MXTX Novel Musings

Chapt. 70 is the start of the next title series in the revised, but this is the same title as Chapt. 40: Vow to Never Forget. Never! in the 7seas draft edition. Both Chapt. 38's title: "From the Earth of Buyou Forest, Human Face Disease Emerges" and Chapt. 39's title: "Gilded Figure, Exertion to Block Celestial Ruin" are gone. This chapter has also been marked by mxtx as containing addition content, so some things to look forward to! The chapter starts from Xie Lian waking up after sleeping for 3 days and ends on Xie Lian asking the first Human Face Disease victims they’d gathered if they all knew each other. This covers content from the end of Chapt. 37 into Chapt. 38 in the 7seas edition. More under the cut:

Major changes:

Everything between the moment Xie Lian finishes questioning the 300 soldiers and when Xie Lian hears the man who gifted him the umbrella crying out for help is gone. Those two scenes now happen in the same day, back-to-back. This means no fuckass convo with Guoshi where he tells Xie Lian that the plague and Bai Wuxiang’s existence are Xie Lian’s fault despite knowing damn well it’s all Jun Wu’s doing, and no battle with Yong’an where Xie Lian has that fuckass conversation with Lang Ying and where Lang Ying develops the “king’s aura” and successfully stabs him.

Minor changes:

The Buyou Forest quarantine camp is now only built after Xie Lian and the soldiers discover the cursed corpse. It is no longer being built as they search the forest, as in the draft.

Xie Lian now initially only vaguely remembers the forest and area, and neither Feng Xin nor Mu Qing know that Lang Ying buried his son there, so neither say anything nor recognize the corpse for what it was.

The part about “how could they remember where the corpse was buried” is now gone because the stench now draws them to it before Xie Lian even fully remembers that this was where Lang Ying buried his son.

The sentence with the “ten-year-old pickle jar” is gone.

Feng Xin no longer digs the corpse out; it wiggles and swells out of the ground on its own now.

When Feng Xin and Mu Qing ask what it is, Xie Lian then responds that it’s Lang Ying’s son. No other dialogue happens now, as Xie Lian burns the corpse immediately after.

Now when the bugle blows from the city, it turns to simple narration that says that the capital’s side still wins but cannot feel joy now that the plague has arrived. All paragraphs between these sections are now deleted.

Rather than how it said that the king considered suppressing the news, the narration now says that the news never could have been suppressed since first victim appeared in public.

Rather than saying that the people hoped for Xie Lian to cure them completely, it now switched the focus of the sentence to be about the purpose of Xie Lian’s actions, which is to calm the people rather than cure them.

The part about Xie Lian feeling guilty every time he sees the patients looking at him with fervent gazes is gone.

The dialogue between the two workers carrying corpses away now say that they are on their tenth death. Their conversation is now also about how long it will take to find a cure rather than the battles, with the complaining worker saying that Xie Lian should find a cure faster.

The sentence about “If Feng Xin was there…” following the workers’ convo is gone. Mu Qing now says simply “the commoners’ view” rather than his previous, more detailed complaint.

The paragraph about Xie Lian contemplating the validity of the workers’ convo is gone, now replaced with him thinking about how the plague is spread.

Feng Xin returns now only with news that the Yong’an people do not have the plague, nothing about Lang Ying or Bai Wuxiang. After Feng Xin says his piece, it now cuts to the narration saying this wasn’t unexpected, then Xie Lian saying that it’s definitely a curse, nothing about the corpse of Lang Ying’s son being the locus. In fact, everything between Feng Xin’s arrival and Xie Lian asking why the army was so unaffected has been cut.

Mu Qing no longer laughs and angers Feng Xin when Feng Xin says that maybe the rebels are circumventing attacking the army with the plague, so the dialogue skips from that to Xie Lian saying he’s wondering how the plague spreads.

The sentence about Xie Lian and Mu Qing not wanting to respond to Feng Xin’s idiotic deductions is gone.

Major changes:

The biggest changes are the confrontation between the patients in Buyou Forest after the mass amputation mishap and the second confrontation with Bai Wuxiang. The Buyou Forest episode mostly has a lot of dialogue deletions explained in the minor edits, but the Bai Wuxiang confrontation has a massive overhaul. Mostly, it’s that Feng Xin and Mu Qing are no longer present, Xie Lian is much more levelheaded (even though he is still violent and furious), and he goes in demanding answers about the Human Face Disease and Bai Wuxiang’s origins from the start rather than being taunted into it. The section of dialogue that was in Xie Lian’s now deleted conversation with Guoshi about how Xie Lian unbalancing the world with his actions created Bai Wuxiang is now said by Bai Wuxiang in this scene.

Minor changes:

Rather than saying that Xie Lian no longer wanted to answer with something nice and affirming, it now says that Xie Lian tasted bitterness in his mouth and also his vision is going dark.

The paragraph about Feng Xin and Mu Qing’s reaction to the person shocked at Xie Lian admitting to having no solution is now deleted save for the very first sentence about how someone pushes that person back down into the crowd.

The paragraph where Xie Lian is asking the man if he still wants his leg has now been reduced to just that question.

Rather than it saying that the man looked like he could be shaking his head and nodding at the same time, it now says that he was unable to respond.

The sentence where Xie Lian thinks, “Who can come save me?” is gone.

The description of how Mu Qing helps the man after the amputation is now more vague; it just says that he was much more calm and swift than the panicky doctors.

Xie Lian now burns the amputated leg with a talisman rather than what I’m guessing is spiritual energy straight from his bare hand in the draft.

