- Episode 17. In the novel, on top of taking our heroine on the boat ride to see the fireflies, our hero also personally made her a bowl of noodles to celebrate her birthday. Inwardly, our heroine thought to herself that other than her master, she has not met another person who treated her so nicely. No one had ever remembered her birthday.
- Minor difference, but in episode 19 where our heroine personally made a sugar basket for the second male lead, that part didn’t happen in the novel. She did buy him a sugar basket in the novel but she didn’t make it personally. There was one more interesting exchange that the show left out in this scene. Our heroine had found out from Chu Zhou that her ex-husband was going to marry her younger sister. Our heroine took the opportunity during this outing to nonchalantly ask Chu Zhou about the wedding and was stunned when her ex was apparently so overcome with missing his dead wife during his wedding, that both he AND his new wife (the sister) shed tears of sorrow. Reminded once again of the injustice she suffered and more importantly, the unfair restrictions society placed on women as a whole, our heroine goes on a little rant, which caused the usually very eloquent Chu Zhou to become speechless himself. While Chu Zhou verbally agreed with our heroine and even praised her, our heroine nonetheless left their meeting with the conclusion that, as good a gentleman Chu Zhou was, he is still not the same as Xiao Huai Jin. When it comes to women, Chu Zhou is gentle and considerate, but there is still an underlying attitude of superiority. Xiao Huai Jin, on the other hand, does not treat women with an air of superiority but with a sense of deference to all who are weak and at a disadvantage.
- Here is a funny exchange that made me laugh. This scene happened right after our heroine was called away by Chu Zhou’s maid, the same day they would go to the market together and exchange gifts. Worried that Chu Zhou would take the opportunity to win over our heroine’s heart, our hero’s friend asked if our hero wasn’t worried that Chu Zhou would give in to his beastly urge and do something to He Yan once Chu Zhou sees how stunning our heroine looked in her makeup. Our hero leisurely poured himself a cup of tea and replied, “Do you have some misunderstanding about Chu Zhou’s taste? That liar’s makeup, does it deserve the word stunning?” Our hero’s friend angrily retorted, “How is it not stunning? Xiao Huai Jin, you can’t compare your face to the rest of the people in this world.” Too lazy to bother with his friend, Xiao Huai Jin simply said, “Besides, Chu Zhou do something bad to her?” A mocking sneer flashed across his eyes, “That one can tear off Chu Zhou’s head with her bare hands. Instead of worrying about her, you should worry about Chu Zhou.” Friend, “…………”
- Different from the drama where Chu Zhou treasured the sugar basket greatly, in the novel, Chu Zhou threw the sugar basket into a fire bin (for warmth in the room) and walked away without any expression.
- In the novel, Master Liu (our heroine’s master) wasn’t just simply locked up for a bit by his own master but was actually trapped in a formation (a mysterious formations that can trap people in a forest or a place by making them go round and round in circles and even kill them) for a long time. In order to break out of the formation, young master Liu had to learn and work on his formation skills until he finally broke out of the trap his master had put him in. By the time Master Liu came out (which I think it was a least a year or two), he found his master dying (the author didn’t explain what the master died of) and was informed that Mu Hong Jin was not only already married but was pregnant. On his death bed, Master Liu’s master cast him out of the mountain, essentially robbing him the only family he had ever known. (He was his master’s youngest pupil and grew up being dotted on by all the other older pupils.)
- In the novel, Master Liu had a younger sister (not related by blood but a girl who was also a student of his master’s and grew up with him) who had a crush on him. This younger sister was the one who told Mu Hong Jin’s family where she was and had them come get her while Master Liu was away. Mu Hong Jin’s father told his daughter that Master Liu was the one who revealed her location and that’s why a despairing Mu Hong Jin eventually gave up thinking Master Liu broke his promise to her.
- Master Liu’s was a pretty sad character in the novel. One get the feeling that while he was still a very kind person, he had isolated himself both physically and emotionally from the world.
