Five essays on a revenge devised to save two infants, two rival educations, a heroic reputation manufactured from betrayal, and a duel both brothers enter intending to lose.
Nearly everyone in The Legendary Siblings tries to finish someone else’s life in advance. Yaoyue writes a twenty-year ending for two newborns. The villains hope to manufacture a perfect weapon. Yihua Palace turns obedience into a flawless personality. Jiang Biehe constructs a public self so persuasive that the jianghu defends it for him.
The novel keeps answering these designs with people who learn what they were taught and then use it otherwise. These essays follow that unfinished distance between an upbringing and a life. Full-novel spoilers follow.
To save two infants, Lianxing invents a revenge that will culminate twenty years later. It preserves their lives that day by laying claim to the lives they have not yet lived.
Five villains teach Xiao Yu’er everything they know in hopes of producing perfect evil. He learns every skill and chooses uses they never prescribed.
Hua Wuque receives unmatched skill, manners, and discipline but never the reason for his single command. Unable to refuse the duel, he chooses to die in it.
The servant who sells his master’s escape becomes a universally admired hero. Jiang Biehe’s finest skill is making the entire jianghu explain him on his behalf.
Every stage of Yaoyue’s plan succeeds until the last stroke. She can arrange the brothers’ lives but cannot decide where either man’s sword will fall.
五篇从一个为救人而编出的复仇计划出发，细读恶人谷与移花宫的两种教育、被经营出来的大侠名声，以及一场双方都准备替对方死去的决斗。
《绝代双骄》里，几乎每个人都想替另一个人把一生预先写完：邀月替两个婴儿写下二十年后的结局，十大恶人想造出一件最完美的凶器，移花宫把服从做成无缺的人格，江别鹤则造出一个让整个江湖替他维护的自己。
小说一次次让人学会别人教给他的东西，又把它用向别处。这五篇细读的，正是教育与一生之间那一点始终无法被写完的距离。全文包含结局剧透。
怜星为救两个婴儿，临时编出一场二十年后的兄弟相残；计划救下了当天的生命，也试图占有他们尚未开始的一生。
五个恶人把最拿手的本事毫无保留地教给小鱼儿，想造出天下最恶的人；他学会了一切，却把本事用向了他们没有规定的地方。
花无缺得到最好的武功、礼法与品性，却始终得不到杀人的理由；他无法不赴约，只能决定让自己死在朋友手里。
卖掉主人消息的书僮，二十年后成了人人敬仰的江南大侠；江别鹤最厉害的武功，是让整个江湖替他解释。
邀月的计划每一步都成功了，却在最后一剑前失去效力：她能安排兄弟的一切，唯独不能替他们决定那一剑落向谁。