#songyu

Qiao Tianya and Yao Wenyu are my absolute favorite couple in danmei (I know, shocking, considering how much QuanYin I write in comparison xD) and I spent a long, long time considering making some sort of meta post about them, but it IS an intimidating task, because they’re a very complex and layered pair, and a big part of their relationship is untold, leaving us readers to put the pieces together.

In my personal opinion, T97’s prose was masterful enough to tell their story in such a way without it feeling incomplete, on the contrary: it is impactful and meaningful, and one of the most beautiful yet tragic ones I’ve ever read. It’s a very special way to tell a story (and the same happened with QiHua, and with several of the secondary characters) where the small glimpses are enough for the reader to follow, connect the dots, and extrapolate the rest to get the full picture. I admire T97’s writing a lot, and this is one of the details in her writing that impressed me the most, in fact.

All that said, it’s understandable to have trouble with piecing it all together at times, because it is challenging to do so in a novel with as many characters and plot threads to follow. But it’s not impossible, and also, it shouldn’t be used as an excuse to justify bad faith readings.

It’s important to note that there’s also another issue, when it comes to the official translation of the novel and SongYu in particular. There’s a very important scene that’s missing in volume 6, at the end of chapter 200. My first reading of the novel was through the fan translation by cangji, which doesn’t have this problem, and therefore, I was shocked to find that the official translation was missing that moment (one of my favorite scenes in the whole novel, by the way. Like, I was vibrating in excitement waiting for the volume to be released because I wanted to read the official translation of it. And there was nothing!) And as soon as I noticed that, I knew that the risk for people to get a potentially skewed and incomplete understanding of them would simply skyrocket. (Don’t ask me why the scene is missing: I have no idea, but I do know that it shouldn’t, since from what I know, it’s not an addition exclusive to the revised version of the novel).

I won’t share the fan translation of the scene, as I don’t want to get in trouble, but I can direct you an excerpt of the audio drama adaptation (watch from 1:35 to 3:43) that covers that exact same scene.

Now, let’s get into The Scene ™ in chapter 203.

I have to preface this by saying that I do believe it is completely understandable to have a negative reaction to that scene on a first read. It can even be triggering, which I also understand. You don’t have to like SongYu after this scene, even if you liked them before. You don’t have to enjoy this scene, you can also stop reading the novel altogether. Emotions are valid, and as a victim of CSA I know very well how bad and how intense those can get after being triggered.

But I also believe that a visceral, personal reaction shouldn’t color the interpretation of a scene on an analytical level, and that a personal feeling shouldn’t be superimposed or equated to the authorial intent. (And I’ve seen both things happen, so that's why I mention it.)

It is a scene that’s heavily uncomfortable, even painful to read at times. I’m not denying that, and it’s clear to me that that’s intentional too. It’s tense, it’s full of desperation, hopelessness, shame, and a myriad of other complicated and contradicting feelings. But there’s value in that discomfort, and pushing through uncomfortable things in media is an important skill to have. Of course it’s perfectly valid to need to stop and it’s important to know your own limits, but it’s also important to question where your discomfort is coming from, and not look just away from uncomfortable things because they’re, indeed, uncomfortable.

The first reading of chapter 203 can be quite shocking, even if you’re not missing the context that the scene at the end of chapter 200 gives us. In fact, the scene is even more impactful with that context. But, in my own experience, that first impression starts crumbling the more you consider their situation as a whole, their past history —both as individuals and as a pairing— and also forces you to reconsider your own expectations about them in a very upfront way.

In my case, I chose to live in denial up until… :checks notes: chapter 268. That was the specific point where I finally let go of all my delusions of a possibility of a slightly happy ending (not even in my most deranged delusions did I fantasize about a true happy ending for them ;A;) But I was choosing to live in that denial because I’m a softie that didn’t want to accept how doomed they were. The thing is that I still knew they were doomed and knew that it was evident since the moment Yao Wenyu was left disabled and chronically ill.

Their doomed trait as a pairing is also central to who they are as individual characters. And to fully appreciate them, you have to love them in all their glorious, painful and deeply human tragedy.

In that sense, what we want to happen, our expectations and hopes (especially if we love them and want to see them happy) will end up being very different from their actual story and the way they were written. And if you don't like their outcome, that doesn't mean it automatically is the fault of bad writing. especially with a tragic doomed romance as they are. (I spent a whole day crying inconsolably about them, when I finished the novel. I had not cried like that since the ending of Banana fish, let me tell you).

Their story had always been about living on borrowed time, about how who they are is pretty much “people who can't afford to have this”; it’s also about repression, denial; it's the story of an immovable object (Yao Wenyu’s determination) and an unstoppable force (Qiao Tianya’s devotion).