- Like in the drama, Master Liu died while fighting off the enemy soldiers alone but in the novel, he did it through the same killer formations his master had used to trap him years ago. Thanks to the formations, Master Liu was able to hold off a great number of enemy soldiers on his own and bought our two leads precious time to win the battle.
- The attack on Mu Hong Jin’s city was pretty epic in the novel. The city was completely out numbered in soldiers and equipment. The city was a port city so most of the fighting was actually on the water since the enemies showed up with a great number of ships. Knowing the odds of them winning were nearly impossible, our heroine led a team of 50 elite soldiers on a mission to burn down the ships…a mission that depended greatly on the heavens taking a pity on them and sending some strong wind to aid them. With the wind nowhere to be found at first, our heroine had to buy time by attracting the enemy general’s attention by pretending to be Mu Hong Jin. Fortunately, the heavens were on our two leads’ side and strong winds arrived at the last moment to help burn down all of the enemy ship. (Their enemy were not familiar with fighting on the water and had unwisely chained all the ships together so when one caught on fire, it quickly spread to the others thanks to the wind.)
- Like in the drama, our hero did end up saving our heroine from the water. The rescue made a lot more sense in the novel than the way it happened in the drama, since both of our leads were in the same general area fighting the enemy and were in fact swimming away together when our hero noticed something was off with He Yan. Due to her fear of water after the way she died in her previous life, our heroine had tried to control her growing panic in the water but her injury made it harder and she eventually started to sink. When our heroine came to, she had a vague memory of Xiao Huai Jin’s lips on hers in the water, but she wasn’t sure if it was a memory or near death sexy dream she had. Our heroine asked Xiao Huai Jin if anything happened while he was rescuing her in the water. Assured when Xiao Huai Jin told her nothing happened, our heroine felt mildly embarrassed that she apparently had a sexy dream about her Dudu.
- In the novel, Chai An Xi was nowhere nearly as patriotic as he was in the drama and there was no tragic story regarding a son. He had been hiding from the assassins sent by Minister Xu the whole time the city was under attack. By the time our hero’s man found him, Chai An Xi was on his death bed but was alive long enough to tell Xiao Huai Jin that Minister Xu was the one behind the whole thing. Unlike in the drama, Chai An Xi didn’t name He Rui Fei in his confession. We learn from the conversation between Chu Zhou and his maid that Chu Zhou had purposefully left Chai An Xi alive long enough to tell our hero that Minister Xu was the one who caused his father’s death.
- By this point in the story, it seemed Chu Zhou in the drama might truly harbor some feelings towards our heroine. In the novel though, Chu Zhou is a character who has a lot of hang ups regarding woman (his mother was foolish enough to fall for a nobleman’s sweet words and ended up through a serious of even more foolish moves ended up becoming a concubine in a brothel. Blaming her son for her life’s misfortunes, Chu Zhou’s mother abused him since he was young until his biological father found out about him and brought him back. Not about to bring back a concubine, Chu Zhou’s mother was killed while young Chu Zhou watched in shock.) and looked down on them deep down. Thus any interest Chu Zhou showed towards our heroine up to this point was all with the intention grooming our heroine to become a possible pawn for the future.
- There was one conversation between our heroine and her master I forgot to cover that I had thought was very interesting. One day while they were together (this was of course before the big attack on the city), our heroine’s master suddenly asked her “You like Xiao Huai Jin?”
“……. no.” He Yan subconsciously refuted but asked after a bit, “Master, why did you say that?”
“Did you not realize…” Liu Buwang asked casually, “When you are by his side, you are very relaxed. You trust him more than you trust me.”
He Yan was taken aback. Did she?
Perhaps she did. No matter in the previous life or this life, Xiao Huai Jin to her, even with all the misunderstanding, coldness, and bad treatments, but from beginning to the end, she had never doubted that Xiao Huai Jin would hurt her. Someone as He Yan who is seemingly carefree about everything on the surface, always kept a hint of vigilance deep in her heart. That vigilance never faded when facing Liu Buwang back then, nor when facing Xu Zhiheng (her ex), nor when facing He Rufei. It even remained when she was with He Su and his son, two people who posed no threat to her. (That’s the real family of her new body.)
