Yay, I read it now. :D :D (My answer re: my favorite Weilan moment definitely stays the same - HAIR! ♡♡♡)
"It’s dangerous! Precarious! If he runs into a deadly case… Aiya!"
I love how the actual answer to this rhetorical question is 'he did, many times, and he zapped the problem to smithereens with his stick at least twice'. :D
"Only now did Guo Changcheng finally process what he was hearing: his acceptance into the Special Investigations Department really had been a mistake all along, just as he’d suspected. Given his below-average intelligence and people skills, no relative with even a shred of self-awareness would’ve ever recommended him to such a prestigious position."
I focused on the second sentence before, and how everyone (including himself) underestimates him, but now I find the "just as he’d suspected" really heartbreaking for him too. Like, he found his place in the world, but he's always suspected that it's not really his place and he doesn't deserve it, and now he's being proven right? OUCH.
"“And your Director Zhao didn’t say anything about it? He just let you stay on and become a full-time employee?”
Guo Changcheng’s chest swelled with pride."
!!! ♡ I just adore the whole part where he just gushes about how much he loves every single person at the SID. It's so precious and he's so happy to have found them. ♡♡♡ And I'm just like 'aw, sweetheart, you DO belong there, never doubt it'!!
"He felt around his bedside table and then his phone was pressed into his hand."
Shen Wei's attentiveness, aw. ♡
"Shen Wei was beside him at once, holding him close in a supportive embrace."
"Instantly, Shen Wei’s arms closed around him again."
♡♡♡! I'm just melting about Weilan again, nothing to see here.
"Quickly moving to support his waist, Shen Wei pulled Zhao Yunlan’s gaping pajama top tightly closed around him."
This is so funny to me. xD Like, Zhao Yunlan being in danger is the only possible situation when Shen Wei could ever forget to be flustered about his bare chest. xD (And even that doesn't always work - see: shower. xD) But what makes it the funniest is that Zhao Yunlan IS actively trying to be seductive here. :D
"It was possible that Zhao Yunlan had been a tad calcium-deficient to begin with"
Lol, you think? xD Srsly so glad that Shen Wei is feeding him now even if Shen Wei also comes with side effects.
"Shen Wei was one of the gui, so if the gui hadn’t been released until after the mountain fell, Shen Wei probably wasn’t in a position to know what had really happened."
The benefit of the doubt he's giving Shen Wei is so precious. Like, he's thinking this while "Shen Wei froze, suddenly looking anywhere but at Zhao Yunlan", oh you sweet summer child.
"I saw how you fell off a large rock into the water the first time we met."
I just find it really cute that this is the first thing he says about their first meeting. :D
"Shen Wei resumed massaging, working on Zhao Yunlan’s shoulder while Zhao Yunlan cuddled up to his hair and fantasized."
I've squeed about the hair scene in general already, but I also want to squee about this specifically, it's so soft and hot, and indeed fanfic-levels of indulgent, and I'm 100% here for it. :D ♡♡♡
"If I looked after Chiyou’s descendants because he entrusted them to me and watched generations of the Dragon tribe grow from tiny worms into huge divine beasts, could I really have been capable of blinding one of them and just letting it die in the collision? It would be like blinding Daqing now and using him as a tool."
I just really, really love that THIS of all things is where he starts doubting what he saw. He would never, ever hurt someone he promised to protect, that's the bare minimum, that's the core of who he is. ♡
"You said that the unending torrents of rain had robbed even the great mountains and rivers of their beauty. I didn’t mind, though. They were still beautiful to me—the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen."
Aw. AW. Just the fact that this was Shen Wei's first time seeing the outside world, and how much he loved it, it's so wistful and lovely.
"There’s no place for the likes of me between the earth and the sky. You brought me out of the Place of Great Disrespect to protect me, not to do me harm."
Now I suddenly saw this line not as 'I'm a freak hybrid who doesn't belong anywhere' but as 'there's no place for the gui and you gave me one'! Because it says "between the earth and the sky". And the place for him was below the earth.
"“The time we spent together was all the life I needed; having had that, I would’ve died willingly.”
“Shut up,” Zhao Yunlan said. “Don’t talk such nonsense.”
