Oh hi, it's me with my giant-ass comment. xD And one more question I didn't answer before because I didn't remember how it went. :D

"Does Chu Shuzhi really think Guo Changcheng's accumulating merits is a pointless waste of time, or is he just bitter because the Netherworld screwed him?"

According to GCC "Chu Shuzhi hadn’t really seemed like he was trying to convince Guo Changcheng; rather, it had seemed like he was just grumbling about his own circumstances." But also he's not wrong - if they can screw people over like that, it kinda does mean that its pointless to even bother. But GCC doesn't do good deeds to collect merits, so to him it's not pointless. :)

XIAO-WEI! ♡♡♡ I want Zhao Yunlan to be holding Shen Wei in this scene in the drama too plz.

"Even Winter Jasmine peeked out from the vines wrapped around the bridge and peered at the others, completely lost."

Why is this image so cute. :D :D

"Winter Jasmine cried out in shock. “Crow Elder!”

Fourth Uncle held her back."

This is what the entire connection between Ying Chun and Ya Qing in the drama was built on, isn't it. :D

"In that moment, he was the epitome of the lazy elegance unique to felines. One could almost forget that he was a furry sphere of a cat."

I'm loving DQ being spherical and majestic at the same time. :D And then after the crows leave "He suddenly looked like a desolate stray cat." I love how his emotions are visually expressed! (And the Crow Elder being mostly civil and giving him the information! I guess they
don't hate the other yao this much, or they just hate them as a collective, but talking to an individual one is mostly fine?)

I already squeed about some of the Lunar New Year's Eve party in my other comment (drunk Xiao Guo MY BELOVEDDDD, Weilan thigh pillow asdfghfdjskl;; AND ALL THE SOFT), but this is also soooooo cute and precious:

"With great joy, lao-Wu from the gatehouse and his daytime colleague with the penchant for carving bones were finally able to be together. Lao-Wu happily toasted lao-Li with a stick of incense, and the other man returned the toast with alcohol in a bone china cup. Lao-Li always seemed to have a nearly unhealthy obsession when it came to bones."

Also Wang Zheng who "laughed, humming a little tune from a faraway time" needs to be somewhere on the list of my favorite moments too!

"The Flower Yao’s Nectar of a Thousand Essences had proved to be as miraculous as he’d hoped. His vision had already started to return"

I'm happy for him and all, but DAMN the storyline of getting his vision back in the drama was a million times more satisfying. :D (The other parts of the blindness arc in the novel are either really similar or really cool in their own way, Shen Wei's inner colors especially! ♡ But the resolution? Gimme me the drama version. :D)

"Despite being unable to distinguish between six dots and nine dots on the mahjong tiles, he still squinted determinedly and ignored his current disability. With his face pressed close to the table, he was backseat driving Daqing. “Pung, pung, pung!”

Daqing shoved him with a paw. “Pung, your ass! Shen-laoshi, hurry and lead this noisy donkey away—four bamboo!”"

LOL AW I love determined and squinty Zhao Yunlan!! I love snarky DQ calling Shen Wei to deal with him!! I love everyone so much. :D :D

"Daqing’s heart shattered as he lost custody of his dried fish. Furious, he roared, “Hurry and drag him away!”

Shen Wei obligingly dragged Zhao Yunlan away. In his hands, a full-grown man or a fifty-kilogram lacquer box seemed equally weightless, as easy to carry around as a thin old book."

Lololol, is Zhu Hong even going to eat his dried fish or what. xD

And AWWW, why is the Shen Wei thing so sweet. ♡♡♡ He's part of the team now, and also carrying Zhao Yunlan around is so precious. :D (I really want to mention a future scene here but I'm not gonna. xD It's not big or anything, but kinda too funny to spoil, at least imo. :D)

"Zhao Yunlan shut his eyes, completely blissed out."

Okay, I need to go back to commenting on the SOFT WEILAN just for this. ♡♡♡ His head on Shen Wei's thigh, his temples being massaged, ahhhhhhh. ♡♡♡ *MELTS* (Also, he continues to be a cat. :D)

"He was long since accustomed to passing his days like that, but now a feeling washed over him: the feeling that he couldn’t bear a single day more of it."

AW. :( *cuddles Shen Wei*

"Dawn had just broken, and the entire street was filled with the cacophony of firecrackers. Inside, the mahjong players shouted at each other while little ghosts tried to avoid the light of sunrise."

I remember reading this for the first time and finding it really calming, and it's all so memorable to me - the harmony between the inside and the outside, and the first snow, and the entire vibe of the first morning of the new year, so lovely. ♡♡♡

"Daqing poked his head in, saw that the floor was a mess, and pulled his paws back, afraid of being roped into doing work." / "You’re the only one left again. Kids these days, they’re getting more and more disrespectful."

These are, like, a paragraph apart, lolol - so leaving Lao-Li to work alone is disrespectful, but not wanting to do the work while being there is not disrespectful. xD xD

"“Li-ge! Let me help you! I’ll—”"

Mid-sentence, he tripped over a chair leg and fell on his face."

I LOVE THIS DISASTER SWEETHEART.