And chapter 203 is a moment where the clash of that determination and devotion truly explodes. It will not be the last time it happens, but it’s the most intense of them all, I think. Which says a lot, considering how there’s ALWAYS a lot of emotions packed in each and every short scene and interaction we see between SongYu along the whole novel.

One of the things I’ve seen repeated the most is the take that this scene is a sexual assault. Which, in my personal opinion, falls absolutely flat and leaves out practically everything we know about them in context, to the point that it ends up being a bad faith reading.

First, we need to consider the most immediate context, which is: the contents of chapter 200. It’s a very endearing moment, and also extremely bittersweet. There's trust there between them, there's vulnerability, and it's the moment where Qiao Tianya sees more clearly through the cracks of Yao Wenyu’s "lofty immortal" attitude that he has been using as a mask to keep his dignity. It’s a moment where we get to see Yao Wenyu’s feelings that he keeps hidden, and get a glimpse of reciprocation of desire.

And from here onward, the trope of a person that knows you better than yourself and that can see through all your facades and still love you in all your flawed, imperfect self is very important. Because that’s who Qiao Tianya turns to be for Yao Wenyu, and yet, that’s not enough to defeat Yao Wenyu’s self–repression, his denial and rejection of desire, and his fractured sense of self.

Qiao Tianya is THE only person that Yao Wenyu allows to see him naked, and witness the full extent of his pain and his shame. I don’t read their nightly bath routine pre–chapter 200 as one that was particularly loving or intimate in a romantic sense, though. Especially if we consider that Yao Wenyu would only need help with getting inside and out of the bathtub, and maybe with his hair (we know Qiao Tianya towels off the excess of water of it…) but he’s not fully disabled and unable to take care of things like that. Maybe in a bad day he’d need more help, but that’s not his baseline.

Qiao Tianya is also an observant person, and when Yao Wenyu breaks his composure on chapter 200, he got a confirmation of many things: his pain, his hopelessness, his self–doubts, and also his desire. A desire that, off–screen, gets fulfilled, and we don’t get to see the exact circumstances, but we know that Qiao Tianya gave Yao Wenyu a handjob.

To Yao Wenyu, his desire is dirty and shameful; he clings to his “untouchable immortal” persona, to try to keep control, to try to preserve at least a modicum of all that he lost. He can’t let go of it, because he feels like that would equal letting go of the last piece of him that was not taken away by the horrific violence and abuse he suffered.

To Qiao Tianya, Yuanzhuo’s desire is first and foremost, a proof of his humanity. Nothing in this scene is about Qiao Tianya’s desire or pleasure. He wants Yuanzhuo to embrace that side of himself, to stop pretending he’s a statue, a lofty being; their previous encounter and that shared soft and vulnerable moment were proof. One detail that I love of the scene in chapter 200 is how Qiao Tianya doesn’t put Yao Wenyu on the spot for crying, and allows them both to pretend it’s just the melting snow. To me, it says a lot of how much he respects and protects that vulnerability that Yao Wenyu is showing. He’s always so careful with Yuanzhuo!

Qiao Tianya treasures that humanity, treasures Yao Wenyu as a whole and not just his wisdom as a strategist or his brilliant mind that shines above everyone else in his generation. And maybe he thought that they had finally overcome the blockage of Yao Wenyu’s self–repression, and finding out that it was the contrary, that it was worse now, that Yao Wenyu was ashamed of what happened, is the moment where it all explodes.

Qiao Tianya is desperate because he knows, he sees Yao Wenyu, and he loves him, and for a moment it had seemed like Yuanzhuo had accepted the loss of that "last bit of himself". And it turned out to be different, and it pushes their whole relationship out of its axis. And then his frustration turns into a forceful storm, because Yao Yuanzhuo is rejecting himself again.

Yao Wenyu voices that rejection and self–loathing as I hate Qiao Tianya, but his hatred is, in my reading, fundamentally, towards himself: for having desires, for still wanting, for wanting Qiao Tianya. And he knows that Qiao Tianya sees through his lies, through that facade, and still loves him for who he is, still wants him, still enables that side of him. But Yao Wenyu can't accept it, because without that last dignity, then who is he anymore?! What's left of him, of his ideals, of his image, if he does? So he hates himself, and hates that he’s seen through, his humanity laid bare and acknowledged so openly by Qiao Tianya.

So of course it's not an easy affair. Also, again, an important thing to note is that nothing in this scene is about Qiao Tianya's pleasure. It never was about that, because everything in this scene is about Yao Wenyu’s self–repression. Qiao Tianya is not even the one who touches Yao Wenyu directly, instead, he takes Yao Wenyu's hand to make him touch himself, because he wants Yuanzhuo to accept his own pleasure, take it into his hands, stop running away from his own desires, his own humanity.

