Oh. Thank you so much!!!!!
Woa... awesome. Good job explaining everything, and thank you, you and Bloomie are the heroes of this story's readers!! ヾ(☆▽☆)
Happy to help, I really love this story!
I'm actually Bloomie, I just have multiple accounts (mostly for purposes of keeping reading lists and galleries organized, nothing weird LOL) I just don't usually comment with this empty one! I am not as organized as I thought. Heh heh.
Next part under spoilers so it doesn't accidently show up on the main comment thread page...
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IS THIS FAR ENOUGH
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I THINK SO
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I'm wondering if this "Demon King" thing is actually it's own entity, like a demonic force that can jump bodies? We've already seen that such a thing can happen with Lord Cat (haha). It's possible that the God of War ended up getting possessed by such a creature, a really strong one, "the Demon King", and with his big power, became a huge threat and difficult to take down. The power/force sealed in Xuan Yue is finally seen, and it does look like a humanoid ghost-type thing. Not clear-featured yet... but maybe it did the same thing to the God of War that it's doing to Xuan Yue, only with Xuan Yue, it was a forced possession? Does that sound reasonable?
Oh~ That sounds very reasonable theory. I agree.
It sounds like a virus....or a parasite.....
It's possible but I hope it's not like an actual individual (it would take away some of Ryan/Jifeng/the god of war's coolness if it turned out another guy was able to possess him!) but I hope it's rather more like a "force" becoming sentient after it was born of the accumulation of negative energy that is generated naturally by the darker emotions of all living beings (fear, rage, etc). If it was an actual "person", it'd mean he was at some point stronger than the god of war/Jifeng/Ryan, and that's no good for me 'cause our Ryan simply MUST stay FOREVER the coolest! ε=ε=(ノ≧∇≦)ノ
Oh, and I forgot: thank you again, Bloomie! I thought the writing style here was so similar to yours so I thought this account definitely belonged to a friend of yours or someone who at least "knew" you, rofl!! Never thought to consider the most obvious explanatio, hahaha...I'm so silly! (≧∀≦)
haha, I'm back with my regular Yuuko avatar, to confuse and annoy with my recognizable wall-of-text comment style! (≧∀≦)
I like to keep this "Victorian Lady" account totally free and empty of lists and galleries, just for popping in to read and not anything else, but maybe now I will use her for an "Ao Ao Specific" account. (=・ω・=)
Might as well! "Ao Ao" seems to be my obsession of late, heh. It's just SO cute, and SO funny, and very touching, and super romantic... I really envy that author, for sure! It is a mystery story too, of course, and I know not everybody is into--or has the time for--reading stuff over and over (and over and over) AND laboriously translating the raws (I don't speak or read Chinese so that's... quite the undertaking, lol) for all those tiny clues; I've got the time and inclination, so if I can help other readers out a bit by summarizing, it makes me happy. It's such an enjoyable story, and the mystery is so craftily woven into it, I hope everybody who reads it can get as much happiness from it as I have.
⁄(⁄ ⁄·⁄ω⁄·⁄ ⁄)⁄
Little "Ao Ao" fandom for the win! <3
Haha, I imagined the God of War, in his wicked-awesome humongous-shouldered armor and super long ponytail, tripping and falling into a Lord Cat-style trap and almost exploded (≧∀≦)
I'm wondering if "the Demon King" is simply this demonic force that hops bodies, and that's why there's always a demon king, no matter how many of them get defeated. And when the God of War became the "demon king", hoo boy, then Heaven had a problem because here was the biggest, baddest, strongest demon king ever, who also happened to know all the ins and outs of Heaven personally, because he was the Heavenly Emperor's BFF! Yikes!
But yeah I'm having trouble imagining how that happened. I'll tell you how it's described in the comic! Sp, Ao Gu searches and searches for years, trying to find Ao Yue. He finally locates him, but he doesn't want to approach him directly, for obvious reasons. Somebody (okay it's Grandpa... in his tiny smurf-sized "just got a human body" form) (they had tea) (and it was soooo cuuuuuute!!) suggested that Ao Gu go and visit Ao Yue in secret! Well, Ao Gu thought that was about the best advice he'd ever heard, so late one night, he went softly tapping at Uncle Jin's door...
Uncle Jin sits down with Ao Gu and tells him all the stuff that had been hidden from him deliberately.
"Do you know about the Demon King?" Uncle Jin asks Ao Gu.
"Of course, Uncle Jin, a three year old child knows about the Demon King," replies Ao Gu.
"That's right--when one Demon King falls, another rises in his place, so there's always a Demon King. For most of history, the demon king wasn't strong enough to threaten heaven... until the last one."
