]

drew a xiaobao for my warmup today

[bbcphile]

Is anyone else sad because Fang Duobing has a "Waiting For Li Lianhua On the Beach" outfit?

(On the left is the outfit in episode 40 after reading Li Lianhua's letter. On the right is the outfit in the special episode when he and Di Feisheng show up on the donghai beach to look for him 3 months later.)

While we're on the subject of costumes, @the-surreptitious-albatross and I just realized how different this outfit of Fang Duobing's is from his earlier outfits.

Here are some examples of a normal FDB outfit:

He prefers pastels, and his belts and wrist guards are often the same color as the pastel or a slightly darker version (and here, they have gold decorations).

Zooming in shows that he prefers his embroidery designs to be swirly and his hair accessories to be braided and color-matched or elaborate and silver (but still on the delicate side).

But check out this outfit: the embroidery is more angular and less swirly, as is the hair piece, and it and the belt and wrist guards are black with silver instead of matching the pastel of his outfit or being a slightly darker shade of it.

You know whose style he's echoing with all these changes? Who else tends to favor black wrist guards and belts with more angular designs?

Di Feisheng.

The images below make it a bit clearer: DFS's belt has gold decorations compared FDB's silver, and the shape is different, but you can see the similarities in the wrist guard design in particular.

It's not obvious how much their costumes are tying them together in this scene because we don't ever see them in the same frame; the camera constantly keeps them apart, as does the blocking of the scene, since DFS is on the rocks and FDB is on the beach.

That changes in the special episode when they both arrive on the beach at the same time, and DFS is wear his sect leader robes.

Here they are, in the same frame at last, and side by side, and you can see even more clearly with this DFS outfit how much the style of FDB's belt, wrist guards, and hair accessory is echoing his. The wrist guard pattern looks almost the same in these pictures! And the cut of the outer sleeveless robe is also very similar, which visually pairs them even more.

All this to say, FDB's clothing style shifts, the gentle swirls sharpened into points by his worry and grief for Li Lianhua, and it breaks my heart.

But the fact that he's visually echoing Di Feisheng now, that they're slowly becoming a matched set, is starting to put the pieces back together again.

[nutcasewithaknife]

Di Feisheng is just such a character. Assigned Final Boss by the entire world. Arguably has the strongest code of honour of anyone in the entire show. His blade is called 'blade'. He doesn't care about his sect or the throne, he only cares about being swordsman #1 by defeating his beloved arch nemesis. The only one he trusts with his life is said arch nemesis. He doesn't bat an eye at being called 'A-Fei'. He's so good at lying. He will bring down the house fighting a brat over who gets the spare room. He has the most glorious hair in a show full of people with glorious hair. He has a major arc about regaining agency over himself and escaping abuse. He loses all his memories and still recognises his ex's bullshitting instantly. He cannot taste food except when he loses his memories and thus his usual inhibitions. He's been forced to fight to survive all his life and still finds unmatched joy in being a swordsman. He will tow his boyfriend up a hill with a bamboo stick. I love him.

[qpjianghu]

–ocean vuong [x]

Li Lianhua | Mysterious Lotus Casebook (2023)

[potahun]

Mysterious lotus casebook crew said ‘we are going to write a show about grieving the living and saying goodbye and how nothing is as it seems and the fleetingness of human life and we are going to make this the FUNNIEST fucking show ever’ and they did. It’s an A+++++ comedy

[lei-llustrations]

JIU ZAI JIANG HU ZHI SHANG, SHAO NIAN QING KUANG

This is a fucking shitpost that got OUT OF HAND