Snow's Embrace: End Notes

Snow’s Embrace is easily the most difficult, challenging work I’ve translated thus far from Love and Deepspace, due to the sheer amount of intertextuality with Daoism, Buddhism, classical Chinese works such as Nine Songs and Shan Hai Jing, as well as xianxia tropes.

It is also the single most rewarding translation I’ve done to date, and required heavy research and engagement with Chinese classical texts, official translations, and peer-reviewed scholarship.

Over the course of the past year, I’ve been asked many questions regarding the ending of Snow’s Embrace, such as where Zayne disappeared off to and what the umbrellas signified.

I’ll begin with the umbrellas, as this is rooted in Buddhist philosophy: umbrellas, particularly parasols, are a very important symbol of protection from suffering, and is one of the Eight Auspicious Symbols which denote spiritual power and sovereignty over dharma—cosmic order, the natural law that underlies karma.

After Buddhism entered China during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 220 BCE), umbrellas appeared in sculptures and art, typically placed above bodhisattvas, guardian deities, or even Buddhas. In Chinese architecture, tiered umbrellas (伞盖 san gai) are typically built on top of a dome and represent the axis mundi—the mythical central point or link which connects Heaven and Earth, as well as protects everything beneath the umbrella.

There is even a Buddhist Deity from the Esoteric Buddhist tradition—白伞盖佛母 (bai san gai fo mu) the White Parasol Bodhisattva, who holds a white umbrella that shields her from supernatural harm. Her Heart Sutra 白伞盖佛母心咒 (bai san gai fo mu xin zhou) is used to break curses, prevent disaster, and also functions as protection from calamity, sheltering all beings from both physical and spiritual harm.

In the myth, Zayne has MC make over one hundred umbrellas by lashing bamboo strips together—an echo of how the narrator in 大司命 (Da Si Ming) lashes together countless cassia boughs.

Zayne then uses these umbrellas to create a sealing array formation, calling upon wind and snow and imbuing the snowflakes with his spiritual energy, which form the canopies of the umbrellas. He then pours his spiritual energy into the formation, which is subsequently absorbed by the Divine Tree.

In every formation, there is always an “eye” of the formation—the single most important vital point. Once broken, the formation also breaks. In this case, the formation eye is the Divine Tree, as Zayne notes that the Divine Tree is what will continue to supply the umbrellas with power and energy, but once it fades, the seal will weaken and break.

Disclaimer: The following are theories based on cultural and literary analysis. They are not confirmed canon.

The last time we see Zayne, he is lulling MC to sleep while imbuing the formation—as well as every umbrella—with his spiritual energy. What happens after may potentially be one of three possible scenarios:

If we go by what happens in Nine Songs with both iterations of Si Ming, we see that he returns to Heaven, leaving his pining lover behind, who laments:

Greater Si Ming Long I stand knotting cassia sprigs. Yet, the more I think of him, the sadder I am. Sadder, but what can I do? A day like this I wish would never end, But fate is always fitting. Whether we meet or part is not for me to say. Lesser Si Ming

You entered with no warning, left with no good-bye, You rode the spinning wind, cloud banners flying. No grief greater than to live yet be apart, No joy greater than love when it is new. [...] I looked for you, beautiful one, but you never came. I sing facing the wind in loud despair. [...] Under a peacock-feather canopy and halcyon banners, You ascend the Nine Heavens in a chariot, the Broom Star in your hand

If we go by genre conventions found in xianxia narratives, typically when a cultivator or god completely exhausts their spiritual power, they end up dying—usually, this is represented as the body dissipating into specks of golden or white light. If Zayne did in fact continue to feed the formation with his spiritual energy to ensure that MC can have the best chance of survival, then it is possible that he ends up sacrificing himself in this way.

If he does not die, because of the fact that he is a god who failed in his duties and also defied Heaven’s Will, he would absolutely incur Heaven’s Wrath, and Heavenly Punishment would rain down upon him—he says this himself in Chapter 6: changing fate leads to Heavenly Punishment.

In Tower of Secrets, we are shown that Zayne has a field filled with countless jasmine flowers—each flower representing one of his past lives that he doesn’t recall, each life having an MC in it that he doesn’t remember at all, which confirms that Zayne has been reincarnated countless times.

If, according to xianxia genre conventions, Zayne may have been punished by Heaven by having his divinity and even his immortality stripped, this would be the reason why he no longer bears the Si Ming Mantle. Losing his divinity and his immortality would effectively make him a Fallen Immortal (堕仙 duoxian), and condemn him to the mortal realm—the ultimate sacrifice and price he had to pay for defying Heaven’s Will and failing in his duty as Si Ming, the Master of Fate.

As a mortal, he would be required to undergo countless lifetimes where he would face at least one tribulation. In Thorns Under the Moon, a godlike deity berates him for always choosing to risk his own life for MC, instead of properly “atoning,” which can potentially suggest that his tribulation is whether or not he will choose to protect MC. If he fails the tribulation, presumably, the endless cycles of tribulations would continue.

Of course, only Infold can confirm what actually happened after MC falls asleep in Snow’s Embrace, but these are my best guesses about what happens to Zayne at the end of this myth.

As for what that lone white flower represents at the very end of the myth, if we go by our xianxia narrative theory of ultimate sacrifice, then we only need to look to Dao De Jing: “All things flourish and each returns to its root. [...] Though you lose the body, you do not die."

If we recall, in Chapter 4, Zayne confirms that there is a flower on the Divine Tree that “belongs” to him but is not the present “him”—which means, this flower could potentially represent one of Zayne’s future lives. When Immortals and gods sacrifice themselves in xianxia, very often, their spiritual essence or primordial spirit persists in either spiritual form or in a primordial form. If Zayne’s primordial form happens to be the flower, or if the flower contains his spiritual essence or the essence of his primordial soul, then when it falls and takes root, it signifies the start of his rebirth and represents the endless cycle of death and rebirth that is central to both Buddhist and Daoist philosophy.

The flower might represent hope for a future return and reunion—though Zayne has presently lost his physical form, he only needs to cultivate long enough once more to regain it, just like flowers wait for the right conditions to bloom once more.

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For those of you who previously found this myth a little confusing, I hope that this annotated retranslation helps clarify any questions you might have had about the cultural context, and that you now have a better understanding of this myth. For those of you who are simply reading for the pleasure of reading, I hope you’ve enjoyed this!

To continue learning about the many references that are in Snow’s Embrace, I highly recommend reading Selected Passages if you haven’t done so already.

subtextually June 30, 2025

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