A Brief Preface

This was the scene that moved me most deeply in the manga. The snow had not just begun to fall; it was a bitter, freezing storm that, if it continued, would be enough to force an army to retreat. Li Changge was badly wounded, suffering from a chill and burning with fever. Yet dressed only in thin, plain clothes, she walked barefoot through the snow, carrying Governor Gongsun’s severed head all the way to the Eagle Division’s Tegin to offer her surrender. After being captured, she continued to suffer from illness and her wounds. At that point in the manga, that fool Sun did not even know Li was a woman. To him, Li Changge was merely a defeated opponent who had once caused him trouble. He admired her a little, but not much; there was certainly none of the comfortable care and protection he constantly gave her in the drama.

I no longer remember clearly whether Sun’s Eagle Division was a righteous army, but Sun himself was certainly no saint.

I went back to watch the scene again just now. The production team did at least reproduce the dialogue faithfully, so I will give them that.

The drama differs from the manga in many places. Some changes I dislike, while others I accept. I approve of changing Sun’s characterization and making him hopelessly devoted to Changge; this gives them the best possible ending. (I think they may eventually end up on opposing sides in the manga, although it is a little unfortunate that the drama reveals Li is a woman so early. I would rather have watched Sun first take Li for a man and only discover the truth later.) I agree with making Li Shimin’s attitude explicit and showing that he supports Changge. I also approve of adding Princess Yong’an’s storyline and letting the two narratives progress in parallel. But I cannot accept turning Mimi into someone so weak, indecisive, and unlikeable. If I had to summarize it, I could only say this: I saw what I wanted to see, despite seeing many things along the way that I did not want at all. After finishing it, I still love the drama and have placed it on my rewatch list—a television series set high upon a shelf, kept only for remembrance.

A Little Aside: The Princess Is Fair as Jade, the Princess Is Peerless

Before watching, I wrote that although Li Changge has Western Region ancestry, she unmistakably has the black-haired appearance of the Central Plains. I thought Gulnazar would have been better suited to the role, including in the shape of her face. I also wrote that Dilraba looked a little too guileless.

I wrote something similar about Ashile Sun: he is of Turkic descent, and people of the grasslands ate plenty of beef and mutton, so Wu Lei’s frame seemed too slight for the role. They should at least have cast someone with the build of a slightly heavier Huang Xiaoming.

Later, once the two of them drew me into the story, I had no complaints at all. None of Li Changge’s cunning or quick wit was lost. I especially enjoyed how, while disguised as a man, she acted like a player and collected one “little sister” after another.

The princess is fair as jade; the princess is peerless under heaven. Hahaha!

The Long Ballad: Even After a Thousand-Li Farewell, We Must Part at Last

This is a drama I will probably never watch all the way through again in my lifetime, yet it is also a drama with enough in it to last me a lifetime.

That sounds contradictory. I probably will not rewatch it because many of its adaptations made me deeply uncomfortable. Mimi Guli was rewritten as weak and devoid of agency. Wei Shuyu and Hao Du’s misunderstanding of Changge persisted almost until the end, with one obstacle after another placed in her way. So much screen time should not have been spent on conflict between Minister Du and Changge. It even crowded out the storyline that should have belonged to Mobei. I had eagerly awaited that development: as the niece by blood of both the King of Mobei and Li Shimin, what could Changge have done for the relationship between Mobei and the Great Tang? What role might her journey to Yanmen have played in such a chaotic age? That was the story I wanted. I wanted Changge to go there in her own right as the King of Mobei’s niece, not to be hastily granted a title and sent there as someone’s younger sister.

Many of the adaptations felt inappropriate to me, though in retrospect perhaps the story I imagined was simply too grand in scale. That may also explain why, at the end of the drama, I still felt a lingering discomfort with Changge and Sun’s decision to withdraw into the wilderness.

The lesser recluse hides in the wilds; the greater recluse hides in the marketplace.

I do not fully understand what this saying means in concrete terms. But I think Changge and Sun chose the former.

I cannot imagine what would ultimately become of the two of them, but I know the drama’s ending was the best original ending it could have given them. In the manga, whether Changge and Sun will eventually turn against one another remains unknown. In the drama, at least, Sun never doubted or hurt Changge. It may be the behavior of a man hopelessly in love, but it was what I wanted to see. In the manga, Sun never shows the same clear devotion to benevolence and justice that Changge does, nor does it suggest that they share the same aspirations. He merely tells her that if they find themselves on opposing sides one day, they should cross blades without mercy.

I seem to remember them sharing a drink. Was that the last chapter before the hiatus?

Whether it was the relationship between Changge and Sun, the relationship between Changge and her second uncle Li Shimin, Minister Du’s relationship with her at the end, or ultimately everyone’s view of Li Changge, I agreed with and loved how it all concluded.

Chang’an may be a place she can never return to, but it is still there.

Empress Xiao was the same. Even after the Sui had fallen, when she returned to Chang’an, she said that she had come home.

Besides, wherever Li Shimin—Li Changge’s second uncle—is, that place will always be Li Changge’s home.

It is just that after two days of watching from morning to night, plus another entire morning, my liver was beginning to feel faint.

I have seen you off a thousand li; here, at last, we must part.

At the end, when Li Shimin learned that Li Changge had faked her death and still did not wish to return to Chang’an, he smiled in acceptance. He supported her choice. Faced with this version of Li Changge, could I still cling to my original, naive wish? I only missed the sight of Li Changge in red robes, galloping through Chang’an like its little tyrant. I only missed the Chang’an I had imagined, the Great Tang that had never existed. Only at the end did I realize that, like Princess Yicheng, I was merely a mad dreamer chasing a fantasy.

Li Changge, thank you for keeping me company all this way. Perhaps I am even more hesitant and long-winded than Young Master Wei. Have I found my path again?