Shen Wei leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to Zhao Yunlan’s temple, taking his hand."
I love how they're both just not having it when the other one talks about dying, lol, but mostly in this scene I just love the casual physical intimacy. ♡ So much soft, in the middle of a conversation, which continues.
"“Now, little beauty, tell me how you seduced me with your youthful body and gorgeous face all those years ago. I want all the details.”
The request struck Shen Wei as unbearably absurd."
I know it's largely about Shen Wei deflecting by pretending to be innocent and shy (and lol at "Unable to maintain the pretense of propriety in the face of this evidence" xD), but also it IS absurd, on the grounds that this is not what happened. :P
“Zhao Yunlan is unspeakably cunning. He’s deceived you more than once. Perhaps he simply managed to piece together enough to bluff and frighten the Chaos King of the Gui.”
Wow, kudos to the king for figuring this out.
“As long as the Mountain God remains within the cycle, his spirit will not be released. The legends spoke true: our little tricks won’t be enough to awaken him.” The Q in’guang King gave a low sigh. “It seems our only choice is to sacrifice this mortal body of the Mountain God.”
One question is how do they expect to get away with it (no idea!), but another question is - what? xD How exactly? Some specific way to sacrifice his body? Because he's died countless times and that didn't break him out out the reincarnation cycle. Or maybe if he dies now, after he's mostly-awaken, he will automatically leave the cycle?
"He hadn’t even registered that something about his dad had been off. What kind of father, knowing full well that his son’s gay lover was in the apartment above, would so coldly and haughtily say, as if he were some kind of gentleman, that “he’s unprepared,” and that they could “make proper plans at a later date”?"
When I first read the other scene, I was like 'wow, in this one moment his father is not that bad, actually giving him some freedom and space', and then it turned out that this was the exact moment that makes Zhao Yunlan start doubting if that was his real father. And it's framed as cold and haughty now, but it really didn't sound like that in the original scene. So I basically read this one as 'my father was not enough of an asshole for a second there, something is wrong'. xD
“Didn’t you play with that as a kid? Why haven’t you thrown it out? What are you taking it out for?”
This is such a mean reaction. Just so needlessly, gratuitously mean.
“Zhao Yunlan!” Shen Wei fumed.
“Present!”
I'm not big on this entire scene, but I find this reply really funny. xD
"“How many others have you joked with like this?” Shen Wei’s voice seemed frozen, his words catching in his throat. His pale lips trembled. “Do you know how many times I’ve almost… I’ve…”
The rest of what he’d started to say was likely unfit for polite company. Shen Wei, ever proper, choked it back with difficulty."
Okay, idk what he actually started to say though? That he almost threw himself at Zhao Yunlan's past reincarnations? xD
"He took out a small radio-like thing, then pulled a few screwdrivers of varying sizes from the toolbox he always kept in the car and started tinkering. His fingers were unusually nimble. It took only a moment’s observation to determine that he had been one of those kids who secretly messed around with a lot of wires and caused fire hazards at school."
This is where his ~skills~ with the bomb came from in the drama, isn't it. :D :D
"Where others put up a facade around outsiders, then relaxed and revealed their true selves with an intimate partner, Shen Wei was the polar opposite. He was accustomed to firmly locking himself down in front of Zhao Yunlan, terrified of his true nature being even slightly perceived.
Even now that they had bared themselves wholly to each other, Shen Wei sometimes still had no idea how to speak to Zhao Yunlan. How could he, when he always felt so unbearably filthy and unworthy?"
These are literally canon lines but I still feel like they're not true? I know it says in the second line that it's not fully true anymore, now it only happens sometimes (thankfully, because it's just really sad), but he was always hiding his true nature from everyone equally, as far as I can see? Literally even before he met Kunlun he was already trying to hide it. So maybe he also tries this hard to hide it from Zhao Yunlan (but I feel like it's not even always the case?), but he doesn't get to relax when he's around other people either. Is it simply just unreliable narrator, and it feels harder to hide it from ZYL because it would feel worse to potentially reveal something around him than around other people? Eh, I'm just confused. Poor Shen Wei tho, either way. :(
"I installed the signal in his phone. Even after all these years, he’s still using the same one,” Zhao Yunlan said. “I was still in middle school, so my technical skills weren’t the best."