But towards Xiao Huai Jin, she had always trusted.
“The reason you are this relaxed right now, it is not because of time nor experience but it’s him.” Liu Buwang’s voice was gentle, “Ah He, do you still deny it?” (Soon after their reunion, Liu Buwang had remarked He Yan seemed very different from how she was previously, much more relaxed and open.)
He Yan didn’t say anything. After a while, she raised her head, looked at the moon hanging above the roof. The moon was big and white, its silver light spilling across the whole courtyard, gently watching over them.
“Master, look at the moon in the sky.” She spoke slowly. “It’s light can reach from the backyard of the wealthy to the ditches of desolate graveyards, but you can’t catch it, can you?”
“I can neither seize the moon nor make it come to me.” She continued, “So it’s enough that I can stand here and gaze at it from afar.”
- In the novel, this conversation between our heroine and her master was a turning point where she really started to admit to herself that she might have feelings for our hero.
- I feel the drama had done a good job highlighting how important the moon is to our heroine but the novel was able to explain it a tad bit more. Growing up having to wear her mask at all time, the one moment of rebellion and freedom our heroine dared to carve out for herself was when she was alone under the moonlight, where she could take off her mask and reveal her secret to her only audience– the moon. In that sense, the moon was our heroine’s only best friend and confidant…which of course also makes it significant that our hero had become like the moon to her.
- Here is another little scene I really liked. At the very end of the big battle, in a desperate last struggle, the enemy had set off a bomb (gun powder bombs are not common and it was only rumored that their enemy might have them. Since only one bomb was set off, I am assuming it was so rare and precious that the enemy troop only had one) Our heroine had watched with her eyes the bomb going off right close to Xiao Huai Jin. Fearing the worst, our heroine went crazy killing their enemies and searching for Xiao Huai Jin. Overcome with relief when she saw him, He Yan hugged Xiao Huai Jin tightly and cried. Surprised by He Yan’s tears, our hero hilariously thought to himself that He Yan is still a girl after all and would understandably be a bit scared after experiencing her first big battle. Xiao Huai Jin soon noticed He Yan was wounded and orders her to go get it treated. Belatedly noticing she was indeed bleeding, He Yan blew it off as a small injury and insisted that she could keep going.
The young man in dark armor lowered his gaze to look at her. His posture was straight, and in his slightly cool eyes there seemed to be a sharp blade in them. Yet, his voice was calm and casual as he asked, “Don’t you feel pain? Do you not feel pain and do you not know to cry out when hurt?”
He Yan can sense that he seemed to be angry.
A trace of faint mockery flickered in the young man’s eyes. He said to her calmly as he looked steadily at her, “Is it that you truly don’t feel pain or that you don’t dare to feel pain? Do you feel that there shouldn’t be or do you feel that there is no need?”
After saying this, he let go of her, turned, and walked away without another backward glance at He Yan.
“What sort of temper is that?” He Yan stood where she was for a while before muttering softly, “No one ever taught me…no one ever comforted me either.”
- In the drama, Chu Zhou actually left the training camp with his maid before our heroine went to the city of Rendu. However, the two met up again when Chu Zhou ended up getting trapped in the city due to the impending battle. By this point in the novel, Chu Zhou is finally starting to fall for heroine. Unlike the drama, where Chu Zhou started to fall for our heroine almost right from the beginning, it took until this point in the story for Chu Zhou to finally admit to himself that He Yan was like a light in his rather dark gloomy world.
