Thread by @zhehanzi, today we are thinking about the final line of the tyk chorus [...]

today we are thinking about the final line of the tyk chorus in shl:
“万里河山万家灯往事如烟浪淘沙将平生霜雪与君煮酒烹茶”

it’s stunning & perfectly encapsulates wenzhou’s romance, their appreciation of mundanity, and desire for a lifetime of wandering with your soulmate

1/?

(i apologise in advance for any inaccuracies! i’m by no means an expert so this is going to be a more emotionally driven article than a critical appreciation, although it may be a bit more scholarly than my previous threads. do reply with your ideas, i’d love to discuss

)

“万里河山万家灯
The lights of ten thousand families light up the world,

往事如烟浪淘沙
The past disappears like smoke in a sandstorm

将平生霜雪
I will spend the rest of my days

与君煮酒烹茶
enjoying my life with you”

(via https://lyricstranslate.com )

the english translations out there for this line are very very good at capturing the serene, accepting, unwavering calmness and certainty that i associate with this lyric. there’s stasis but also vitality - it’s a lyric that

burns into you and hums through you, feeling more like a river than a flame, if that makes any sense. this line in particular, i associate with pure hope - there’s something about the image it evokes in its deliberate language choices:

万里河山万家灯 - i personally read that as “thousands of miles of mountains and rivers stretch before us, just as the thousands of lights from the people it holds”

there’s something about this line that makes me feel small. you know in hamlet, when hamlet finally

accepts at the end of the play that everything is driven by fate and accepts his insignificance? that’s sort of how this line makes me feel. the transience, insignificance, the fleeting nature of things - the macrocosm of all this earth and all these people inhabiting it.

it’s a comforting notion, that we are just us - 渺小 insignificant, small, in the grand scheme of the wider world.

it’s not a scary thought or a dreadful one - it’s romantic, it’s beautiful; the idea that everything is fleeting and insignificant makes the idea of us,

the idea of /you and i/, so much more poignant. it echoes zhou zishu’s fierce refusal to live on if it means he has to give up what empowers and liberates him.

one of zhou zishu’s famous lines is 宁可肆意妄为的活十天，也不违逆本心的活十年 — i’d rather live unrestrained

for ten days, than go against what i believe and live for ten years.

(diverging slightly to say this is why the ending of ep36 is so jarring - zzh said it himself, the happiest ending for zzs would’ve been to wander the earth with wkx for the remainder of his days, no matter

how few. whilst wkx’s sacrifice is cool & i’m not personally too upset about the ending, it is the furthest from what zzs would’ve wanted - it goes against all our previous interpretations of his character and makes wkx’s understanding of zzs also feel superficial. but i digress)

anyway! zhou zishu wants to /live/. to him, living requires meaning, requires more than pure existence - his courage and strength is exemplified by his lack of fear for death and his desire to charge forwards without regret - to him, living is a fierce, visceral experience.

往事如烟浪淘沙 - “the past drifts away and fades like smoke, and the waves wash away the sand”

浪淘沙 is one of the most famous phrases in chinese poetry, accredited to the poem by 刘禹锡 , a tang dynasty scholar. the full line is ”九曲黄河万里沙，浪淘风簸自天涯”

the poem depicts the Huang He (yellow river) cleansing and washing away the bits of sand along its winding path. the bits of sand have been carried along the river’s tumultuous journey, travelling from the edges of the horizon to here.

the influences of this line definitely come into play with wenzhou’s attitude towards life, as wandering specks of sand being carried along a winding route. 天涯客 (Tian Ya Ke) loosely means the wanderers from the edges of the horizon - that’s wenzhou - and in the poem i

mentioned, the poet is describing the admirable journey of the sand, who are also travellers coming from the edges of the horizon, who overcame all these waves and obstacles. the poet is praising them for their determination and courage in taking such a gruelling journey.

in the next lines of the poem - 如今直上银河去，同到牵牛织女家 - the poet vividly uses the myth of 牛郎织女 (niu lang zhi nu), a pair of star-crossed lovers separated by the galaxy, to describe the desire to embrace a perilous journey, persevering forwards until he finally

reaches the home of niu lang and zhi nu, expressing his courage and heroism.

wen kexing and zhou zishu’s story really closely echoes this sentiment. niu lang and zhi nu’s life above the chaos of society is a life admired and sought after by many -

this idea of not being tainted by the troubles of the earth is represented by the 安吉四贤 the four sages of anji in shl, who live a life which zhou zishu admires and longs for.

