We have confirmation of Jing Yuan's age range during Quintent era?

[cashew]

According to this post, patch 2.5 confirmed Jing Yuan was <100 years old during Quintet era. tanithryudo, can you confirm or deny this claim? Is this a thing? Am I going to have to re-think my fanfic?!

Comments

[tanithryudo]

BTW, I can't be bothered to find the earlier thread we had about Dan Heng's age possibly being around 30-50 years old... but today I was reading some threads and someone brought up this resource.

Notably, the 2nd letter is a request from the Preceptors to Jing Yuan demanding to release Dan Heng to them. The contents say that they've already tried writing to the Ten Lords Commission for a long time to no effect. And then, the footnotes from Jing Yuan's advisor say:

这几百年间，持明族递上来的请愿书得有上千份了…属这一封措辞最严厉，他们的耐心是到极限了吧。 青镞 留」「流放令已受十王司允准。既然丹枫已再世为人，不问前愆，为何龙师不能接受他远离这片是非之地…？耐人寻味。」

This "这几百年间" seems to indicate Dan Heng's age in to be at least 200+ years minimum, if not more. Because obviously, the Preceptors obviously couldn't have been demanding him back before hatching, or when he was still Dan Feng.

Secondly, there's a lyric "睁开眼，一人九万余夜" in Dan Heng's character OST《长梦应觉》, which if taken literally, equals ~250 years. Though...I'm not totally sure canon this song is.

Anyway, even just going by the first item, then it's highly unlikely that Yunhua's dosing Dan Heng with the memory recovery drug shouldn't have all that much to do with her exile. I mean, maybe it was old laundry brought up during her trial (under the table-wise, for her student not to know about it). But it shouldn't be anywhere near the primary reason for it.

Actually, maybe it's possible that Jing Yuan also didn't know about it at the time it happened, or at least, didn't know that Yunhua did it. And then it was when she was being attacked by her political rivals 30 years ago, that this matter actual came to light (for JY)?

Of course, there is also the possibility that the writers just forgot (or are retconning) the above lore, and have now decided that Dan Heng's age is in mere decades. *shrug*

[cashew]

OK, so I'm reading both letters, and the footnote seems to be two fold, seeing as one is cited with "青镞 留" (aka Qingzu's note), while the second comment (quote) has no citation, which...maybe Jing Yuan's response? Based on the format of the first letter, that seems to be the correct interpretation.

Also, the content of the footnote is referring to the entire trial and prison sentence up to exile taking a series of 几百年间, starting with the first letter asking to release Dan Feng into the hands of the Preceptors for trial. Note that in the first letter, the second footnote quote is Jing Yuan's response:

「不递交十王司，而是呈给六御，想来他们也晓得送过去也是有来无回，所以转而求六御来说情了？我没想到上任将军的头一桩难题竟然和军务无关啊……」

This is the lore that is used claim Jing Yuan has basically been dealing with the mess for hundreds of years. So, again, I don't think 几百年 refers to Dan Heng's time in prison but rather the span of time Preceptors have been writing letters to Jing Yuan for help.

Meanwhile, for the lyrics, the previous and following phrases also matters:

尘埃累债皆前缘 牵绊缠身如枷链
睁开眼 一人九万余夜
长梦应已梦遍
终有时醒觉

That seems to suggest the time being talked about is referencing the span between past and current life is "90,000+ nights" rather than time spent in prison. Which probably refers to hatching time.

Anyway, the bigger concern for me here is that if we assume the first letter basically arrived on day 1 of arrest (in close proximity thereof), Qingzu is well over 700+ years old, is 100 years over the high end of expected age for Vidyadhara and should look like a super old person (since patch 2.5 confirmed Vidyadhara ages based on Dan Heng's description of Taoran looking like a decrepit old man). The only way this would make sense is if there's another couple hundred years between arrest and Preceptors reaching out to Jing Yuan, but I doubt Jing Yuan would have zero other military responsibilities during this time.

The only other option is that Qingzu, like Taoran, for some reason kept her name and memories through the reincarnation cycle. Or the average live expectancy given by the sidequest is just straight up wrong.

(Bookmarked.)

[tanithryudo]

The memeory revival drug is illegal. I don't see how Qingzu could have purposefully had it if she had been reborn in the meantime, and still kept her current position. And she's not important enough for the Vidyadhara Preceptors to have them secretly dose her with it.

So her age is a bug, yeah... maybe she's on the longer side of "average" life expectancy, like Jingliu is for native Xianzhou. I mean, after all, someone has to average out that one gal who rebirths every few months or so.

[cashew]

The other potential explanation I can think of is the footnotes were added after the fact. Like Jing Yuan just has this giant stack of preceptor letters shoved somewhere and Qingzu is going through them trying to figure out what needs filing vs what gets burned. But it's a bit of a stretch...

I think there's enough normal Vidyadhara to balance out that one girl. Much like the human average life expectancy isn't going to suddenly change due to one case of early infant mortality. Qingzu's age just seems like an oversight on the writer's side.