Ao Gu is thoughtful. "You mean, the one who took Heaven by surprise with his strength?"
"Yes," says Uncle Jin. "And he was the God of War. Once he became the Demon King, he had the power to destroy Heaven and wipe out earth! We'd never seen a threat like that before."
"What are you saying!" Ao Gu is really surprised. "No way--the God of War? My Uncle's (the Heavenly Emperor's) BFF/right hand/always together buddy??? That God of War?"
"You were very young at the time, Crown Prince," Uncle Jin continues sadly. "So you don't remember it well. The God of War left Ninth Heaven long ago, but I never thought he would fall to the demonic path."
As Uncle Jin tells the story, the art shows the back view of a tall, armored man with long dark hair. This is the God of War. He has dragon horns, and his transformation is shown--a black dragon! Or maybe it's a silver dragon--his hair is black, but his scales are lighter, silvery. Anyway, he definitely became the black dragon when he 'fell', though we don't know yet how that happened. Uncle Jin doesn't say--only that he was taken aback by the occurrence. Evidently, at least some of this happened after Ao Gu was already born, though he was very little at the time.
"Even though Heaven managed to separate his soul from his body," Uncle Jin goes on, "they were unable to destroy the demonic power completely. The demonic power can trouble one's heart, make one go crazy! It confuses and torments! Heaven didn't know what to do with it, how to contain it or destroy it... and then, his highness Ao Yue came into the world. You remember what happened then, Crown Prince."
They both sit for a moment, remembering. Uncle Jin has more to say, "the rumors about the Black Dragon descending to the world and causing chaos and destruction began back when the God of War first fell. But Ao Yue is the one who is blamed, now. When the demonic powers were put inside him, he turned from a green (technically, cyan) dragon to the black dragon. He thinks he was born to be a monster, spurned by others, alone and unloved." This breaks Uncle Jin's kind heart. "I couldn't bear to tell his second highness the truth of his origins."
Ao Gu is solemn. "And with the demonic powers inside of him, he would never be accepted in the Heavenly realm, either..." he says, looking glum.
"Your Royal Father knew that, Crown Prince," says Uncle Jin. "He wanted to take a gamble, the only chance..."
"What gamble?" Ao Gu is curious.
"He bet that his child could purify and defeat the power of the Demon King."
In a later chapter, we are shown that Dragons have celestial power that can both detect and neutralize/purify evil energy. Ao Gu demonstrates this during one of his visits to Dr. Sun. Dr. Sun was examining a poison pill he sneaked from the Demon Slaying Sect headquarters, using a little evil-detecting flower that withered immediately upon contact with the pill. Ao Gu picked up the flower and it instantly revived. So the Dragon King's gamble is a possibility!
And that's the story of the God of War. I'm not actually sure that his body is Jifeng... I suppose Jifeng could be some random cultivator who just wandered into town at the wrong time, and the Demon King will hop into him from Xuan Yue, but I really like the idea of Jifeng/Ryan being the God of War's body, and his soul/powers are sealed in Xuan Yue! Besides, if Jifeng isn't the war god's body, then who is? Oh wait... there's one character I'm really suspicious of... the leader of the Demon Slayer sect... he also has long dark hair, and an eye patch, and he makes poison pills that he just hands out to his guests! He also spies on Xuan Yue, Jifeng, and Jr. Brother when they are hanging around in town. He's *totally* suspect, and everybody says he battled with the Black Dragon in the past.
Anyway, the God of War is intensely cool-looking, what little we see of him, and he does have long dark hair...
omg--forgive me for replying yet again, but I totally forgot my original answer. Pffft. I think you're really onto something. You know how Heaven seems to reject all emotion, good or bad? And the Heavenly Officials are supposed to be totally cold, and they have these rigidly constructed lives with no love, etc. etc.
Even as a child, Ao Gu could feel it when he was in Heaven. So cold--loveless, lifeless--he wanted to go straight back to the Eastern Sea, to Ao Yue, to love and fun and playtime. So maybe this God of War had serious objections to this loveless, cold, severe lifestyle. Maybe there was some kind of breakup between him and his BFF the Heavenly Emperor, perhaps they couldn't agree. The God of War wanted to feel, and love, and he went in search of everything Heaven couldn't offer... but love and joy aren't the only things waiting in the world. Like you say, there are negative emotions accumulating out there. The resentments and grudges and anger of living beings, all of those things that Heaven rejects--but don't those emotions also have a role in a complete, balanced world?