“You can hate me all you want” says Qiao Tianya, because he will carry that burden, if that’s the price for getting Yao Wenyu to stop hating himself. “You’re not in the wrong” he says, because it’s not wrong to be human, it’s not wrong to have desires, wants, needs. And he will always protect Yao Wenyu and his vulnerability, so there’s nothing to fear, why can’t Yuanzhuo see it?!

Was Qiao Tianya’s choice “good”? I think that’s completely beside the point. This is a fictional story, and characters are nothing but vehicles to tell a story and push the plot, so the morality of their actions is not the most important thing, but what their choices say about them, about their context, about their relationships with others, about their intentions. And Qiao Tianya never intended to harm Yao Wenyu.

It’s not a titillating scene. It’s humiliating for Yao Wenyu, it’s uncomfortable, but it's not even about the sex! There's so much more at stake in that moment, like Yao Wenyu's whole identity, for starters, and the focus of the whole scene, their conversation, their whole interaction, is not about sex but about what a sexual encounter between them means. And, just in case someone needs it explicitly said: Yao Wenyu does want Qiao Tianya in a carnal way. That’s the crux of his dilemma! That he DOES want him that way! That their desire is very much mutual.

So, again, remember: the trope of a person that knows you better than yourself is still at play here. It’s not a power play, but a moment where Qiao Tianya, out of love and meaning well, loses control in his desperation to get Yao Wenyu to accept himself.

I’m not saying that his reaction is the best possible one, but also: I'm saying that I don't want nor need to have perfect reactions and healthy solutions to everything from the characters I love. That would be tremendously boring (which, imho, is the worst sin a character can commit), and I’d rather have the complexity of the human experience explored through my fictional blorbos who can’t actually get hurt or suffer.

Their whole relationship is a constant push and pull, anyway. How much does Yao Wenyu allow himself to have? How much can Qiao Tianya get away with, before their time runs out? It’s never easy, it’s never free of pain, be it the one they both carry from their personal story, or the one they self–inflict. Nothing between them is easy, and they’re not lovey–dovey like, say, CeZhou gets to be. At some points, it’s almost one–sided thanks to Yao Wenyu’s strong walls he has built around himself. It’s a constant battle, their very own game of weiqi where, in the end. Yao Wenyu still got the last move. (And it was still not enough to deter or diminish Qiao Tianya's devotion, as we see on the extra from the traditional Chinese edition…)

I believe that we’ve become so used to only reading sexual things as either "acceptable" or "wrong", and therefore anything that exists in between can only ever be seen as "wrong", when what is actually being done in chapter 203 is a pulling back of the curtain. Which doesn't mean it's not uncomfortable or painful: it's supposed to be. It wasn't the best possible reaction from Qiao Tianya, but in all reality, what other reaction could there really have been with this desperation, anyway? Yao Wenyu was obviously never going to be open to having some big “talking it out” scene. It was kind of out of the question. Instead of trying to debate Yao Wenyu out of his denial, Qiao Tianya opted for acknowledging the elephant that had been in the room with them since the night of chapter 200: you desire me, and I desire you, and no matter what you say, that still remains as the truth.

Another thing I’ve seen commented about SongYu in several occasions has to do with ableism.

I've never read any ableism in their relationship. I think Qiao Tianya genuinely respects Yao Wenyu enough to give him as much autonomy as he could, whenever he could. Any power imbalance between them crumbles with how Qiao Tianya puts himself under Yao Wenyu, in his service, practically all the time. The two exceptions are chapter 203 and… chapter 250, if I recall correctly, when Qiao Tianya corners him and kisses him during the siege of Duanzhou. Which are, again, two moments of deep (but very different) desperation: during the siege, they’re in a situation where they could very much end up dead real soon. It feels like Qiao Tianya making a (potentially) last declaration of his love and his passion, just in case it’s the end. (I wrote a fic about the impact of this in their relationship, because I love that moment so much T_T)

I've also seen people talk about Yao Wenyu and using the word "broken" to refer to him, in a way that rubs me the wrongest possible way. Because yes, he is disabled, but I never felt like it was T97's intention for us to read him as completely broken. He’s not absolutely helpless either. He can push his own wheelchair without assistance and clearly does so many badass things in a very dignified way. He still has some agency, even if limited because of his circumstances. And I think Qiao Tianya would want him to have it and doesn't see him as a broken person, but as a person with irreparably broken legs, which is not the same, right?