In a book with all the supernatural stuff, this is the most unrealistic detail to me. xD The year is 2013 (it will be stated later), Zhao Yunlan's middle school years are 15-ish years ago - someone using a phone from the late 90s at that point is... xD Idk, even if his father doesn't have a smartphone by choice, I feel like there are still better options. Is it Nokia 3310? It's from 2000, a bit late for Zhao Yunlan to be in middle school, but at least it's something that people still use to this day. xD
"In fact, when he reached the bottom of the stairs, he took the time to nod at a waitress, maybe twenty years old, who was carrying some tea sets. For some reason, her hands shook at the sight of him. A teapot fell to the floor and shattered."
Huh, why? Because he's scary or because he's hot? xD Or something else entirely, like, she's somehow related to what is happening?
"Rather than taking a seat at the tea table, he sat in one of the spare chairs that were a few steps off to the side. He washed a new cup for himself, brewed the tea, and poured, going through the motions with the smoothness of passing clouds or flowing water. He kept his eyes lowered, sending a clear signal that he wasn’t going to butt into the conversation."
His entire VIBE, 'idgaf, I'm not involved', it's amazing.
"The man glanced at Shen Wei, humming as he sipped his tea."
He's HUMMING too, Shen Wei ily.
"There was a limit to Zhao Yunlan’s patience. Light gleamed in his hands as his speech quickened; the Soul-Guarding Whip flashed in and out of view between his palms."
This is a really cool image!
"Zhao Yunlan drank the high-quality tea in one gulp, as if it were water."
And this is the 'ceremony' with Ye Zun in the drama? :D :D
"That unfamiliar gaze skimmed over him and landed on Shen Wei, who was idly flipping through a magazine."
Asdfgfhdjskl, Shen Wei is really, really making a show out of how much he doesn't care even a little bit while exploding on the inside, it's glorious.
*ignores Zhao Yunlan's actual father because I still just want to yeet him into the sun, even just based on these few lines*
no subject
"It’s dangerous! Precarious! If he runs into a deadly case… Aiya!"
I love how the actual answer to this rhetorical question is 'he did, many times, and he zapped the problem to smithereens with his stick at least twice'. :D
"Only now did Guo Changcheng finally process what he was hearing: his acceptance into the Special Investigations Department really had been a mistake all along, just as he’d suspected. Given his below-average intelligence and people skills, no relative with even a shred of self-awareness would’ve ever recommended him to such a prestigious position."
I focused on the second sentence before, and how everyone (including himself) underestimates him, but now I find the "just as he’d suspected" really heartbreaking for him too. Like, he found his place in the world, but he's always suspected that it's not really his place and he doesn't deserve it, and now he's being proven right? OUCH.
"“And your Director Zhao didn’t say anything about it? He just let you stay on and become a full-time employee?”
Guo Changcheng’s chest swelled with pride."
!!! ♡ I just adore the whole part where he just gushes about how much he loves every single person at the SID. It's so precious and he's so happy to have found them. ♡♡♡ And I'm just like 'aw, sweetheart, you DO belong there, never doubt it'!!
"He felt around his bedside table and then his phone was pressed into his hand."
Shen Wei's attentiveness, aw. ♡
"Shen Wei was beside him at once, holding him close in a supportive embrace."
"Instantly, Shen Wei’s arms closed around him again."
♡♡♡! I'm just melting about Weilan again, nothing to see here.
"Quickly moving to support his waist, Shen Wei pulled Zhao Yunlan’s gaping pajama top tightly closed around him."
This is so funny to me. xD Like, Zhao Yunlan being in danger is the only possible situation when Shen Wei could ever forget to be flustered about his bare chest. xD (And even that doesn't always work - see: shower. xD) But what makes it the funniest is that Zhao Yunlan IS actively trying to be seductive here. :D
"It was possible that Zhao Yunlan had been a tad calcium-deficient to begin with"
Lol, you think? xD Srsly so glad that Shen Wei is feeding him now
even if Shen Wei also comes with side effects."Shen Wei was one of the gui, so if the gui hadn’t been released until after the mountain fell, Shen Wei probably wasn’t in a position to know what had really happened."
