TGCFridays #3: Chapters 24-34

[hopqer]

But if YOU'RE a ghost and I'M a ghost, then WHO'S CONTROLLING THE SNORPIONS???

The Story So Far...

Chapters 24 through 28: Hualian date night, stuck in the prisoner's pit
The face in the mud has got a tongue like a frog which it uses to eat an unfortunate traveler's brains. Then it yells to alert the General about intruders. Turns out 50 years being buried in an herb garden turns you into a cannibal AND a narc! Giant, beast-like soldiers show up and march our gang over to a deep walled-in hole where they throw criminals in to die.

Xie Lian notices that up on the pole where they hang criminals is the body of a tiny goth girl. Someone ought to make a public service announcement for girls who like staying alive to steer clear of the MXTX cinematic universe. Xuan Ji and Xiao Ying, maybe try handing out flyers with tissue packets on busy intersections?

The prisoner's pit isn't empty; in fact, it's filled with the very hangry corpses of soldiers who perished when the army of Yong'an defeated the walled city of the Half Moon kingdom 200 years ago. So the reason that travelers keep disappearing around these parts is not only to become plant food, but also to become zombie food.

While General Kemo is hemming and hawing over which tasty morsel to throw down into the pit first, Zhao the tour guide decides he should tackle the General. Down goes Zhao into the pit. Xie Lian volunteers to go next because he figures being a god and all and armed with a magic weapon like Ruoye, he's at least got a fighting chance. Except San Lang beats him to it. So Xie Lian leaps down after San Lang.

Xie Lian floats down right into San Lang's arms. SL has considerately made quick work of all the hangry soldiers already, and it's eerily silent down here. But before date night can commence in this awfully romantic corpse-filled pit, the stillness is interrupted by General Kemo's bellows of rage.

It's backstory time featuring the General and Guoshi of the Half Moon kingdom! A couple centuries ago, there lived a mixed race girl named Ban Yue whose dad was from Yong'an in the Central Plains and mother was from the Half Moon kingdom in the northern desert. She became an orphan at an early age and was viciously bullied by both sides of her mixed heritage because people are terrible. The General Kemo teamed up with her during one of his campaigns and came to respect her, supporting her climb up through the palace ranks until she reached the position of Guoshi (head of state).

But Ban Yue unexpectedly betrayed the kingdom at a crucial moment, opening the gates to the Yong'an forces laying siege to the city. It was a terrible slaughter and the kingdom fell overnight.

Since then, the ghosts of the General, his soldiers, and Ban Yue the sorceress have been playing out this endless loop of their final moments where they chase her down for her treachery and hang her from the pole above the prisoner's pit.

Not one to be left out, the subject of their conversation, Ban Yue herself, comes down to join Hualian's awkward truncated date night. We learn that she is no longer capable of controlling the scorpion-tailed snakes which were supposedly her totem animals.

General Kemo rushes at her in anger but Xie Lian steps in. Ban Yue recognizes Xie Lian as the Yong'an commander who once saved her as a child. That's right, as in-character as it would have been for Xie Lian to trip over his own bootlaces, turns out he was actually saving Ban Yue from getting trampled and got trampled himself. Being a god and all, he didn't actually die and was just...very...flat for a while......

But more pressingly, who is controlling all the snorpions now if not Ban Yue? Because a ton of them have surrounded our gang and are slithering closer....



Chapter 29: White-robed Wind Master raises sandstorms from thin air
Fu Yao comes down looking for them, and Xie Lian has him keep the snorpions away as best he can using his fireballs. There's a sixth person down here in the pit with them controlling the snorpions, and San Lang engages him in battle.

Who jumped down the pit before everyone else? Zhao the guide.

What did frog-face say before he started eating brains? That he had seen someone in the group of travelers before.

Xie Lian remembers Fu Yao mentioning after the whole Xuan Ji incident on Yujun Mountain that General Pei Jr had once massacred an entire city. And the North is the territory of the Pei family martial gods. Xie Lian puts two and two...and two together.

Zhao is an empty shell and the puppeteer is Pei Su aka Pei Jr. Controller of snorpions. Commander of the Yong'an army. Slaughterer of the fortress city. Pei Su reveals that Ban Yue was his agent in the Half Moon palace all along and that she opened the city gates on his command. And in centuries hence, he has been luring travelers to their death to keep this bloody mark in his mortal history on the down low, hidden from the heavens.

Xie Lian calls Pei Su out for the wholesale slaughter of Half Moon citizens after he had already defeated their army; Kemo points out that Pei Su massacred his people just to secure his foothold in the military and gain more power.

Listening in from on high is the white robed lady that Xie Lian had initially mistaken for the Guoshi. She joins the huddle in the pit along with her tall companion in black, and a much worse for wear Nan Feng who fought them in the city. Pei Su addresses the lady in white as the Wind Master — an elemental god. Wind Master, having heard Pei Su confess to his crimes, proceeds to arrest him to bring him back to the heavens and face justice.

Turns out Wind Master and her tall, black-robed companion were in this neck of the desert to investigate the disappearances and arrest the perp. Wind Master created the sandstorms earlier to keep people away from the Half Moon ruins.

All's well that ends well. They escape from the pit, give the healing herbs to the poisoned travelers, and Xie Lian and the gang bring Ban Yue back with them to the Chestnut Sanctuary.

