Bailu’s Companion Mission [Evanesce Like the Morning Dew] Explained: Bailu’s Character and the Tragedy of Banxia
Bailu’s Companion Mission “Evanesce Like the Morning Dew” on the one hand depicts some aspects of Bailu’s character, and on the other tells a story of a wishful woman and an irresponsible man who uses her.
The story starts with the Trailblazer being informed that Bailu escaped from the Alchemy Commission and that help from the Trailblazer is needed to find her.
It is known from the previous stories about Bailu and her voice-overs that she is kind of lively and doesn’t like being kept in the house. That’s why she escapes whenever there is an opportunity. There is a quote from her voice-over about her trouble:
Do I even count as a dragon? …What kind of a dragon can’t step out of her own house, and has to obey the rules of the clan? I’d say I’m more like a fish in a fishbowl!
This is also why she makes up an excuse that she is on a “medical visit” when she meets the Trailblazer.
From her conversation with Banxia, then, we know that Bailu has been studying medicine since she was a child, so for her, treating people is as simple as eating or drinking now. Nobody asks if Bailu likes it, and she even somehow dislikes it.
But Bailu loves curing people and helping them live healthily. As a healer, she keeps a kind heart even with so many troubles and restrictions.
Aside from Bailu’s character, Banxia, the lady who helps Bailu escapes is the real protagonist of this mission. She asks Bailu to heal her beloved, Liangmu, and in the meantime she wants to give a list of Disciples of Sanctus Medicus to him, so he won’t be banished from the Xianzhou.
After some twists and turns, she become totally Mara-struck before meeting Liangmu, but she managed to see him one last time as a Mara-struck.
This mission, Evanesce Like the Morning Dew, has two endings, depending on whether the Trailblazer decides to tell Liangmu the truth, that the Mara-struck he meets is Banxia.
If you choose to tell him the truth, Liangmu would quit her lover boy persona and refer to Banxia as “that woman”, “hideous creature”. He thinks Banxia fails to help him stay in the Xianzhou.
He would say that it was all Banxia’s wishful thinking that they’re in love, and that he was only using Banxia to avoid banishment from the Xianzhou.
In the end, his attitude makes Bailu so mad that even though she fulfills her promise to heal Liangmu, he will hiccup for the next thirty years.
If you choose to not tell Liangmu the truth, after Bailu heals Liangmu and he leaves, he will send a message about a parcel. The Trailblazer would open the parcel together with Bailu.
Liangmu even says “Spending time together is the most lovely confession” in his self-description. What a camouflage.
The letter attached in the parcel would still reveal his nature.
“I have to make it clear that I never liked you. You said that you could get the Elixir of Immortality, so I got close to you. You said that the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus are real, so I encouraged you to join them. You said that you could get the list from the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus, so I risked everything and waited for you at Cloudford. Stop thinking you are superior to me. I don’t need your pity.”
I wonder what you guys feel when you read this. Finally, I’d like to appreciate the tributes and quotations made in this mission.
The mission’s name is Evanesce Like the Morning Dew. And if you choose to disclose Banxia’s fall to Mara, you will gain an achievement Where Can A Wanderer Rest? and if you choose not to disclose, the achievement will be For Old Times’ Sake. The following mission where Liangmu requests you to pick up a parcel would be named Tale of Woe.
The four phrases are all quotes (their Chinese version) from “A Short Song” by Cao Cao, who was active in the final years of Eastern Han.
The poem mainly confesses Cao’s eagerness for talented people and his ambition to unify the then China under his reign, besides exclaiming the briefness of human life, and the passing of time.
In the mission, Banxia thinks, in the beginning, that short-life species like Liangmu should quit struggling or doing unnecessary things with their lifespans of a few dozens of years.
Though she falls in love, she would still sigh and say, she never has thought of falling in love with a short-life species.
The briefness of life, it looks really like something sad.
In the later development of the mission, Banxia would tell the truth that despite her long life, her work as a nurse day after day makes her numb. She’d feel indifferent even when centuries pass.
“Sometimes I’d feel like a century was a pointless, trivial blink of an eye… and that it wouldn’t matter if it was all over by the next blink.” It was Liangmu that made her see the light of hope.
“Evanesce Like the Morning Dew”, “Where Can A Wanderer Rest?”, “For Old Times’ Sake”, “Tale of Woe”. All these phrases are proper descriptions of Banxia’s encounters and ending. Some of the Chinese versions of these phrases would feel ironic, given Liangmu’s behaviors.
Nevertheless, though Banxia is free from the troubles of short-live species, she still falls for other “tragedies” and is even used by another person. Maybe this is also an irony.
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