After Xie Lian extracts himself from the ground, now it is said that Mu Qing and Feng Xin help him sit down somewhere.

In the paragraph that starts off about how Xie Lian would have never slept on the ground in the past, the section about how he would have people build him a perfumed tent and tusk bed is gone.

When Xie Lian returns after the two days, instead of saying that he came straight from the battlefield, it now says that he’s come back from delivering rain to Yong’an again after finally mustering up the strength.

When Xie Lian snaps at the patients for doing their own DIY amputations, rather than his scolding being cut off by the detractor, now he is written to have already calmed himself down and regretted his anger because he sympathized with the people just trying to save their lives. But before he can soften his tone, that’s when he gets interrupted.

The detractor now blames Xie Lian’s inability to save them for why the people ignored all warnings not to perform their own amputations, and rather than saying that Xie Lian is “invincible” (and thus unable to understand the plight of these sick mortals), the person calls Xie Lian two-faced for “claiming” to care about the people but daring to get upset at them in this particular moment where multiple people died due to their own reckless actions.

Feng Xin is now the one who demands to know who spoke in place of Xie Lian demanding the detractor to repeat themselves from the draft. The paragraphs between this and when it says that Xie Lian feels like he’s fallen into an ice cave/felt immense cold are gone, as is the entire paragraph where Xie Lian rebuts the people’s angry statements in his head.

The paragraph about him feeling stung by the words of the detractor is still there, but everything in the paragraph after where Xie Lian says it’s his fault for not finding a cure for the Human Face Disease is gone, along with the following paragraphs up until the moment Xie Lian runs out of the forest (and into Yujun Mountain, now, rather than Beizi Hill).

Feng Xin and Mu Qing no longer call forth troops to handle the fighting patients in order to chase after Xie Lian; instead, they handle the fight themselves, leaving Xie Lian to run off alone.

Bai Wuxiang no longer invites Xie Lian to remove his mask, and Xie Lian is physically unable to remove it when he tries, anyways.

Major changes:

Everything from the moment Bai Wuxiang leaves (which is now different in the revised) to Xie Lian to Shenwu Main Street to deal with the earthquake in the draft is gone. The argument that happens between Xie Lian and Mu Qing in this section has now been given to Xie Lian and Bai Wuxiang, with Bai Wuxiang arguing Mu Qing’s perspective from the draft almost word for word. Because this conversation now happens between Xie Lian and Bair Wuxiang, and Feng Xin and Mu Qing are no longer present for this scene, this also means that Mu Qing never admonishes Xie Lian for being foolish and Feng Xin never chews Mu Qing out for thinking that he is better than Xie Lian. Xie Lian doesn’t see the duo again until after he is stuck holding up the tower.

Minor changes:

Xie Lian never attacks Bai Wuxiang with a sword in the revisions; instead, he strangles him as he interrogates him, which Bai Wuxiang doesn’t take seriously.

Bai Wuxiang now escapes because the earthquake happens, not because he was using a fake body that Xie Lian attacks in anger. The line about how he’s used a fake body twice has now been changed to him being able to escape easily twice.

Because Xie Lian goes directly from his confrontation with Bai Wuxiang in Yujun Mountain to the city to deal with the earthquake, there is no scene of Qi Rong eavesdropping on the trio’s argument, since the argument also never happens.

Now when Xie Lian appears in the city, instead of asking if anyone is hurt or trapped, he immediately prevents a wall from crushing a bunch of civilians.

The line about Feng Xin and Mu Qing looking for trapped civilians is gone, as the duo do not come to the capital with Xie Lian.

The line about the statue’s smile being unchanging as it struggles under the weight of the falling pagoda is gone.

Rather than saying that Xie Lian casted a spell that failed, he now directly seats himself upon the statue upon seeing it struggle and casts from there, which reinvigorates the statue. The paragraph that talks about how Xie Lian’s might has never failed is gone.

Xie Lian no longer tells the people to stand further away, he only gets an “I” out before his voice is drowned out by the praying believers.

It is now actually implied that Xie Lian holds up the tower for at least a few days before anyone visits him, as Feng Xin and Mu Qing are said to have taken charge of the battlefield and bring him daily reports on the death tolls from the plague as well as the drought.

The king and queen visitation scene now happens before Qi Rong’s visit. Everything from the “He couldn’t fall” line to when Xie Lian finds the tiny white flower and holds it close to himself happens before Qi Rong’s visit. Qi Rong’s visit is now what distracts him from the flower rather than the stench of blood.

The king now personally shields Xie Lian from the sun with an umbrella. There is no mention of discord between them.

When Qi Rong appears, Xie Lian doesn’t ask him to tell the crowd to move back. He asks why Qi Rong has come, and the dialogue goes directly into Qi Rong saying that he’s come to help his cousin. The conversation about why would the tower collapse when Xie Lian is holding it up doesn’t happen.

Minor changes:

Xie Lian no longer asks Feng Xin to take Qi Rong away. Feng Xin and Mu Qing are considerate of Xie Lian’s struggle and move to take his cousin away on their own.

There’s no longer a description of Qi Rong being “excited” at cursing Yong’an; instead, it now says that Qi Rong looks at Xie Lian with a trace of cruelty in his eyes.

There is no longer a mention of Qi Rong’s father being from Yong’an.

Xie Lian now only asks why the man who had his leg amputated had appeared. It is also explained that the man crawled all the way from Buyou Forest to where Xie Lian was.