History Literature / TheDeerAndTheCauldron

!This book shows examples of:

-->''As I was walking to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives...''

* FortyTwo: The 42 Scriptures that everyone (by which we mean ''everyone'') is scheming for.

* LawOfInverseFertiliy: Invoked - Wei Xiaobao ends up dragged into an affair with Princess Jianning for a good long while without anything ever happening, up until the Siege of Lichun Court chapter, easily the worst possible time for one of the seven to get pregnant considering ''he hasn't formally won them all over at the time.'' Also worth noting at this point is that Wei has gone from being poisoned by Hai Dafu to being hit by Mao Dongzhu's Dragon Sect martial arts, to being extra-poisoned by Chief Hong, making it a miracle that he can have children at all!

* LawOfInverseFertiliy: Invoked - Wei Xiaobao ends up dragged into an affair with Princess Jianning for a good long while without anything ever happening, up until the Siege of Lichun Court chapter, easily the worst possible time for one of the seven to get pregnant considering ''he hasn't formally won them all over at the time.'' Naturally, that's what happens.

* TookALevelInJerkass: Liu Yizhou tries to sell Wei Xiaobao out when encountering some goonies from the Mystic Dragon Cult, who were seeking the latter, resulting in risking the lives of his lover and companions. Fang Yi decides to leave him afterwards.

* DistractedByTheSexy: One of Wei's "treasures" acquired on his trips is apparently Japanese ''shunga'' art, which he uses on Qing officers [[spoiler:while he substitutes the captive Chen Jinnan, moments before his execution, for living loose end Feng Xifan.]]

* TheMole: Wei Xiaobao has gotten out of one scrape after another by claiming to be one for whichever is convenient at the time. He ends up holding ''several'' official titles; but it's a lot less funny considering the number of ''actual'' moles out there. [[spoiler:One is eventually responsible for the death of Chen Jinnan.]]

* UndyingLoyalty: Shuang-Er to Wei Xiaobao. No contest.

* BadassFamily: The Gui family look like an elderly couple stuck taking care of a mentally impaired son who's above 40 at least, but their combined strength could beat a small army. Unfortunately, they're bad guys.

** Zheng Keshuang has Feng Xifan, a boss-level martial artist so dangerous you have to wonder why Zheng isn't a more dangerous individual under his tutelage.

* FrameUp: A corrupt official sets up the head of the Zhuang estate for possessing artifacts from the fallen Ming dynasty, and has the entire family and any followers and servants imprisoned, ''just after'' [[HopeSpot Shuang-Er became one of their maids]].

* AcheivementsInIgnorance: When a bunch of Yunnan officers visit the capital on the pretext of seeing Wu Yingxiong, Wei's newly minted cavalry officer gets into a dispute with them over the performance of their purebred horses against the royal cavalry's own, and Wei proposes to settle it with a horse race (nearly inventing a new high-stakes game in the process)... then gets cold feet and tries to fix the race by bribing a groom into feeding the Yunnan horses something he probably shouldn't. Turns out the race was a lie and Wei inadvertently thwarted Wu Yingxiong's ''escape attempt'', tracking him down by following the trail of horse diahrrea.

* AwesomenessByAnalysis: One of Wei's new friends is Shaolin abbot Chengguan, trained in identifying and figuring out counterattacks to every known martial arts style. He's the first one to work out that A-Ke was trained in several incomplete styles to mask her origins (as Jiunan's disciple). Trying to figure out something he could teach [[BookDumb Wei Xiaobao]] nearly gives him an aneurysm though.

** In order to suck up to Chen YuanYuan [[spoiler:since his real target is her daughter A-Ke's hand]], Wei Xiaobao starts pointing out all the times in history when the downfall of civilizations were wrongfully attributed to famous women. Then he has to eat his words really fast with TheReveal that a woman[[spoiler:, the One-Armed Nun]] is responsible for setting up A-Ke to kill [[spoiler:her own father]].

* DramaticIrony: Shuang-Er's faithfulness to Wei Xiaobao has led to several of his new friends asking her if she has any more like her at home. She's actually a war orphan, so the answer is a very pointed no.

** Imperial eunuchs play a huge part in this story, which already says plenty. What this means is that Wei, impersonating a place eunuch half the time, has had to escape this ''at least once'' by the skin of his teeth (and certain other body parts, we're sure).

* GroinAttack: Wei Xiaobao convinces Princess Jianning to go along with her unwanted betrothal to the son of Wu Sangui, by getting her to set him up for rape on their wedding night. To sell it further, [[spoiler:he passes her one of the two guns gifted to him, which she uses on her new husband the best way she can.]]

* MacGuffin: The 42 Scriptures again. On the surface, they're a geomancy guide to the leylines and other geographical mumbo-jumbo supposedly responsible for the strength and longevity of the Qing Empire, but uniting all the chapters will reveal the location of a much more mundane source of power - ancient buried treasure.