The benefit of the doubt he's giving Shen Wei is so precious. Like, he's thinking this while "Shen Wei froze, suddenly looking anywhere but at Zhao Yunlan", oh you sweet summer child.
"I saw how you fell off a large rock into the water the first time we met."
I just find it really cute that this is the first thing he says about their first meeting. :D
"Shen Wei resumed massaging, working on Zhao Yunlan’s shoulder while Zhao Yunlan cuddled up to his hair and fantasized."
I've squeed about the hair scene in general already, but I also want to squee about this specifically, it's so soft and hot, and indeed fanfic-levels of indulgent, and I'm 100% here for it. :D ♡♡♡
"If I looked after Chiyou’s descendants because he entrusted them to me and watched generations of the Dragon tribe grow from tiny worms into huge divine beasts, could I really have been capable of blinding one of them and just letting it die in the collision? It would be like blinding Daqing now and using him as a tool."
I just really, really love that THIS of all things is where he starts doubting what he saw. He would never, ever hurt someone he promised to protect, that's the bare minimum, that's the core of who he is. ♡
"You said that the unending torrents of rain had robbed even the great mountains and rivers of their beauty. I didn’t mind, though. They were still beautiful to me—the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen."
Aw. AW. Just the fact that this was Shen Wei's first time seeing the outside world, and how much he loved it, it's so wistful and lovely.
"There’s no place for the likes of me between the earth and the sky. You brought me out of the Place of Great Disrespect to protect me, not to do me harm."
Now I suddenly saw this line not as 'I'm a freak hybrid who doesn't belong anywhere' but as 'there's no place for the gui and you gave me one'! Because it says "between the earth and the sky". And the place for him was below the earth.
"“The time we spent together was all the life I needed; having had that, I would’ve died willingly.”
“Shut up,” Zhao Yunlan said. “Don’t talk such nonsense.”
Shen Wei leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to Zhao Yunlan’s temple, taking his hand."
I love how they're both just not having it when the other one talks about dying, lol, but mostly in this scene I just love the casual physical intimacy. ♡ So much soft, in the middle of a conversation, which continues.
"“Now, little beauty, tell me how you seduced me with your youthful body and gorgeous face all those years ago. I want all the details.”
The request struck Shen Wei as unbearably absurd."
I know it's largely about Shen Wei deflecting by pretending to be innocent and shy (and lol at "Unable to maintain the pretense of propriety in the face of this evidence" xD), but also it IS absurd, on the grounds that this is not what happened. :P
“Zhao Yunlan is unspeakably cunning. He’s deceived you more than once. Perhaps he simply managed to piece together enough to bluff and frighten the Chaos King of the Gui.”
Wow, kudos to the king for figuring this out.
“As long as the Mountain God remains within the cycle, his spirit will not be released. The legends spoke true: our little tricks won’t be enough to awaken him.” The Q in’guang King gave a low sigh. “It seems our only choice is to sacrifice this mortal body of the Mountain God.”
One question is how do they expect to get away with it (no idea!), but another question is - what? xD How exactly? Some specific way to sacrifice his body? Because he's died countless times and that didn't break him out out the reincarnation cycle. Or maybe if he dies now, after he's mostly-awaken, he will automatically leave the cycle?
"He hadn’t even registered that something about his dad had been off. What kind of father, knowing full well that his son’s gay lover was in the apartment above, would so coldly and haughtily say, as if he were some kind of gentleman, that “he’s unprepared,” and that they could “make proper plans at a later date”?"
When I first read the other scene, I was like 'wow, in this one moment his father is not that bad, actually giving him some freedom and space', and then it turned out that this was the exact moment that makes Zhao Yunlan start doubting if that was his real father. And it's framed as cold and haughty now, but it really didn't sound like that in the original scene. So I basically read this one as 'my father was not enough of an asshole for a second there, something is wrong'. xD
“Didn’t you play with that as a kid? Why haven’t you thrown it out? What are you taking it out for?”