it’s an entirely romantic, poetic idea - to be able to live above the superficial troubles of humanity, but the poet longs for it just as zhou zishu, and wen kexing, do.

so anyway, back to the lyric - the past has been washed away like waves cleansing away the sand.

there’s a melancholic, accepting and hopeful tone here, and it reminds me of rejuvenation, starting fresh on a clean slate. the past has passed, having been cleared away by the unyielding force of the ocean, and now we have the blank canvas of the sea-bank beneath us.

it expresses the hopeful sentiment that the past does not define you, and also reinforces the idea of the fleeting nature of life and the transience of all earthly things, as mentioned earlier.

zzs says that 坏人放下屠刀就能立地成佛，好人做了坏事难道就得永世不可超生？- “when a bad person puts down his weapon he can suddenly become good; how can it be that if a good person did a bad thing, they can never be redeemed?”

there is forgiveness, wisdom in this line, and this

forgiveness, this ability to start over and be good which arguably defines wen kexing in shl, is encapsulated by the idea of the ocean washing away the sand, cleansing away your sin and giving you understanding, forgiveness and redemption, until the past has all faded like smoke.

将平生霜雪与君煮酒烹茶 — i read this as “to dedicate the remainders of this life to and soend it with you”

so we’ve just spent two lines detailing the macrocosm of the wider world growing around us, but here we zero in on the microcosm of wen kexing and zhou zishu.

it’s a gorgeous image - in my head, i see the frost and snow of the mountains, but i feel warm. maybe this is a subtle reference to the ending? to spend the rest of this eternity on the frosty mountains with each other - except the tone is warm, it’s soothing, it’s happy. there

is warmth in the imagery of the cold. zhou zishu would rather die live a restrained life without meaning, yet in shl he spends his eternity on a mountain, eating snow and drinking ice - but to him, this /is/ living. he is still living as fiercely and hopefully as he did before.

what’s different is that he still feels free - there’s a complete willingness and acceptance to spend his life here, with wen kexing, duelling under the blue sky. this is their romanticised ideal of simplicity, living above the chaos of the world, with each other’s company.

it redeems the ending; it’s beautiful, it’s romantic, it’s poetic. they are together, unrestrained, it feels like breathing for the first time. it makes it perfect.

wenzhou have made it back to their edge of the horizon, the pinnacle of contentment and serenity. they are

wanderers who have found a home in each other. it’s a lovely picture. as the translation says, “i will spend the rest of my days enjoying my life with you” - but it’s more than that: 君 - there is wisdom, dignity, respect, reverence attached to this, as commonly used as it was.

zhou zishu is good, wen kexing is good - undoubtedly, endlessly good. there is honour attached to this word - i am honoured to have known you, the you who is as true, righteous, honourable as you are.

煮酒烹茶 “brewing wine and drinking tea” - another common phrase to express the feeling of “enjoying my life”, but we also shouldn’t neglect the more surface level connotations - there is a simplicity, a contentment to this phrase.

煮酒烹茶 is domestic, is simple, easy, effortless, comforting. it once again celebrates the mundane parts of life, appreciates the simple things. it is constant, unwavering, habitual.

“万里河山万家灯往事如烟浪淘沙
将平生霜雪与君煮酒烹茶”

“thousands of miles of mountains and rivers stretch before us, with thousands of lights from the people it holds. the past drifts away and fades like smoke, and the waves wash away the sand.

i’ll dedicate the remainder of this life to you, with you, as we live.”

it feels like breathing for the first time.

this is why i love shl, why i love period dramas. there’s so much hidden in the layers of dialogue or the song lyrics. it’s always poetic, romantic, beautiful (as zhehan himself says) and you’ll always find more to swoon over on your second, fifth, hundredth watch.

every moment blossoms with meaning - it’s captivating.

again, i’m really no expert, just a big fan, so although i have tried my best to encapsulate the intensity of my thoughts and feelings and the different references, i can’t say i’ve done it justice or explained everything perfectly, so do take everything with a grain of salt.

that said, i hope you enjoyed this thread. tell me if you want to see more of these! i have so much to say haha

feel free to leave your thoughts and replies! i’d love to talk about it, even if you aren’t a chinese speaker. it’s always lovely to hear different perspectives

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