When last we left our problematic secondary characters, everyone went on quests coincidentally about their pasts.
A mysterious Physician saved the villagers from Fu Yi’s childhood
But he and Mu Yao recognize that she’s a Tier 6 Pure Fox Demon in disguise. The tier thing makes them sound like collectible cards. I’ll trade you this Tier 6 Fox for your Tier 4 Phantom.
Here’s her entire backstory: Demon Hunters captured her to use her blood, but her not-yet-husband set her free. Years later she heard he was sick and wanted to save him.
She went to the village to find the Cold Silkworm, which boosts her healing powers. There she found the injured villagers. Because her husband saved her life, she saved theirs. But her husband doesn’t know she’s the Fox Demon he rescued.
Mu Yao asks if she can borrow the Cold Silkworm, and the Physician agrees. Outside, her daughter listens in.
Meanwhile, Sheng hangs with his mother’s shady bestie
Who refuses to tell him about his mother until later. And Miao Miao can’t come.
Miao Miao spends the night with a random woman who exposits to her about Qilin Mountain. It used to be hidden by illusions, and now the mountain is gone but the illusions remain. This explains their trouble finding it.
Miao Miao also learns the last memory tear shed by a person has protective powers over the person they worry about the most. Miao Miao realizes Liu Niang has one and wants to confront her, but her new roommate magics her into crying tear pearls.
Sheng goes off with Liu Niang to a big fantasy tree. He asks why Crescent attacked her. She thinks it’s because she wanted his mom to have an abortion. That’s complicated.
Like the Fox Demon, Liu Niang ran into blood-draining Demon Catchers and was injured. Sheng’s mother healed her, and then they frolicked in the flowers. Sheng’s mother is Goddess Mei, the purest and kindest Tier 9 demon.
We rehash the past yet again
Mei met the Marquis, and after they returned Liu Niang saw Mu Yao’s dad and Wen Xin at the foot of the mountain. The Marquis left to take care of them and never came back. Later, Mu Yao’s dad showed up and the mountain was destroyed. When Mei heard the Marquis was married, she shed that blood tear.
At the same time, Sheng was absorbing his mother’s power in the womb. When Mei gave birth she lost all her power and had to live like a human. Liu Niang rescued her, but couldn’t help but hate Sheng and his father.
Liu Niang doesn’t know why Mei abandoned Sheng either
They’ll find out if he walks in this strange garden of memories. I don’t understand how it works, but it does. Sheng cries as he remembers his mother left to protect him. Sheng hated his father, and when his assassination attempt failed, the city was locked down. She erased his memories and told him to run, encouraging him to find love.
Later, Young Sheng hears people talk about his mom being captured but doesn’t realize it’s his mother. How sad.
Sheng agrees his mother should never have had him and sheds a tear that turns into an array that stabs through him. Liu Niang wants to get back the demon core he took from Mei.
And now for a wedding
The villagers force Mu Yao and Fu Yi to get married and stick them in a bedroom together. I think it’s supposed to be cute but I’m horrified. Worse, because they spy on them to see the action. Ick.
Mu Yao and Fu Yi kiss. And the villagers outside suddenly straighten up and act like zombies.
In the middle of the night Mu Yao hears a voice calling her name. She wanders outside and discovers a strange cave with large, creepy cocoons. The Physician is there with a man she just healed.
Later, Mu Yao contacts Guo for information. He tells her that Phantom Demons usually appear alongside the Cold Silkworm. It grows by repeatedly cocooning until it’s a powerful Tier 8 demon that can control reality and illusions. Those were the large cocoons she saw.
Mu Yao panics and runs into the village. There she notices everyone has a chest scar like the one she just saw on the Physician’s patient. Like any good horror film heroine, she tries to drag Fu Yi from this horrible place.
Too late, Fu Yi stabs Mu Yao in the shoulder to protect the Physician’s daughter, who manipulates him with Cold Silkworm thread. She’s the same demon from Fu Yi’s childhood.
Mu Yao spits blood and passes out.
Miao Miao forgets everything for the umpteenth time
First Sheng did something to her. Then there was the love bracelet. Then she forgot her entire backstory. Now she’s forgotten Sheng. I can’t imagine this is good for her brain. Or Sheng, since she has no idea he’s in trouble.
Liu Niang decides she doesn’t want to watch Sheng suffer, so she’ll kill him. He wants to know for sure his mother is dead. Liu Niang has a bit of red glass that’s Mei’s heart, a glass version of his Lotus Heart Lake. When she learned about the Marquis, it shattered and Mei shed tears of blood.
After Mei was captured, it started to wither, so Liu Niang knew his mom was dead. She nourished it with her heart blood. Blood cures everything in this reality.
Using her memories, Sheng’s demon core, and the remaining glass heart Liu Niang can restore Mei to before she met Sheng’s father. Sheng points out it would just be a memory, not his real mom. Liu Niang doesn’t care.
But Miao Miao is tired of having her memory erased. She gets them back in time to save Sheng. But Sheng is still in the formation and will die.
Miao Miao knows that Liu Niang has Mei’s final tear and thinks it can save Sheng. There’s a magic scuffle between, and the tear bursts.
Mei goes Obiwan to tell Sheng she loved him so much because she knew they wouldn’t be together long. But she worried most about Liu Niang because she knew she was breaking her promise to be together forever.
So the tear is to protect Liu Niang, not Sheng. The pearls return to her hand and Liu Niang sobs. Sheng is also upset. Liu Niang releases Sheng.
And now all the backstory on the Phantom Demon
Mu Yao wakes up and chats with the Physician. The Cold Silkworm feeds off blood only to spin a cocoon for the Phantom Demon. So she’s about to go through the final transformation to become even more powerful.
The Physician made a deal with the child demon to pretend to be her husband’s daughter and let her use the Silkworm. The Phantom demon used her core to turn the villagers into their zombie-like state. Meanwhile, the Physician lures people in to use their blood.
Mu Yao points out that the Physician has done all this for her husband, who would not want this done for him.
Later, the Physician leaves but her husband stops her to check on her. He seems sweet, I get why she wants to protect him. But after she leaves, he has a thoughtful look. What does he know?
Guo teleports to Mu Yao to free her, but unfortunately, he’s got no backup. And the Physician catches them and attacks!
The real phantom in this show is a worthwhile villain
In theory, two huge dangers are looming over our hero’s heads: The Resentful Woman and the bad ending of the novel. Neither is anywhere to be seen in these two episodes.
And they really should be here, ratcheting up the danger. Our heroes should be preparing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good against an all-powerful villain.
Instead, we get Liu Niang and a Phantom Demon. A lot of backstory. And blood magic. Sheng was next to a tree 98% of the time. We could guess his mom was Goddess Mei from back in the festival episode with the lanterns. It’s not surprising.
I want to see Sheng in demon form. Miao Miao needs to get to use her powers more. I want to see them do exciting things together.
And the whole game-novel aspect of the story has fallen into the background with Miao Miao’s memories. Are they still on track for a bad ending? Miao Miao can’t do anything about it since she can’t remember it. How much should I care about Mu Yao and Fu Yi if they aren’t real?
But I liked some things about these episodes.
I like the horror Fu Yi’s loved ones being zombie playmates to a child demon. It’s great that the demon is really a monster, instead of just misunderstood. They aren’t making it easy on Fu Yi. I worry about him the most. Whether or not he’s real, I’m not confident he’s going to survive to whatever novel ending we’re getting now.
Leave a Reply