This is such a mean reaction. Just so needlessly, gratuitously mean.
“Zhao Yunlan!” Shen Wei fumed.
“Present!”
I'm not big on this entire scene, but I find this reply really funny. xD
"“How many others have you joked with like this?” Shen Wei’s voice seemed frozen, his words catching in his throat. His pale lips trembled. “Do you know how many times I’ve almost… I’ve…”
The rest of what he’d started to say was likely unfit for polite company. Shen Wei, ever proper, choked it back with difficulty."
Okay, idk what he actually started to say though? That he almost threw himself at Zhao Yunlan's past reincarnations? xD
"He took out a small radio-like thing, then pulled a few screwdrivers of varying sizes from the toolbox he always kept in the car and started tinkering. His fingers were unusually nimble. It took only a moment’s observation to determine that he had been one of those kids who secretly messed around with a lot of wires and caused fire hazards at school."
This is where his ~skills~ with the bomb came from in the drama, isn't it. :D :D
"Where others put up a facade around outsiders, then relaxed and revealed their true selves with an intimate partner, Shen Wei was the polar opposite. He was accustomed to firmly locking himself down in front of Zhao Yunlan, terrified of his true nature being even slightly perceived.
Even now that they had bared themselves wholly to each other, Shen Wei sometimes still had no idea how to speak to Zhao Yunlan. How could he, when he always felt so unbearably filthy and unworthy?"
These are literally canon lines but I still feel like they're not true? I know it says in the second line that it's not fully true anymore, now it only happens sometimes (thankfully, because it's just really sad), but he was always hiding his true nature from everyone equally, as far as I can see? Literally even before he met Kunlun he was already trying to hide it. So maybe he also tries this hard to hide it from Zhao Yunlan (but I feel like it's not even always the case?), but he doesn't get to relax when he's around other people either. Is it simply just unreliable narrator, and it feels harder to hide it from ZYL because it would feel worse to potentially reveal something around him than around other people? Eh, I'm just confused. Poor Shen Wei tho, either way. :(
"I installed the signal in his phone. Even after all these years, he’s still using the same one,” Zhao Yunlan said. “I was still in middle school, so my technical skills weren’t the best."
In a book with all the supernatural stuff, this is the most unrealistic detail to me. xD The year is 2013 (it will be stated later), Zhao Yunlan's middle school years are 15-ish years ago - someone using a phone from the late 90s at that point is... xD Idk, even if his father doesn't have a smartphone by choice, I feel like there are still better options. Is it Nokia 3310? It's from 2000, a bit late for Zhao Yunlan to be in middle school, but at least it's something that people still use to this day. xD
"In fact, when he reached the bottom of the stairs, he took the time to nod at a waitress, maybe twenty years old, who was carrying some tea sets. For some reason, her hands shook at the sight of him. A teapot fell to the floor and shattered."
Huh, why? Because he's scary or because he's hot? xD Or something else entirely, like, she's somehow related to what is happening?
"Rather than taking a seat at the tea table, he sat in one of the spare chairs that were a few steps off to the side. He washed a new cup for himself, brewed the tea, and poured, going through the motions with the smoothness of passing clouds or flowing water. He kept his eyes lowered, sending a clear signal that he wasn’t going to butt into the conversation."
His entire VIBE, 'idgaf, I'm not involved', it's amazing.
"The man glanced at Shen Wei, humming as he sipped his tea."
He's HUMMING too, Shen Wei ily.
"There was a limit to Zhao Yunlan’s patience. Light gleamed in his hands as his speech quickened; the Soul-Guarding Whip flashed in and out of view between his palms."
This is a really cool image!
"Zhao Yunlan drank the high-quality tea in one gulp, as if it were water."
And this is the 'ceremony' with Ye Zun in the drama? :D :D
"That unfamiliar gaze skimmed over him and landed on Shen Wei, who was idly flipping through a magazine."
Asdfgfhdjskl, Shen Wei is really, really making a show out of how much he doesn't care even a little bit
while exploding on the inside, it's glorious.*ignores Zhao Yunlan's actual father because I still just want to yeet him into the sun, even just based on these few lines*