Impeccably Queer

Just throwing together some fun moments (nothing too spoiler-y) from the episodes I've watched thus far! Jealous and pouty RNZ is the best lol. He's got a wealth of tools at his disposal that's he's unashamed to employ to monopolize LJS.

Ep. 10 - RNZ invoking Confucianism to prevent his boi from sleeping away from him 🤣

Ep. 16 - RNZ performing 'sa jiao' or acting 'moe' to reclaim his boi's attention

Ep. 22 - RNZ invoking 'professionalism' to block any attempts to get close to his boi

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first of all i just want to share this translation if any of you want ot read it please go ahead or if you want to wait for the official one that's also fine, the choice is yours , again i'm just sharing what i have, have a great day :)

[the official translation of Premonition (ลางสังหรณ์) has been released, you can buy the translation on meb...]

📌 all the chapters can be access freely

do not steal it or post it on other platforms like wattpad, penana ao3, twitter or anywhere else!!!

there might be be a lot of grammatical mistakes and miss spelling

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21 22 23 24 25 end

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Epilogue

Special chapter 1

Special chapter 2

Special chapter 3

悲风, which i've translated as bitterwind, refers to the ear-piercing and mournful howl of the wind. when put together with 白杨, it likely references this couplet from the anonymous han dynasty poem 《去者日以疏》 / the dead become estranged with the passing of time: 白杨多悲风，萧萧愁杀人！ / how mournful is the wind that howls through the white poplars; the soughing sorrow weakens the heart! among other things, the poem describes an intellectual's forlorn confusion at not being able to find a way out/forward.

on the other hand, the 白杨 / white poplar is known for taking root easily even in harsh circumstances, and for growing straight and true with sturdy branches. therefore, in chinese tradition, it signifies an indomitable spirit that will not bend nor yield, and is strong enough to not be shaken. it also features in 《白杨礼赞》 / in praise of the white poplar, a 20th century essay written by the novelist 茅盾 mao dun, in which he commends the white poplar for unwaveringly reaching to the skies, then likens it to the tenacious and diligent northern farmer, whom he praises for being frank and striving for progress.

Thirty plus year old former greatest martial artist in the world, Li Lianhua, travels around in a poor man's version of Howl's Moving Castle dispensing sometimes quack, sometimes seems to be pretty accurate medical care to people throughout the land for a quick buck. He is dying a potentially preventable death because he was poisoned ten years ago and refused to seek treatment from his martial arts sect because he felt like he let them down (a lot of them died, and they think he died too). Hopefully he doesn't die for real at the end. He's been stripped of 90% of his martial arts powers, so he basically is just some guy. He does not GAF about almost anything. He likes to cook. He's smarter than everyone. He's our hero.

He has a cute dog by the way. Its name is Fox Spirit, but it is very much a dog.

Along the way he meets Fan Duobing, an annoying, oblivious to class consciousness (but still lovable) rich kid who makes it his mission to travel together with Li Lianhua so they can solve crime. He has huge puppy energy. He wants to be an official detective, and he needs LLH to help him out. He has a serious case of heart eyes for his shifu, and he shows zero interest in any woman ever. He believes, due to a previous encounter, that he's destined to be Li Xiangyi's student in martial arts. Oh and Li Xianygi is Li Lianhua's true identity, so he's kind of like, FDB's shifu twice over. He has no idea that LLH is actually the swordsman of legend.... yet.

Along the way they solve murder mysteries and also get involved in tomb raiding adventures complete with Indiana Jones style booby traps, backstabbing, and weird, creepy kids.

By the way, LLH's archrival from a decade ago, before he left the martial arts world, was Di Feisheng. He leads up an alliance that LLH's was pitted against, and one that was viewed as a scourge in the martial arts world.

LLH's last battle before his 'death' was with DFS, so the martial world believes DFS killed him, as does DFS. Di Feisheng finds him again, and is super DTF (fuck, or fight? actually both), but when he finds out that LLH lost his martial arts powers, he makes it his mission to restore them so they can have the final showdown they deserve.