"He logged into the “Lord Meow Number One in the World” account and started idly taking selfies with the webcam and uploading them. Meanwhile, lao-Li and xiao-Guo quietly dealt with the sad state of the office."

DQ is not being disrespectful at all, not even a little bit. ;D And the entire concept of his Weibo account is delightful. :D :D

"Furthermore, there was something deeply strange about his expression: he looked a little haggard, but also somehow derisive.

Guo Changcheng perked up at once. “Chu-ge!”"

You see this and you perk up, that totally makes sense. xD xD (I mean, it does when you're GCC and have a crush. :D)

"It was as though Chu Shuzhi had lost his soul. He just let Guo Changcheng take what was in his hands with absolutely no reaction."

Oh, ouch. It is one of the most concerning things he could do, ngl.

"With Zhao Yunlan stuck to him like a barnacle" is my favorite image rn, especially considering that he's doing it entirely on purpose. :D

"Shen Wei was multitasking, looking for the requested file with one hand while cushioning Zhao Yunlan’s head with the other to keep him from banging it on the coffee table. File found, he tucked a cushion behind Zhao Yunlan’s head."

Why always SO SWEET, ahhh. ♡♡♡ This whole scene is so SOFT (idec that Zhao Yunlan is pretending to be drunk the whole time, again xD), and vaguely horny Shen Wei is wonderful, and also, you know me by now: "He gently caressed Zhao Yunlan’s lips with his thumb." *DED* ♡♡♡

"Zhao Yunlan had too many thoughts, messy and unrefined, and sometimes his imagination was too far-ranging."

I like this description of his brain. :D

"He was beginning to regret opening the door at all. But the fact remained that it was open"

This reasoning too! I just always enjoy how he thinks. :D

"A single fleeting glance and the melody of my heart faltered."

I love the whole Kunlun painting thing and its description, and also this is always so funny to me because of their actual first meeting. :D

"Shen Wei left without a backward glance, anxious fury filling his mind with hundreds of possible scenarios."

Seeee, mutual stalking and shrines and looking for used underwear? You do you, I guess. xD But this though? Especially with how it escalates before he can calm down? Especially while he thinks that Zhao Yunlan is unconscious/asleep? I'm a bit hmpfff that ZYL would worry SW like this and make him think that something was actually wrong, even if it was temporary.

"Teasing Shen Wei had already become a habit. Most of the time, Shen Wei ignored it, but this time, he walked over and swept Zhao Yunlan into his arms. Burying his face in the dip of Zhao Yunlan’s shoulder, he slipped his arms around Zhao Yunlan’s waist, pulling him away from the windowsill and closing the window."

AWWWW, but rly, don't make him worry like this, even if you get a hug out of it. xD

[skipping the entire mother thing, I didn't have a good time the first time around]

"His courage must surely have been cut off at birth along with his umbilical cord. He was afraid of everything, so how could he not fear the unpredictable Chu Shuzhi? But in this secluded, quiet alleyway, even as he looked at Chu Shuzhi’s fangs and found it all too easy to picture them stained with blood, the appropriate fear just never came.

In fact, the thought that flashed through his mind was incredibly bizarre: No wonder Chu-ge doesn’t eat peas."

This is really sweet, and really weird indeed, and I just love the whole 'GCC following CSZ and making sure that he's safe NO MATTER WHAT' thing, and how much of it they took for the drama. :D

"The hand that had gripped Guo Changcheng’s neck suddenly lifted and came to rest on that messy bird’s nest atop his head. Guo Changcheng shivered instinctively. Chu Shuzhi patted the top of the man’s head, voice calmer and a bit tired now"

Damn, the gays are all being really weird at each other in these chapters (and also in general, but in these chapters specifically). xD xD

"Your ears are thin, which means your youth was full of troubles."

This whole concept that the shape of your face can predict your future, I've never heard of anything like that before, is it a thing? Like, people who look similar would have the same future, it doesn't exactly hold up. :P (Also this specific line threw me for a loop for a second because I was like 'but your ears can't just randomly change shape because of what happened?', lol, but I guess this also just predicts your future, at birth, that your youth is going to be full of troubles.)

"Probably some garbage like ‘he hasn’t collected enough merits.’ As if there’s even a quota. They never name a target for how many merits someone has to collect, and they’re the ones who say whether the target’s been hit or not."

"So when they finally manage to shackle someone with real abilities, of course they have to squeeze every last drop out of him. Prolonging the sentence on the merit shackles seems to be normal practice."

Oh, fuck the Netherworld.

"Shen-laoshi’s scope and depth of knowledge are as impressive as his efforts to hide them."

I love how Daqing phrased that, and he's not wrong at all. :D

"Someone wrecked Chu Shuzhi’s cultivation for no reason, and you reap what you sow. That’s how the world works. Of course he was going to take revenge."

I find it so cool that this story is the other side of the 'don't mess with things you don't understand because they will fuck you up even if what you did was an accident'. Normally the POV is the person who angered some mysterious ancient being, not the being who is just really pissed off.

"Before a little yao can cultivate a human form, the thing they most fear encountering is a child under seven."

This is so messed up and chilling, and again such a cool, unusual POV!