🌄 Onwards from Yiping 🌄

#fanfic, #ALeagueOfNobleman, 2300 words, rated E

🥕 post-canon Chen Chou/Xu Dong FWB
🥕 different kinds of friendship
🥕 different kinds of family

🥕 aka Chen Chou invents forensic accounting and gets his big gay glowup

https://archiveofourown.org/works/49332208

For #WIPWednesday, some Chen Chou/Xu Dong getting together. #ALeagueOfNobleman

I feel like I have most of this written already, as notes that just need a little filling out and some capital letters, but the balance is a bit off so far—mostly it’s a reminiscence of the first few years post-canon and what everyone’s been doing, but there’s a single sex scene in there that sticks out like a sore thumb. Maybe I need to add some more to even things out. 🤔

You know what? I could ship this. #ALeagueOfNobleman

Everyone comes together to save the city—merchants and women, scholars and ministers and Lan Peizhi’s staff, who wouldn’t be sent away to safety—and my eyes just start streaming. I almost think it’s a crossed nerve in my brain, like photic sneeze, this reaction is so consistent!

Did they really have cloud seeding in ~Tang-Dynasty China?

I’m glad they didn’t let Zhang Ping carry 600 catties of salt up a mountain with a gut wound. #ALeagueOfNobleman

He was really surprised. He really didn't see it coming. He really thought of Lan Peizhi as his best friend. 💔

I wish I could include a clip of Shulin's face journey here, the way this sudden violence seemed to wake him up and he had to work to take in this new situation, shoving down the emotions that had hit him to turn them into something he could use right then.

#ALeagueOfNobleman

Of course Zhang Ping is the guy who rushes up to the magical death weapon and sticks his fingers into it to find out the scientific reason it works. ❤️❤️❤️

(Saltpetre ice has apparently become one of the topics I yell about, so I was doubly pleased.)

#ALeagueOfNobleman

Please forgive my just pasting in my messages to my irl cdrama bff, but at this point I’m struggling and also correct.

Not sure where we’re going with the zombies (?) beating at the doors of the funeral hall, but I do always appreciate a judicious added horror vibe. #ALeagueOfNobleman

#ALeagueOfNobleman Good funeral rites content in this show, too! I know less about that than about book history, and of course there’s lots of variation across time and region, but I saw several acts that I recognise from reading around the topic. :)

Oh good, I called it.

Oh no, it’s an ‘I was a fugitive ready to throw my life away and you were the only one who recognised my potential and let me serve you’ story. 😭

#ALeagueOfNobleman

#ALeagueOfNobleman Look, I love this show, but I need to put my nitpicks with it somewhere, so here they are.

I feel like hiding the emperor’s son in your house but giving him the nickname 小龙 is not the most subtle idea.

How come the Empress Dowager was burned all over her face but her hair was intact? Perhaps it’s a wig.

Baby Zhang Ping was definitely too young to read and write when he left the village: how could he translate recipes?

I think this is the first time I've ever seen the ubiquitous Bamboo Hat Of Disguise fail in its mission. Despite diligently following the rules and lingering in the street near a wanted poster plus several armed guards whilst wearing it, this character gets spotted and chased almost immediately. Strange! #ALeagueOfNobleman episode 26.

(Images marked sensitive for spoilers, but I think this on its own is not a big spoiler.)

So, in #ALeagueOfNobleman episode 23, Zhang Ping was brooding jealously and asking Chen Chou, "What is a zhiji? Are we zhiji?"—to which Chen Chou spluttered and said uh? um? sure we are?

Now we've seen that the bar of zhiji-ness in this show is, "I would drink poison, nearly die and destroy my health to save you, even though I'm the true Emperor and have to get revenge against the mother who tried to kill me..." No wonder Chen Chou was worried!

I would advise watching #ALeagueOfNobleman episode 25 on Viki rather than Youtube, unless you find dramatic revenge speeches substantially improved by having the audio replaced with jingly telephone-hold music.

Character: twisted and vengeful smile, tears in eyes
Visuals: Dutch angle, cuts back to other character grimacing in distress
Subs: “I’m going to make those fools fight each other to death!”

Audio: would you like some travel insurance? or a phone top-up card? family pack of biscuits?

I want backstory on how Xu Dong got to be such a loyal manservant for Lan Peizhi. I'm certain that guy's got a shady past and I'm here for it. #ALeagueOfNobleman

#ALeagueOfNobleman The fact that the above is happening while 100% of the audience is wiping away their tears from *this* scene is just gravy.

I'm honestly very glad Zhang Ping got to hug his own inner child and tell him their mum loved them. More shows with flashbacks should include that.

#ALeagueOfNobleman episode 25: I know I keep saying this show has it all, but now it also has two very tense, last-ditch search scenes happening at opposite ends of the country, intercut with one another while tense and dramatic music plays. This show has it ALL.

I am also EXTREMELY suspicious of Shulin right now, which is of course also being played up by the narrative, and perplexed that my cdrama irl says he’s her favourite character (alongside Wang Mowen).

The reveal of why he left Lan Peizhi back in the day is so much my jam I can’t even tell you, though. Like, if it didn’t exist, I would have had to write it. Gaaaaahhhh 🔥🔥🔥🔥 #ALeagueOfNobleman

#ALeagueOfNobleman The Emperor is coming good (wants to fight the kingdom who keeps agressing at Da Yong’s southern border, to defend his citizens), the music is emotional, I am weak in the face of this sort of artistic manipulation, le sigh.

I do really like Zhang Ping and the Emperor’s relationship, though! And there’s some interesting food porn here—cheesey crêpes with berry filling, onna stick.

Lan Peizhi: ahh, it’s so good to finally introduce my long-lost deeply homoerotic best friend to the younger man i’ve been spending hours alone with and confessing my soul to!

Lan Peizhi: i must not be getting enough sleep. not sure why else i’d imagine this strange tension between us all?

#ALeagueOfNobleman

a) Lan Peizhi and Gu Shulin bonded over Ruan Ji and the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, this is so adorable and wholesome

b) nice representation of bookshop culture; I continue to enjoy the book history stuff in this show

c) here’s a fun fact about Ruan Ji and his bff Ji Kang for you all!

d) also, here’s an Open Access anthology of their poetry: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781501503870/html?lang=en

#ALeagueOfNobleman