Nan Feng and Fu Yao head back to report to the heavens. Xie Lian starts to prepare a meal and asks Hua Cheng what he wants to eat.



Chapters 30 through 31: Poking the Ghost King, the Crown Prince seeks the truth
Xie Lian figured out that Hua Cheng was the sexy pair of legs who helped him out on Yujun Mountain.

Ban Yue wakes up and reminds Xie Lian of his embarrassing shonen protagonist declaration about saving the world.

Xie Lian pokes Hua Cheng and asks him a bunch of questions about being a big bad ghost. Hua Cheng tells Xie Lian that he thinks his world-saving aspirations are brave. Xie Lian wants to see his true form. Hua Cheng asks Xie Lian if he would still like him if he were ugly. And they flirt until Hua Cheng has to leave. He promises Xie Lian that next they meet, he will be wearing his real face. And he leaves Xie Lian a ring on a silver chain.



Chapters 32 through 34: Crown Prince meets Crown Prince in the martial god's palace
Ling Wen pings Xie Lian to report to the heavens for Pei Su's trial.

On his way to the Emperor Jun Wu's palace, Xie Lian runs into another Crown Prince. Tai Hua, the Crown Prince of Yong'an. Yong'an was the kingdom that rose in the ruins of Xie Lian's own kingdom, Xian Le.

All eyes are on Xie Lian as the trial commences. Pei Su being a member of Pei Ming's family, Xie Lian already expects a hard time from the Ming Guang General. The lifeless skin puppet Zhao is brought out, and Generals Mu Qing and Feng Xin identify the wounds on the body to be the work of E Ming, Hua Cheng's dreaded scimitar. Xie Lian is justifiably concerned that Pei Ming will try to pin the atrocities committed on Hua Cheng in order to help Pei Su escape punishment. But to everyone's surprise, Pei Su confesses to his crimes before the court and accepts his exile from heaven.

The court disperses, except for the other Crown Prince who, embarrassingly, has fallen asleep. Xie Lian helpfully wakes him.

The god emperor Jun Wu pulls Xie Lian aside to debrief him and send him on another mission. It appears a god has sent up a distress signal from the mortal realm. What's more, it's coming from the territory of none other than the ghost king, Hua Cheng. Jun Wu expresses concern for Xie Lian having a conflict of interests regarding Hua Cheng. Xie Lian reassures him that he's up for the job.

This time for back up, instead of Fu Yao and Nan Feng, Xie Lian gets the Wind Master himself. Himself? That's right. Wind Master is a dude. But also a lady sometimes. Most times? Wind Master Qingxuan tells Xie Lian that he prefers female form because he makes a hotter girl. Okay that's valid.

Also for this mission, they need to be in disguise. Yay!

Major Players

• Kemo —
  
  General of the Half Moon kingdom. Once Ban Yue's biggest supporter, now hates her guts.


• Ban Yue —
  
  Guoshi (master of state) of the Half Moon kingdom. Mixed heritage. Xie Lian saved her as a child.


• Pei Su —
  
  AKA General Pei Jr. Descendant of Pei Ming. Massacred the fortress city.


• Wind Master Qingxuan —
  
  Full name Shi Qingxuan. Friendly and well-liked. Prefers taking female form.


• Jun Wu —
  
  Head honcho of the martial gods.


• Tai Hua —
  
  Crown Prince of Yong'an. Martial god of the East. Titled Lang Qianqiu.

Reading speed
As the plot picks up and we get into the thick of things, I want to try for an approach that covers more chapters, but with sparser summaries. I'll still keep the recaps organized by chapter titles so that you can easily go back and reference what happened in detail.

The issues that I have with what I've been doing so far is 1) it is a huge chunk of text to scroll through for you, the reader, and 2) picking and choosing which details to include vs leave out is a pain point for me personally. (I'm literally still hung up over week 1 when I didn't include one of my favorite scenes: Fu Yao and Nan Feng look at Xie Lian all bruised and battered like, "Who beat you up?" and he's like, "Oh this? I got my sleeve caught on a cloud coming down from heaven. Clumsy me!")

Anyway! Between the holidays and end of the year work deadlines, we’ll be skipping next week and “meeting” again on the first Friday of January.

Q&A
I was confused about Ban Yue the girl vs Ban Yue (Half Moon) the kingdom; did anyone else get tripped up there? I feel like that might have been intentional though on MXTX's part.


See you all next year (Jan 3, 2020) for chapters 35-50!

Comments

[semiotic_square]

Thank you again for posting this! (And for the delay before the next post because of end of year times--much appreciated!) Your summaries remain fantastic and entertaining.

I can't decide if I'm disappointed Wind Master isn't just a straight-up female character or if the gender fluidity is better/more needed representation anyway. I like the character either way!

This subplot confused me more than anything has in the MXTX universe in a while. Timelines and zombies and scorpion snakes (snake scorpions?) and a million different Pei's (or just two, but still)... oh my. I had a hard time staying on top of who was mad at and fighting who. This summary helped clear some of it up for me, so thank you for that! It was just hard to feel the stakes in this one for me, for some reason.

The more we read, the more I have no idea how the animated series is going to avoid openly acknowledging the romantic dimension of how Xie Lian and Hua Cheng act with each other...