I may or may not put up a profile pic later. Or never.

I honestly probably should get back to that, since I’ve kinda been slacking more than I should on my language learning (and besides, I kinda want to reread the story anyways). Though, I’m not sure if it would be something I can actually post for others to read, because potential copyright strike shenanigans that I have to be worried about (also, I don’t even know where I would post it). I may or may not be able to get around it due to the fact that what I’m doing is Translating for the Sake of Translating, which is drastically different from Translating for the Sake of Reading, but I dunno.

They happened to work together on a night-hunt, but at the end of it, the teacher tried to discredit her to get all the glory for themself or they made some sort of mistake and tried to shift the blame onto her, and she then killed them.

They happened to work together on a night-hunt, but the teacher got possessed by a wrathful spirit that tried to kill her, so she ended up killing the teacher in self-defense.

In a similar vein, there was a night-hunt that involved illusions and hallucinations that made people confuse friend and foe, and she killed the teacher by accident, thinking they were an enemy.

She could’ve had a morally dubious relative, perhaps one of her parents, who was doing harm to others, and the teacher killed them. Then she killed the teacher in revenge.

Again, in a similar vein, her loved one died and came back as a resentful ghost, and the teacher destroyed their spirit before it could harm anyone, but barely even trying to see if their spirit could be liberated. Then she killed the teacher in revenge.

There was an incident where a group of people were doing crimes, and the teacher wanted to punish everyone involved, even if they were blackmailed into doing it, or were children of the ones complicit, and she killed the teacher to protect them.

The Lan Clan laid claim to a spiritual artifact that was dangerous, whether recently or generations ago, but it was a family heirloom to her, and there was a lethal altercation when she tried to reclaim it.

She had a relative or friend whose life was in danger, whether by illness or curse or whatever, and the Lan Clan had an artifact that could save their life. So she went to go steal it, leading to the lethal altercation.

The teacher prioritized someone who was more affluent, but less threatened, over the immediate danger of someone else’s life (ie: standing as bodyguard for a rich patron, who is already has some minor protection from talismans and arrays, while someone outside of those protections is actively getting chewed up by a yao, or similarly, two people were cursed, but the teacher prioritized lifting the curse from the rich patron, who was afflicted only recently, over someone of lower rank, whose curse had already progressed much farther), resulting in the death of a loved one of the Not-Yet-Madam Lan. She then killed them in revenge.

A similar incident to what happened with Lan Qiren, Cangse Sanren, Wei Changze, and Jiang Fengmian could’ve occurred, where the teacher was so caught up in making sure that things went according to procedure that they ended up endangering the lives of others. Except this time tempers flared, leading to a lethal altercation.

Taking a page out of TGCF, the Not-Yet-Madam Lan, or maybe even both of them, were cursed, and the only way to break the curse was through bloodshed. The teacher may have offered to sacrifice themself, or maybe she just killed them to save herself.

Either the Not-Yet-Madam Lan or a loved one of hers was cursed or simply afflicted with a mundane malady. So she sought help through a dubious source, like a resentful yao or demon or a malevolent god (a la the dancing stone Heavenly Maiden) to have her wish granted. The teacher learned of this on a night hunt, and they came to cross blades, either because they tried to destroy the dubious “helper” (for lack of a better word) before her wish could be granted, or they attacked her directly for fraternizing with evil beings.

And a bonus scenario to bring it up to a nice baker’s dozen rather than a regular ol’ dozen: Sparring match gone wrong.

It could’ve been as simple as getting a little too overzealous in a sparring match that ended in a fatal accident.

In the fourth chapter, when Madam Mo was telling off the Lan juniors for not doing enough to save her son, Wei Wuxian tells her off in turn for being unfairly disrespectful to them, one of his points being that the juniors were doing that night hunt for free. And again in the Lotus Pod extra, It was mentioned that Yunmeng Jiang exorcises the households of the area of their water ghouls free of compensation.

Which raises the question… How in Laozi’s eight trigram crucible are these clans making their income???

I get the sense that Yu Ziyuan’s beef with the infidelity rumors is that she can’t stand the thought that she was seen as second pickings. That the only reason Jiang Fengmian married her at all was because his first choice was no longer an option when she married someone else, so he just settled. And that the rumors exist at all means that everyone else believes she was only ever a second option, if even that. Yu Ziyuan ire with Jiang Fengmian isn’t that she thinks he’s disloyal, but that she believes that he thinks she wasn’t worth considering as a first option (or more likely, that he didn’t consider her a option at all, given that he was opposed to the marriage with her from the get-go, but was pressured into it by both the Yu Clan and the previous Jiang head). So I don’t think Yu Ziyuan believes that Wei Wuxian is Jiang Fengmian’s bastard son

Lives rent-free in my head and pops up in my mind every couple months, it really got me thinking how Jin Ling is the ideal heir Jin Guangyao could have, given his whole circumstances.

So Jin Guangyao needs an heir, because we know there are other clan members who would love to seize the position of clan head. We know this because the epilogues outright said that Jiang Cheng had to barge into the Jinlingtai, whip crackling, to solidify Jin Ling’s position and protect him from those clan members. Without the legitimately-blooded Jin Ling, born to the equally legitimate Jin Zixuan, another clan member could waltz up going, ”I can be clan leader. Look at me! I’m hale, hearty, and have legitimate heirs of my own. And unlike that other guy, I’m not a bastard born to a prostitute.”

Obviously Jin Guangyao can’t be having heirs of his own, because of… All That. Taking a concubine would be tricky, because whatever excuse he gave to Qin Su for Never Laying With Her Again, At All, Ever, would no doubt be hard to explain away. Why is he okay with sleeping with his concubine, but never his legal wife? Besides, unlike his father, it’s safe to say that Jin Guangyao doesn’t want to cause Qin Su unnecessary pain (or at least, what he views to be unnecessary pain). Having Jin Ling as his heir sidesteps that issue and more.

He could’ve given Qin Su the excuse of something along the lines of how he doesn’t want to jeopardize Jin Ling’s legitimacy with a son of his own. Not only does Jin Ling’s direct lineage bypass the issue of Jin Guangyao’s own socially shaky bloodline, it also has the bonus of good PR, making him look more noble than he really is, because “Look at how unselfish he is! He’s only looking out for the rightful heir and will pass the mantle back to the main family line when the time comes.”

And best of all, Jin Ling’s parents are dead. If Jin Guangyao tried to adopt from a branch family, he’d no doubt have to contend with the parents that child was born to trying to exert their own pressure and influences. However, once Madam Jin was dead, Jin Ling no longer had any other authority figures Jin Guangyao would have to compete with for influence. (No, Jiang Cheng doesn’t count, because before Jin Ling became Clan Leader, he had minimal, if not zero, say on how the Jin Clan was run.)