- The timeline of the novel is a little different surrounding the conflict with Rendu city. He Yan left the training camp for Rendu while Xiao Huai Jin was still there. At this point in the story, our hero had not found out about He Yan’s real identity as General Fei Hong yet, so He Yan had great difficulty trying to convince everyone that He Rui Fei would not choose to go rescue the people of Rendu. After failing to talk our hero into sending troops to Rendu, our heroine decided to leave on her own and as the drama portrayed, her friends ended up following her. Ah, there is one important difference that should be noted. Commandant Li was not one of our heroine’s trusted subordinates in the novel but simply one who had fought along side of her years ago when they protected Rendu city together.
- In the novel, Commandant Li actually didn’t have much problem taking care of the women our heroine had rescued from the enemy troops because he remembered that General Fei Hong had always done the same (rescuing the kidnapped women and making sure they were alright afterwards) in every battle. (He didn’t know He Yan is General Fei Hong but since he remembered what it was like to work with General Fei Hong he accepted it easily.) However, what Commandant Li wanted to do was a lot more repulsive in the novel. In Chinese history, there was an official who was in about the same situation as the city of Rendu. With enemy right outside and the citizens starving inside, the official decided to sacrifice his favorite concubine as food. In the novel, Commandant Li wanted to do the same as that official and by the time our heroine came rushing in to stop him, he had already killed his concubine but had not killed the other women yet. Like in the drama, our hero showed up in time to hear our heroine’s speech about not turning the sword on the weak. At this point in the novel, Xiao Huai Jin hadn’t found out the truth yet, so he only knew this was the same thing young General Fei Hong had said but didn’t connect the two together. Interesting side note: we find out from Xiao Huai Jin’s memory of this past incident that this speech by our young heroine in the academy was the first time young Xiao Huai Jin really took notice of her.
- One funny tidbit the drama left out was that while our hero did ask General Yan He to come to the aid of Rendu city, our heroine did too. Knowing from their academy days how much Yan He hated her (he took every chance to bully her out of jealousy how Xiao Huai Jin was secretly teaching her how sword fighting), our heroine wrote a letter to Yan He complaining how useless and a coward General Fei Hong was and told him that he was their only hope. Thoroughly pleased by our heroine’s words, General Yan He took instant liking to our heroine when he saw her in Rendu.
- In episode 29, our hero discovered the moon our heroine had sewn into his pouch. In the novel, there were actually two pouches that were given to both of our leads from Xiao Huai Jin’s sister-in-law. The two pouches were medicinal pouches (to aid concentration) given to He Yan by the sister-in-law with the understanding that our heroine would give one to Xiao Huai JIn. While the pouches were in He Yan’s possession, He Yan remembered how terrible her old self were at embroidery and wondered if her new body was any better at it. He Yan only dared to sew something in the inside of the pouch. Confirming once and for all that her new body was no more skilled at embroidery than her old body, He Yan quickly gave the pouch to Xiao Huai Jin without saying anything. Thanks to the constant chattering of his best friend how our heroine must be in love with Chu Zhou (due to several chance circumstances that made the friend believe that), up to this point in the story, Xiao Huai Jin believed the one our heroine liked was Chu Zhou. While there had been increasing signs that were starting to make our hero wonder if He Yan might have feelings for him, Xiao Huai Jin was still unsure who He Yan actually liked. By chance, while out on a mission, our hero was in sore need of medicine to help some wounded men and ended up emptying his medicinal pouch from his sister-in-law. While trying to stuff the remaining herbal medicine back into the pouch, Xiao Huai Jin noticed something odd sewn into the inner corner of the pouch. Upon examining the small yellow object, our hero still had no clue what it could be until a young boy servant came in and exclaimed “What a lovely moon!” When he was questioned how he could possibly tell the thing was a moon, the boy explained that the crescent shape, the bright yellow color on the black fabric makes it obvious that it was a moon. Finally realizing He Yan must be the one who had sewn the moon in his pouch, our hero remembers the “secret” our heroine had told him previously and confirmed for himself once and for all that he was the one our heroine liked.
To be continued… Legend of the Female General Novel Ending https://ninja-reflection.com/2025/09/03/legend-of-the-female-general-novel-ending/
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