The fight scenes rule.

Were they friends in the past before they became rivals? We don't know yet. All we know is that they have extreme divorced energy, and DFS wants nothing more than to get remarried. He's gay. He's so gay. He's legitimately confused when he finds out that LLH has an ex girlfriend. He's seriously like 'I NEVER THOUGHT YOU'D BE INTERESTED IN WOMEN.'

You bet your ass LLH is wearing a wedding dress here.

So all three of them travel together to solve murders, which they do, with aplomb. The whole time DFS pretends he doesn't care while making moon eyes at LLH and making sure no harm ever comes to him. Fan Duobing is confused and probably jealous.

Yeah he really did pledge to marry Li Lianhua in like, episode two.

He also, at that point, has NO idea the true identity of either of them.

Right now DFS is no longer traveling with them, but I believe he'll be back to them soon (he's still plenty involved in the story and present), and the three will continue their shenanigans. And anyway, he's still annoying LLH despite them not traveling together (to be fair, pretty much everyone annoys LLH). There's also sect drama! Secret alliances! Completely wack murder mysteries! And always with a side-dish of heavy homo. They're going to be the best found family.

There's eighteen episodes of forty out right now, and it's streaming on IQIYI or wherever you choose to pirate your Chinese Dramas. It's EXTREMELY entertaining every single episode; funny, addictive, and yeah, pretty gay.

• hydrate it by drinking lots of water

• eat dark chocolate and blueberries and walnuts and salmon and other foods high in antioxidants!!

• play little brain games on your phone; I like wordconenct! anything that makes you think!

• read books. It’s simple but necessary. Even better - join a book club, or read with a friend, so you can have discussions after. This will improve your reading comprehension.

• do puzzles - it doesnt have to be sudoku, I love playing Beat Saber on the Oculus Rift because it makes my brain have to match colorful patterns to physical movements very quickly!

• learn a new dance - even a tik tok trendy dance. Learning new dance moves are proven to strengthen synapses!!

• go bird watching, or foraging, or anything outdoors that requires you to explore pattern recognition and visual searching

• watch a movie with the intent of analysis - this is best done with a cinephile friend!! talk about tropes and symbolism and character growth

• cross stitch, or sew, or do anything that requires matching nimble hand movements to patterns

• play or learn an instrument!

• develop a consistent sleep schedule (or as close to consistent as you can get!)

• when eating, try to identify the ingredients and flavors you’re perceiving!

The Lost Tomb series, based on the Daomu Biji series of books, is a sprawling multi-adaptation franchise.  It can be very confusing to figure out what order to watch the shows in, which can be compounded by the fact that, depending on your tastes, the chronological order might not be the best order to get you hooked.  This post highlights some likely entry points for getting into this series and their pros and cons, so you can decide which might work best for you!

Note that another obvious point of entry into the DMBJ universe is the book series that all these adaptations are based on!  ( @laireshi​ has an intro guide to the books here.) There is also a donghua adaptation is you prefer animated series.  However, this guide is specifically focused on live action screen adaptations.  There are also several spinoff/side story movies, but as most of those make very little sense even to hardened DMBJ fans, I do not recommend any of them as starting points except one (below).

Here is a list of the current finished main adaptations, in story chronological order.  Possible recommended entry points are starred.

***The Mystic Nine - 2016, 48 episodes

***Time Raiders - 2016, 2 hours

***The Lost Tomb (aka, The Lost Tomb 1) - 2015, 10 episodes

The Lost Tomb 2 – 2019, 40 episodes

The Lost Tomb 2: Explore With The Note (aka The Lost Tomb 2.5) – 2021, 24 episodes

***Ultimate Note – 2020, 37 episodes

***Tomb of the Sea (aka Sand Sea) – 2018, 52 episodes

***Reunion: The Sound of Providence seasons 1 and 2 (aka The Lost Tomb Reboot) – 2020, 62 episodes total

***Side story movie Mystery of the Abyss - 2022, 2 hours

Under the cut:  Why you should (and shouldn’t!) start with each of the starred adaptations! 