I wonder if the God of War was just searching for balance. Good and bad, black and white, it's all necessary for a complete life. You'll have love, but you'll also have sorrow, and while the rest of Heaven wasn't willing to deal with that, the God of War felt like something was missing. And we're still in the middle of this process of balancing the realms so that everybody can have a full range of emotion, a full and complete life with the good and the bad together. I'd be sad to see the heavenly deities (like Grandpa) have to make a choice between feeling love and following their paths to godhood. Maybe the God of War wanted something like that too?
Ahhhh wait... wait... WHAT IF... this 'demon king' is really all the emotion that Heaven rejected? They don't just reject negative emotion, they seem to reject it all. Maybe this "demonic force" is simply all the emotions and feelings that had nowhere to go because they were forced out of all the deities? Though we've seen that the high deities aren't exactly robotic... Qingdi shows some pretty intense feeling and even Li Zhu is driven to the occasional anger mark. Maybe Heaven's rejection created the "demon king" in the first place? Well, now I know what I'm gonna be thinking about all day. LOL.
Yeah, and maybe it possesses a succession of entities, and that's why there is always a demon king! I can see why it would really like the God of War--a big dragon, and together they made the strongest Demon King ever, with the power to conquer the world. And perhaps it really wants to get back into that strong God of War body... then again, it *really* loves "playing" with Xuan Yue (poor guy). It's a bundle of nastiness for sure (≧∀≦)
Woww you really are doing gods work with this, tysm
I dont expect the spoiler to be THAT long, I'm here expecting cheat spoiler fhshahajak okay gonna prepare my brain to read this at 2 a.m
You're welcome; happy to help, hope it clears things up a bit! (=・ω・=)
hahaha and I left so much stuff out, too (=・ω・=)
I think if I summarized the whole thing with all the side plots and characters it would be an actual novel (≧∀≦)
You're godsend for confused and forgetful ppl like me, really thank you so much for all that summary!!
aww, thanks, it's no problem ⁄(⁄ ⁄·⁄ω⁄·⁄ ⁄)⁄
I'm following the original and it's about 20 chapters ahead of the translation. If you have any questions, I'm always happy to help! ヾ(☆▽☆)
Here, I'll spoil you up to chapter 118 if you want. But you'd better be serious about wanting to know...
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Okay, don't blame me if you get spoiled and then regret it! Seriously, I'm going to tell you! ... keep scrolling...
LAST WARNING
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Ryan is the former Demon King, who actually started out as the God of War, a heavenly deity and the Heavenly Emperor's right hand man. The God of War was a magnificent black and silver dragon god. His dragon form had black horns, a black mane, and silvery gray scales. He was the original black dragon, but at that time, he was heaven's ally. For some reason (not revealed in the story yet), he left heaven, went to the mortal realm, and "fell to the dark side", becoming the Demon King. This is described as having happened a long time ago, but since time in heaven works differently, it's not really all that long ago to the gods and deity characters who live in heaven. In the mortal realm, however, it's been quite a long time.
The God of War took heaven by surprise with the strength of his rebellion. It took a lot of effort and sacrifice to subdue him, and many deities fell/were killed in the battle. In the end, heaven's forces were able to separate the Demon King's mega demon powers from his body, but they couldn't actually kill him. The Demon King's powers were held in a barrier by the Dragonfolk, since they had the strength to keep it contained, while his body.... well, that part of the story will have to wait a little bit! One thing you should know: there's always a demon king. When one is annihilated, another will rise in his place. Usually, the power of the Demon King and the demonic forces are not enough to seriously threaten heaven, though they can cause a lot of trouble and headaches. Until the Demon King of the last generation showed up. As the former God of War, he was an unforeseen headache of extreme magnitude.
The Dragonfolk kept that particular Demon King's powers suppressed in a barrier for a while, but the barrier couldn't last forever. It was decided by the heavenly deities that the power must be sealed into a living being so that it could be destroyed. According to the Wheel of Fate, this sacrifice would fall to the youngest child of the Eastern Dragon King. This child, Ao Yue, had an amazingly strong body that could contain the evil powers of the Demon King. Ao Yue is an extra strong dragon because not only is his father the Dragon King, his mother, Lady Xuan Ji, is the Heavenly Emperor's sister. That's right, Ao Yue/Ao Ao and Ao Gu are the Heavenly Emperor's nephews! It's implied that the reason Dragon King and Lady Xuan Ji married in the first place was to produce children strong enough to seal the Demon King's powers, but it also appears that it was a love match as well, for the Dragon King sincerely mourns her death and goes into long-term seclusion after Ao Yue leaves the palace.
