Daughter of the Moon Goddess

These chapters focus on the themes of Familial Duty and Honesty, Loyalty, and Honor in Interpersonal Relationships. During the audience with the emperor, Xingyin ensures her mother’s safety before revealing her identity as daughter of the imprisoned Moon Goddess, and she announces her mortal heritage with pride in defiance of the furious empress. She also has several impulsive emotional outbursts during her audience with the Celestial Royals, jeopardizing her own safety to defend her mother. Xingyin’s dreams of helping her family flagged in the previous section, but receiving the Talisman immediately repositions them as her highest priority.

Although Xingyin’s attempts to free her mother using the Crimson Lion Talisman are rebuffed, her quest for the pearls seemingly allows her a chance to save her mother. During the audience with the Emperor, she also ensures her mother’s safety before revealing her identity, and announces her mortal heritage with pride. Although her dreams to help her family flagged in the previous section, receiving the Talisman immediately makes them her highest priority. So determined is she to keep her promise that she never even considers using the Talisman for herself, even though she could have used it to marry Liwei. In this way, she, like Liwei, Shuxiao and (still unbeknownst to her) Wenzhi, chooses familial duty over romantic love. This signifies how highly she values her family and to what extent she will go to protect them. In this way, she also unconsciously mirrors Liwei’s and Shuxiao’s choices earlier in the novel—despite having their own (often romantic) dreams, all three put aside their individual desires in favor of familial duty: Liwei’s political betrothal, Shuxiao’s military enlistment, and now Xingyin’s impossible quest. However, out of the three of them, Xingyin is arguably the most filial—she risks the most for her family, reveals her heritage with pride despite the royal disfavor, and takes all punishment unto herself in order to protect the family she has left.

Liwei, Wenzhi, Shuxiao, and General Jianyun all support Xingyin despite the scandal of her parentage, though they are unhappy that she kept the truth from them, emphasizing the themes of Honesty and Loyalty in Interpersonal Relationships. Honesty is one of the qualities that created their relationships with her and gained their loyalty, and so there is a mutual unspoken expectation of trust amongst them. Liwei is constantly honest about his love for her, Wenzhi drops formalities despite their difference in rank, Shuxiao confides in her about her dreams of domestic life, and General Jianyun always offers truthful, if blunt, assessments of her abilities and prospects. The fact that Xingyin withheld the truth about her heritage is a breach in trust, and casts suspicion on her interactions with them, as when Liwei accuses her of using him as a way to get access to the royals. Xingyin’s secrecy puts her closest relationships in jeopardy, requiring her to be extra transparent with them in order to repair the damage. However, her honesty the rest of the time ensures that these strong bonds do not break. Despite their conflicts, Shuxiao offers to accompany Xingyin to find the dragon pearls, and Liwei and Wenzhi, despite their animosity toward each other, do join her on her quest.

On the other hand, Wenzhi finally displays his own dishonesty through his abduction of Xingyin and the revelation of his eye color. This bodes ill for their relationship and casts doubt on many of their previous interactions. Xingyin passes out before she can fully process this, but the depth of his betrayal is revealed in upcoming chapters.

Closely tied to honesty is Honor, particularly evident through the dragons and their relationship to the emperor. The emperor must oblige Xingyin’s request because of the Crimson Lion Talisman, but he tries to renege by giving her an impossible quest—one that, should Xingyin miraculously succeed, would give him power over creatures who do not acknowledge his authority. While he does not explicitly lie—he only asks Xingyin for the pearls, without specifying what, exactly, the pearls were to the dragons—he acts dishonorably by withholding vital details from both Xingyin and Liwei. His demand for the pearls is particularly dishonorable because the dragons, by nature, are peaceful and kind—his antithesis. Xingyin, who treasures both honor and familial duty, struggles to balance her values; ultimately, she attempts to strike a balance, requesting the pearls but promising to keep the dragons safe from enslavement.

By honoring the dragons’ request, Xingyin shows she understands The Value of Freedom. The dragons may be imprisoned, but they have no desire to be freed just to end up under the control of a tyrant. This theme, intertwined with honor, is also reflected in Wenzhi’s abduction of Xingyin.

The emperor versus Xingyin interaction critiques the power imbalance between ruler and subject, favoring the oppressed citizen rather than the privileged king. Wenzhi’s kidnapping of Xingyin speaks to his willingness to ignore consent and take advantage of vulnerability, despite supposedly loving Xingyin and respecting her as an equal. Rather than discussing his goals with her and seeking her aid, he robs her of her freedom. This directly contrasts to the promise between Xingyin and the dragons: Though Xingyin creates a power imbalance by taking the pearls and therefore forcing the dragons under her command, she promises to respect their wishes and not exploit them, an attempt to balance what is, by definition, a literal power move. Only by upholding her honor and respecting their freedom can she attempt to balance the scales, though she must first escape Wenzhi and her current predicament.