There was one Chinese guy who spoke excellent English. He had lavishly embroidered robes and long fingernails and say about in a richly scented silken opium den as he smilingly spoke of the elaborate tortures his master enjoyed devising.
It's also kind of darkly amusing that the criminal mastermind, one of the greatest brains in the world, is a Chinese guy, but he doesn't appear on-page and just about every Chinese person who does is a crashing stereotype speaking broken English.
I cannot help but wonder if the regular namechecking of Marie Curie is to remind everyone that a brilliant female scientist is totally realistic, actually.
You know I'm reading The Big Four and it's astonishingly like a Bond novel only instead of a suave spy it's a fussy Belgian detective. Straight up hollowed out mountain base for the secret society intent on dominating the world with atomic power and an honest to god death ray.
Scrolled too fast on Tumblr and thought a passionate "you may think it's wrong to compare this pain to the transatlantic slave trade but -" was in reply to a post expressing solidarity amongst fat girls crying in dressing rooms.
It's possible, but as I recall the Xue only had one known generation of demonic cultivation - Xue Chonghai several hundred years before the series. And Xue Chonghai did appear to have declined by his end.
He's a pretty equal opportunity hater, I think. The only female character he really interacts with is A-Qing, and he seemed to like her. He also murdered her, but that's how he rolls.
After all, Xue Yang in novel canon was Jin Guangyao's particular protegee, key to his rise in Jin Guangshan's esteem. If Xue Yang was being sexually inappropriate, it would definitely be held to JGY's discredit - and his mother's career would no doubt be brought up.
Anyway, I think Jin Guangyao probably had the grim task of explaining to Xue Yang the exact social gradations of women he was at liberty to harass or sexually assault, and how to avoid any undesirable results. Xue Yang: murder? Jin Guangyao: well yes technically but let's explore all options
This may seem far fetched but in a novel extra, Jin Guangyao takes Xue Yang along to a brothel to keep him out of trouble, which I don't think he would have done if Xue Yang was an unknown quantity in that respect.
I figure as a street kid Xue Yang probably has a decent apprehension of most bodily functions, and I also think one of the daunting duties Jin Guangyao would have faced during Xue Yang's induction into Jinlintai was, more or less, sex education and sensitivity training.
I think there's a high chance that Xue Yang knows about periods, but Xiao Xingchen, I give even odds. Trying to explain why A-Qing is non-seriously bleeding will be mortifying for two out of three of them.
Xue Yang: I am probably going to have to say something or Xiao Xingchen might draw entirely the wrong conclusion about who's spilling blood around here.
Xue Yang is the only person in the household capable of and willing to admit to seeing that she's bleeding through her clothes and maybe he will and maybe he won't. Agonising!
I'm going to assume some vague knowledge about what periods are because it's not like she's sheltered. But that just means she's bleeding and not sure how best to dealt with it, Xiao Xingchen is sniffing the air and looking confused, and she's pretending to be blind so she can't go "oh no! blood!"
I am not sleeping for normal reasons and my mind is going weird places. For instance: A-Qing is maybe fifteen or sixteen when she dies and I really hope that poor nutrition meant she hadn't reached menarche yet because can you fucking imagine?
OK "jiang cheng got his ass kicked by xue yang entirely offscreen and it just never came up in the story" is the absolute funniest thing. Sure absolutely.