And of course, Daomu Biji doesn’t fall out of that pattern. I was having a convo with @aknightus and she wondered why everyone’s name is translated in the English sub except for Wu Xie. So here I am, writing a very quick and dirty guide to do some justice (hopefully) to the various names of the 5 main guys of Daomu Biji. Here we go!

Wu Xie (吴邪)

Name meaning: A wordplay of the term 无邪, also pronounced as “wu xie”, meaning “no evil”. Okay he is the main character, so his name obviously has deep meanings. For one thing, it describes his naive, slightly gullible nature. More importantly, the name is given by his grandfather (Wu Lao Gou) to express the hope that he will live a ‘no evil’ life even though he is a descendant of The Nine Families. Needless to say, Wu Xie’s name is a foreshadow of his character development throughout the entire Daomu Biji novel.

Will he remain ‘no evil’ forever? That is left for us readers to find out.

Other names/titles:

- To Pan Zi and other underlings: Xiao San Ye (小三爷), lit. translated as “Little Third Master”, because he is Third Uncle’s nephew (Third Uncle is addressed as “Third Master” by people in the tomb-robbing community).

- To Pangzi: Tian Zhen, which is short for Tian Zhen Wu Xie (天真无邪), lit. translated as “Innocent and No Evil”, again a wordplay on his real name due to the same pronunciation.

Men You Ping  (闷油瓶)

Name meaning: Lit. translated as “Tightly Closed Oil Bottle”, the name could be contextually understood as “the guy who doesn’t like to talk”. Important note: Contrary to what is portrayed in the drama adaptation, the only person to know this name is Wu Xie. Wu Xie specifically uses this name only in his head and his diary writing. No one else is aware of this, including Men You Ping himself.

Real name: Zhang Qiling (张起灵), which actually isn’t a name but a title given to only the head of the Zhang family. This also means that there were other generations of Zhang Qilings that lived before him. “Qiling” refers to the act of bringing the dead to their final resting place. From this name, it can be guessed that all Zhang Qilings have the role of bringing the corpses of Zhang family members back to the Zhang Family Mansion under the lake in Banai, their so-called burial ground.

Name origin/Fun fact: The author once mentioned that Zhang Qiling’s image is built on his high-school best friend and also roommate. The roommate slept on the bed numbered 370, which is pronounced as “san qi ling”, a very similar sound to “Zhang Qiling”.

Other names/titles:

- To Wu Xie, Pangzi and other tomb-robbing comrades: Xiao Ge (小哥), lit. translated as “Little Big Brother”, an endearing/respectful term used to call a man who is likely to be younger than you.

- To Hei Xiazi: Ya Ba Zhang (哑巴张), lit. translated as “Mute Zhang”, because we all know how much Men You Ping dislikes speaking lol.

Wang Pangzi (王胖子)

Name meaning: Fatty Wang

Real name: Wang Yueban (王月半)

Xiao Hua (小花)

Name meaning: Little Flower

Real name: Xie Yuchen (解雨臣 )

Other names/titles:

- Stage name: Jie Yuhua (解语花), roughly translated as “talking flower”, a metaphor usually used to describe a beautiful woman. This is because since young, Xiao Hua takes on a female role in his stage acting, and in canon, he is also described by Wu Xie as ‘very pretty, almost like a lady that steps out from a painting’. Important note: The character 解 is pronounced differently in his real name (Xie) and his stage name (Jie).

Hei Xiazi (黑瞎子)

Name meaning: Blind Person In Black. This is because he almost went blind due to a mummy’s curse, as mentioned in the sequel Sea of Sands.

Real name: Unknown, save for the fact that his surname is Qi (齐).

Other names/titles:

- To Wu Xie, Pangzi and other tomb-robbing comrades: Hei Yanjing (黑眼镜), lit. translated as “Black Glasses”.

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myself to save myself to

everyone save you