The Eastern Dragon King didn't want to sacrifice his child, but he had no choice--you can't go against the Wheel of Fate, no matter what. The Dragon King even smashed the Wheel of Fate in a frenzy of grief, to no avail. The fate of Ao Yue was decreed, and could not be changed. In his despair, the Dragon King took a gamble: what if his strong and special child, Ao Yue, could actually neutralize and purify the evil powers of the Demon King? What if Ao Yue didn't have to die--what if he could actually win? It would be a miracle, but the Dragon King was willing to try.
So the Dragon King arranged to have Ao Yue smuggled out of the Dragon Palace after the demon powers were sealed inside of him. Ao Yue, a green dragon, became the black dragon after the demon powers were put into his body and merged with his dragon pearl. Uncle Jin, a water dragon and trusted member of the Dragon King's household, secreted Ao Yue away to the mortal realm, where they would live in hiding, and gave him a new name: Xuan Yue. Xuan Yue grows up believing he is a monster, loathsome and shunned by the world, because he is the black dragon. His only friends are Uncle Jin and a dung beetle (the first in Xuan Yue's series of 'ball' friends, LOL. Little Black Ball, Little White Ball.... Little Poop Roller Ball was actually the first one of all). It is likely that the heavenly authorities are suspicious, but so far, Xuan Yue and Uncle Jin have been allowed to live in peace.
Xuan Yue leads a lonely life in the mortal realm. He is feared and despised as the Black Dragon, though nobody in the town in which he and Uncle Jin reside knows his true identity. Every so often, the moon turns red, and this is the time of the Blood Moon. During the Blood Moon, Xuan Yue cannot keep the Demon King powers fully contained, and if he doesn't lock himself up in magical chains, he will go on a rampage across the town and countryside, killing anyone and anything who gets in his way. This fills the gentle Xuan Yue with grief, because he doesn't want to hurt anyone. As time goes by, it looks more and more like the demon power inside of Xuan Yue is actually sentient, with its own will--and its will is to use Xuan Yue's body to commit many heinous crimes, which hurts Xuan Yue very much. The demon power enjoys tormenting Xuan Yue, but so far, we have not seen the demon power communicate directly with its host.
Uncle Jin does his best to protect Xuan Yue. Uncle Jin is also waiting to see if the Dragon King's plan to purify the Demon King's evil powers will come to fruition, but he couldn't bear to tell Xuan Yue the truth about his origins. Xuan Yue doesn't know that he is really a green dragon prince from the Eastern Sea, though Uncle Jin still calls Xuan Yue "your highness". The dragon king had to knock off one of Xuan Yue's dragon scales in order to have a place through which the Demon King's power could be sealed. Dragon armor is so strong, demon powers can't go through it. This scale was kept, since it is part of Xuan Yue's dragon form. Xuan Yue wears this scale on a cord around his neck, but he does not know the significance of it. He only knows that Uncle Jin will be very upset if the scale is lost.
Also unbeknownst to Xuan Yue, he has an older brother who was left behind in the Dragon Palace. This older brother, Ao Gu, has been looking for Xuan Yue the whole time. He doesn't believe his little brother is dead and misses him greatly, wanting to find him and reconnect, but knowing that it would be a great risk to Xuan Yue to do so. Eventually, Ao Gu locates Xuan Yue in the human world; he is filled with joy, but also sadness, because he cannot contact Xuan Yue directly without putting them both in danger. If Heaven finds out about the Dragon King's plot, they would all get in super big trouble! So, Ao Gu enlists the help of his friend, the immortal doctor and cultivator, Dr. Sun, to help him watch over Xuan Yue in the mortal realm. Under Ao Gu's direction, Dr. Sun meets with Uncle Jin, examines Xuan Yue and gives him health checkups (according to Dr. Sun, Xuan Yue is very healthy and robust, much to Ao Gu's relief!), and keeps an eye on their household for Ao Gu.
Now, what happened to the Demon King's physical body after his big bad demon powers were pulled out of it? Hmm... nobody seems to know. His body disappeared. But recently, in the town where Xuan Yue lives, a great number of cultivators and demon slayers have gathered for a demon slaying conference. Everybody has come together to discuss the problem of the Black Dragon. Other naughty demonic forces are at work, as well. There's a White Faced Ghost roaming the town, and there's a wicked incubus stealing the life forces of beautiful young men, too! Lots of shady things are going on, and Xuan Yue is both curious and bored, since his life is one of lonely seclusion. He sneaks out of his villa from time to time, simply for amusement, though Uncle Jin dislikes this greatly and worries very much about Xuan Yue's safety!
