History Literature / BewareOfChicken

* JustSoStory: The story of why the village known as "The Eighth Correct Place" is named that. Supposedly, the founders were commanded to build the village in its current location by some great lord. However, the area was subject to great floods, and all the buildings were washed away, seven times. Still, the founder, the first Zhang Fei, was determined to comply with his lord's command, and rebuilt the village after every flood. At the beginning, he placed a sign by the entrance of the village that read "The Correct Place" and it miraculously was the only thing that survived every flood. His brother, making fun of Zhang Fei's stubbornness, secretly added the word "Eighth" to the sign. When the great lord came to inspect, he asked about the name of the village, and learning of its hardships, turned the ground to silver, which is how the village both got its name and its silver-mining livelihood. [[spoiler:Besides explaining the local mythology, the story may also hint at the nature and the reason for creation of the province-spanning formation Bi De is investigating.]]

* AntiClimax: Jin is stunned to realise that he's spent the last year [[spoiler:hiding fearfully away from...the mailman. Albeit with a rather significant letter]].

* ThugDojo: Although most of the cultivator sects have some guiding wisdom that they are supposed to follow, in practice some of them simply [[MightMakesRight worship strength]] and allow the strong and skilled to do whatever they like, including violence to the other students and the general public. Shrouded Mountain is a straight example. Cloudy Sword had degenerated from its heyday and was becoming one [[spoiler:until the fallout from Jin leaving caused the Elders to clean house]].

* UnableToSupportAWife: Downplayed; Jin waits to ask for Meiling's hand until he's built a large enough house, instead of his initial rushed shack, but it doesn't take all that long. Even though what he builds is a manor by local standards.

*** Later, the villagers of Hong Yaowu decide to build thier own snowman in the spirit of fun and friendly competition: they name it The Warden that Sends Forth the Flying Ice and Snow.

* MundaneMadeAwesome: The spirit beasts who awaken on Jin's farm treat everything that happens there with the kind of drama and gravitas that is typical of the xianxia genre. It isn't Jin's farm; it is the Great Sect of Fa Ram, presided over by Great Master Rou Jin. The gate and fence at the front are the Great Pillars of Fa Ram. He's not Big D the rooster, he's [[spoiler:Fa]] Bi De, First Disciple of Fa Ram. They aren't farming, they're doing [[WaxOnWaxOff Profound and Mystical Training]]...and so on. (They're not exactly wrong. Jin thinking it's just a farm isn't accurate either.)

** Xiulan thinks that was Jin's intention when her first set her farming. It wasn't, Jin considers himself a farmer and hadn't yet realised that she thought he was a Hidden Master.

** When Yun Ren discovers an old grave, with a magical sword lying next to it. Fortunately, his mother taught him that grave robbing is disrespectful to the dead; he just picks a nearby flower to press as a gift for his girlfriend. The guardian fox spirit later informs him that if he had taken the sword, the fox would have killed him; instead, he's offered a boon.
* SeductionProofMarriage: Even when they're merely betrothed, Jin only has eyes for Meiling. He helps her ''strip another woman naked'' to provide emergency medical attention, and finds Meiling's cool competence and efficiency more distracting than the patient.

** Jin is amused by Chunky carrying a mobile chicken coop, laughing at the idea of a [[Literature/TheWanderingInn wandering inn]].[[note]]This one is actually ''returning'' a ShoutOut, after the author of The Wandering Inn [[https://wanderinginn.com/congratulations-to-casualfarmer/ congratulated]] Beware of Chicken and [=CasualFarmer=] on achieving the Royal Road #1 spot.[[/note]]

* AbductionIsLove: Jin is taken aback to hear about how Ten Ren gave up on winning over Nezin Hu Li's father, and just kidnapped her. But she seems to be happy about it, and her account implies that it was consensual, so he decides he won't judge.

*** It is mentioned in a book Jin reads, ''Contemplations of the Flame Bud'', that there ''are'' some who find more value in something similar to him, with the book being about how two different men approach discovering an example of the titular extremely rare flower. While one takes the usual Cultivator path of tearing it from the ground, throwing it in a spirit furnace, and turning it into a pill to slightly improve his resistence to fire, the other finds it beautiful, and contemplates it, thinking about how its seeds must have travelled far and been carried by the currents of the world, and observing its life cycle, and thanks the flower for the experience when it finally dies. While most Cultivators view the story as being about how they should make pills out of rare flowers and think that the man who contemplated the flower is weak, Jin ponders that maybe the contemplation guys are the ones who ''actually ascend'', rather than the cultivators.
** Jin's belief in sharing your emotions with friends and family and maintaining good mental health by talking through problems is novel and contrary to the xianxia-world culture. They say "[[ThereAreNoTherapists you face the heavens alone]]", he says "you ''don't have to'' face the heavens alone". This attitude leads to his friends and disciples having much better mental health than most others, both enabling unexpectedly rapid advances in their cultivation and preventing their emotional problems from transforming into heart demons.

* TransformingConforming: Even though Tigu the cat and Ri Zu the rat already had mutual respect as fellow disciples, their relationship becomes much easier after Tigu gains a human form, shedding her instincts to eat Ri Zu; they quickly shift from tense and guarded cooperation to inseparable friends. When Tigu later briefly changes back, she has to quash those instincts again, and notices herself feeling more proud and less bashful.

[[folder:A-B]]

* GreenThumb: Discussed, deconstructed, and defied by Jin, who acknowledges that he could use qi to make plants grow rapidly, but he doesn't have a comprehensive enough understanding of the full ecosystem to do that without risking a collapse. He could even cause the trees to rise up and fight for him, but that's a nightmare scenario to him. Instead, he focuses on making plants grow ''better'', pouring his qi into them without making specific demands. [[spoiler:It works, with the farm following the normal seasons but being fantastically productive, both in quantity and quality, at harvest time. It also turns out that while Jin isn't using his powers to directly grow plants, ''someone else is''; by pouring his Qi into the land Jin is reviving and healing the local earth spirit, who in return uses her power to further improve the quality and yield of his crops.]]