Post-canon Fics Where Hua Cheng Gets Amnesia'd Back Into Wuming, Who Inevitably Finds Out His Beloved

post-canon fics where hua cheng gets amnesia'd back into wuming, who inevitably finds out His Beloved Is Married always read like the meme "I'll be his second husband." (what happened to the first?) "Nothing you can prove."

jump to xie lian, who knows exactly what mental contortions the love of his life would go to rather than recognize that xie lian loves him, deciding to humor wuming's murder fantasy for shits and giggles. 'you want to murder my husband, wuming? hm, i dont know... he is nice. except for the time he proposed to me and then immediately walked it back as a joke- oh, you'd treat me better than that? you'd never do something so cruel? well... im listening.'

cue hua cheng getting his memories back like "gege i thought we were over this. gege. gege stop laughing. gege please. i said sorry!"

wuxia, xianxia, and cultivation differences meta

translations: wuxia 武俠, xianxia 仙俠, and cultivation 修真/修仙 (xīuzhēn/xīuxiān)

think i've seen posts on this eons ago, and i'm pretty sure there are tons of these online, but since this has been written up already let's just have another one.

wuxia 武俠

wuxia and xianxia sound similar, but basically for wuxia it is about the pugilistic world (江湖 jiānghú). It is relatively more down-to-earth, and people practice martial arts ("kungfu") in their current life -- they do not do it to become xians (仙) and gods (神) however.

Like Thousand Autumns and Faraway Wanderers/Word of Honor, it has more historical background and ties to the current court and kingdoms, because people are living in the moment and concern themselves with worldly issues.

Martial arts may seem unrealistic, but in view of chinese fantasy it would be considered "real". It consists of fighting moves and internal energy, which they call qi or nèigōng (內功), and at times you see people flying around, climbing hills and jumping across rooftops which is qīnggōng (輕功).

xianxia 仙俠

A level up would be xianxia, where characters in the story cultivate to become xians (and gods, like in the heaven official's blessing). They don't really care about earthly issues here now, because their ambitions lie beyond the current world, and cultivation, getting stronger, and an immortal life are majorly all their goals.

You may not always see them working towards that purpose, such as in mdzs they are considered a lower-xianxia society (低魔), meaning people don't go through all the steps of cultivation and only stay at the stage before the "golden core" stage.

In xianxia, characters still learn basic fighting moves aka. martial arts, but to direct the internal energy they use línglì (灵力), zhēnqì (真气), and fǎlì (法力), all xianxia terms you commonly see. "neigong" is practically nonexistent in this genre. That's why people building up their "neigong" instead of "lingli" are likely never going to be able to cultivate.

cultivation 修真/修仙

A subgenre in the xianxia category would be cultivation. Characters actively go through the stages of cultivation, and likely for the MC, because they are the main character, they successfully become a xian and exit the world at the end of the novel.

There are many stages of cultivation, usually defined at the beginning of the novel in the synopsis, and a typical example of the different levels would be this:

练气，筑基，金丹，元婴，化神，炼虚，合体，大乘，渡劫

And with a cursory search, an English translation would be something like this, albeit not with all the cultivation ranks identified.

Qi condensation (练气), Foundation establishment (筑基), Core Formation (金丹), Nascent Soul (元婴), and the names after that vary too greatly with translation and fandom so I'll jump straight to Immortal Ascension

extra info: getting into the philosophy of it all

It'd be interesting to note that the word "xiá" (俠) permeates all these genres. This is something akin to the concept of "hero", but not at all also, and I'd love to speak more on this but this post has already gone way longer than I hoped it would be, so perhaps another day.

Regardless, it is interesting to note that wuxia has a greater emphasis on "xia" than xianxia. (some joke that cultivation doesn't have the word "xia" in it, and much of that is because characters have foregone heroism and focused on gaining powers and working towards ascension instead). As a result, wuxia is more confucianism-oriented, though not without its taoism and buddhism influences.

xianxia, on the other hand, is mainly derived from "dào" (道), from taoism, which is another lengthy concept if I ever get to it.

And some may have heard of the "farming" genre, 种田 (zhòngtián). This has to do with golden fingers (mary sues) in imperialistic china, earning a wealth of money, and all that. It has nothing to do with cultivation, alike they sound in english.

that's it for now, hmu if you wish to ask/discuss!

(and apologies for the pinyin translations, hope it's understandable still! formally writing pinyin they are supposed to be two separate words not one.)