During one of these excursions, Xuan Yue runs into a cultivator and member of a demon slaying sect, Xiao Jifeng, who has traveled to the town to attend the conference. There's an immediate attraction between them, and they seem to run into each other more often than coincidence could explain. Xuan Yue feels agitated by Jifeng's presence and can't stop thinking about him. Is it love? Or could there be some other reason why he is so forcefully drawn to Xiao Jifeng? We are getting strong hints that Jifeng is the Demon King's body. Is Jifeng getting close to Xuan Yue because of love--or is it for something else? What will Jifeng do when he finds out Xuan Yue is the Black Dragon--and how he became the Black Dragon in the first place? And that brings us up to date with the current flashback chapters.
We know a lot of what happens later: at some point, the Demon King (Xiao Jifeng) gets his powers back. It is implied that Xuan Yue willingly gives his dragon pearl to Xiao Jifeng. We don't know for sure, but it was probably to save Jifeng's life after Xuan Yue injured him in a rampage as the Black Dragon, though it hasn't yet been shown. At any rate, Jifeng/Demon King gets his powers back, and bad things happen, because he is the former God of War who fell to the dark side, after all! He does some very cruel things to Xuan Yue and breaks his heart. Xuan Yue uses his own soul to cast a curse upon the Demon King, condemning him to eternal loneliness, and then dies. Before he does that, however, he has his heart strings cut so that he himself will never risk falling in love again, even if he is reincarnated.
Xuan Yue's soul dissipates when he casts the curse upon Demon King Jifeng, but Jifeng uses up his thousand-year-cultivation-core to keep the soul from dispersing into nothingness. However, Xuan Yue cannot wake up. The damage was apparently too severe, and his heart was broken too badly. We are told that Ao Gu pieced the broken soul back together with a soul needle, and Xuan Yue was reborn as Ao Ao. We don't know if Ao Ao is in an entirely new body, or if it's his old body just reduced to a small, childish-looking state because of all the trauma. Either way, without his pearl, heart, and complete dragon scale armor, he's a very busted-down version of Ao Yue.
If Jifeng, Ao Gu, and any other characters involved in the fiasco of cursing and reviving managed to do all of this without the heavenly authorities finding out, it's practically a miracle, and they would be in BIG trouble if they were discovered. Or, perhaps they have already been punished for their transgressions against the Wheel of Fate--there's an awful lot of memory loss going around among these characters, and we know that's one way the heavens punish naughty people. Jifeng somehow ended up with his powers and memories sealed, as a little black dragon on a mountain in France--we don't know how that occurred. Was it a punishment? Or was it an exchange for some future benefit? Or perhaps it is all part of the Wheel of Fate's plan in the first place! I suspect that old Wheel of Fate is playing the long game, but I don't know for sure.
I can also give you spoilers about Ao Gu, Dr. Sun, Grandpa, Jr. Sect Brother/Longtan High School Principal, and Qingdi if you want them. Eventually, all these stories will come together and we'll get the solution to the big mysteries! At the moment, the flashback chapters are mostly focusing on the budding relationship between Xuan Yue and Jifeng (very very cute by the way, they are super adorable), Xuan Yue's troubles suppressing the Black Dragon powers (it really sucks, he suffers so much), and the Demon Slayer sect that operates in the mortal town Xuan Yue lives in (they are not very nice at all! and their leader is sus as hell!). There have been a few ridiculously cute scenes with Little Grandpa though. ヾ(☆▽☆)
TL;DR The God of War becomes the Demon King-->the Demon King is defeated and separated from his powers-->the Demon King's powers are sealed into baby green dragon prince Ao Yue-->the Demon King's body is ???-->Ao Yue, now the Black Dragon, is secretly rescued from the castle and gets a new life as Xuan Yue-->many years later, Demon Power Vessel Xuan Yue meets no-powers Demon King Xiao Jifeng and... profit? We'll see very soon!
If you're confused, just remember: Xuan Yue is really Ao Yue, the green dragon prince. He was turned into the black dragon when the demon king powers were sealed inside of him--he was not born as a black dragon. He is really a green dragon. After his soul is crushed and dissipated from casting a curse, it is collected and put back together again and becomes Ao Ao. Ao Ao is Ao Yue/Xuan Yue, but without his dragon pearl (he gave that to Jifeng/Demon King) or a heart to fall in love with (he had his heart strings cut before his first death) or the final scale of his dragon armor (he gave that to Ryan). He has regained his heart, and now he has the Radiant Blade acting as a dragon pearl for him. Will he manage to complete his dragon armor and become the awesome dragon we all know he can be?? I can't wait to find out!!