People definitely tend to oversimplify disability and the disabled experience with words like "broken", and assume things that can't be further from the disabled experience. (I don't use mobility aids, I'm just autistic and extremely burned out and with varying needs of support... and I would hate the word "broken" to be used to refer to me or other people in my same situation. And I bet that anyone with any degree of disability would hate their humanity and their identity to be reduced to a “broken version of a complete human being”)

If anything, what was the most broken in Yao Wenyu's case was his self-image and his identity: the unpolished jade, now covered in cracks, about to crumble.

We're not meant to read him as broken, but he does see himself as broken, when he's at his worst, when he’s having a bad day, and it especially comes to the surface when it comes to desire, because desire forces you to inhabit your body and connect with it. There’s a dimension of desire that’s carnal, and there’s nothing Yao Wenyu hates more than confronting how physically broken his body is. Desire is vulnerable, is raw, and can be hard to hide. It also comes with a loss of control, which can be extremely scary.

And it’s all encompassed in that moment after the banquet, with the drunkenness, the eagerness, the tears, the shame, the self-deprecation, the flirting.

It’s a very defining moment for them, because up until that point, even if their feelings are mutual, it is only to some extent. That's a keyword for me. Because Yao Wenyu is always so closed off, and even if he has feelings, he's constantly rejecting them and only on chapter 200 we get to see him actually acting like a young man his age.

And also because even if there’s trust, I feel like most of their relationship relied on yearning, pining, but not acting on it. And even when Qiao Tianya is so devoted to Yao Wenyu, a lot of what he does for Yuanzhuo is mechanical, routine, devoid of intimacy —even if he loves Yao Wenyu as much as he does—. The bathing ritual in particular is only ever framed as Yao Wenyu liking to be clean and that "if he didn't bathe, he couldn't sleep" (that's the actual phrasing in the official translation). And it’s also explicitly mentioned that he had only accepted Qiao Tianya taking care of him in this way because he couldn't bear letting anyone else see him that way.

So, again, everything between only goes to a certain extent. Their relationship as a whole could be seen as a constantly unfulfilled desire. Yao Wenyu only lets things advance up to a certain point, and believes he has no more regrets before dying (which is why chapter 268 broke me so bad). It was so obvious there that he was saying goodbye while he still could do it on his own terms. And yet, when he dies, his last thought still goes to Qiao Tianya, wishing they could have met earlier. (Fuck, I’m crying about them again T_T)

And about crying about them: I feel like it’s especially important, to have a full appreciation of them, their story and their tragedy, to not turn them into something they’re not. They’re painful, they’re complicated, they’re not the conventional image of a loving couple. Softening them will only hurt your interpretation of who they are, because the sort of love they share is one that’s bleeding, that hurts them, that they cannot afford to feel. Yet they do. Qiao Tianya surrenders to it, while Yao Wenyu fights against it until the very end.

Going back to the meaning of chapter 203: I believe that, for some people, it reads as a power imbalance because they are unable to suspend their disbelief and read it as Qiao Tianya doing it with good intentions. I also think we’ve all done something in our lives with good intent and botching the execution to a painful degree, right? That’s such a human experience! And in a fictional setting, the stakes are higher because it's fiction! There’s drama! It’s explosive! But it’s the same thing at its baseline: a botched attempt at doing something with good intentions. And yes, obviously that wasn't a good thing to do, but his INTENT wasn't the harm that so many people project onto the scene. Their focus is far too much on trying to turn the scene into a purely sexual encounter, when it’s a confrontation of so many complex things and a much more layered scene.

If this had been a physical fight, for some reason, instead of an encounter like this, would we have these problems? Would people have an easier time understanding the emotional turmoil that both of them are feeling and that’s being laid bare here, and get that THAT is the point, especially for Yao Wenyu?

On a very, very personal note, I feel like the instrumentalization of the experiences of victims of SA is the thing that irks me the most in some of the "criticisms" I've seen about this scene. It's almost like they can only see characters like Yao Wenyu as victims without any agency, and therefore in their rush to "stand up" for him they end up doing the victimizing themselves. it can't ever be anything more complex, he can't ever be grappling with or feeling anything more complex. Sexual desire gets reduced and distorted to fit in right or wrong categories. Any exploration of the “wrong” side of sexual desire should automatically be discarded and admonished.

Meanwhile, I think fictional stories like SongYu’s are the perfect place to have those discussions and explore those emotions, like the complicated and painful relationship of a disabled man with his own desire and his manhood, the feelings of brokenness that disability can bring, the weight of societal expectations, the struggle of self–image and self–perception, the loss of autonomy, the importance of retaining your agency, the grappling between what you want and what you think you deserve… And I could keep going.

You can't really appreciate a tragedy like the one Yao Wenyu and Qiao Tianya go through if you're more concerned with talking about why these are bad things you shouldn't do and the inherent tragedy of their experiences is shoved to the side.