Wei Wuxian’s Cultivation Method

We were asked a series of questions pertaining to Wei Wuxian’s cultivation that were fairly interesting. We’ve decided to sum up the contents of our reply here. (This reply occurred over a series of messages so I’ve rearranged the answers and questions it to the best that I can)

What would be the most appropriate form to address Wei Wuxian’s cultivation? Should it be called the “devil/monster path 魔道 (Mó dào)” or the “ghost path / 鬼道 (Guǐ dào)? And how does that apply in the context of the book? (妖魔鬼怪 (yāo mó guǐ guài) was the term that Lan Qiren used describe the various creatures in the novel)

If he’s not using the “devil/monster path/ 魔道”, then how does 邪魔歪道 (xié mó wāi dào]) and 邪门歪道 (xié mén wāi dào) come into play? This phrase has been used by various characters (ie. Jin Zixuan) to describe his mode of cultivation.

To answer question 1, you’d need to revert back to Chapter 13 of the novel.

This was in chapter 13:

"我问你，妖魔鬼怪，是不是同一种东西 / “I’ll ask you this; are yao, mo, gui, guai the same thing?”

” 魏无羡笑道：“不是。” / Wei Wuxian smiled as he replied, “‘No, they aren’t.”

“为何不是？如何区分” / “How are they different? How can they be differentiated?”

“妖者非人之活物所化；魔者生人所化；鬼者死者所化；怪者非人之死物所化.” / “Yao are created from non-human living beings; Mo are created from humans; Gui are created from the deceased; Guai are created from dead non-humans. ”

This exchange occurred when Lan Qiren questions Wei Wuxian on the classification of monsters, of which the book establishes that 魔 (Mo - devil/monster) from living (humans), and 鬼 (Gui - ghost) from the deceased (humans). Hence, based on this definition, as he’s only shown to animate the dead (humans) in the novel, it’s quite safe to say that he’s practicing 鬼道. (Ghost path.) C-fans have an additional meta that Wei Wuxian himself is a living person, so in terms of classification, he can only be classified as someone who is a “魔 (Mo - devil/monster)” (from a living person), practicing the “ghost” path. (ie. resurrecting the dead). To confirm this theory, “魔道 - devil/monster path” has only been mentioned once in the novel, “鬼道.- Ghost path” has been used 12 times. Wei Wuxian himself has also addressed that he “修鬼道” (cultivates the ghost path). (As a note, 妖魔鬼怪 itself is a general idiom that refers to all beings that are seen to be evil. MXTX takes the idiom apart in the context of this novel) Onto Question 2 (You might need to understand Chinese to fully appreciate this but I’ll try to explain it anyway).

邪魔歪道 itself is a common idiom which traditionally means to “stray from the traditional (or orthodox) path” [baidu dictionary definition] but it could also mean demonic/evil ways. This phrase is also commonly used in Buddhism teaching. “魔” in modern Buddhism loosely refers to Mara, a demon that claims lives and obstructs good deeds. The other term 邪门歪道 is a synonym of the former but without the religious connotations.

So here something that’s very interesting - this manner of which interpretation is used seems to depend on what the user is thinking. In Chapter 7 (footnote 7) Wei Wuxian has interestingly referred to his type of cultivation as “the cultivation method that he practiced in the past.” Also, in Chapter 14, when questioned by Lan Qiren, Wei Wuxian brings up the idea of a “fourth” source of power (ie. ghost path); and he questions as to why resentful energy can’t be used as a reservoir of power. From this, we can actually infer that Wei Wuxian feels that it is a source of unorthodox power, but not necessarily evil.

Contrarily, it’s obvious that the rest of the characters deem that his methods are downright evil. So hence, they would interpret idiom as demonic/evil ways.

Interestingly though, it seems like 邪魔歪道 were used by people in the "orthodox” clans - Jiang Cheng, Jin Ling, Jin Zixuan, etc. On the other hand, 邪门歪道 was used by Xue Yang and WWX. In the same way that 邪魔歪道 is more closely linked to religious teachings, the unorthodox is deemed as “evil”, hence the term 邪魔歪道 becomes a more fitting term used by those in the orthodox camp. References (they’re all in Chinese): (1) Definition of 魔，(2) Definition of 邪魔外道，(3) Definition of 邪门歪道 (4) Definition of 妖魔鬼怪 (4) Chinese Meta - Wei Wuxian is a central character in MDZS, why is he on the 鬼道 (ghost path) and not the 魔道 (devil/monster) path?

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