Upon watching the series, I was reminded of the part where Mo Sheng actually tells Yi Sheng her name.

Here’s where she references the two lines of the poem, explaining 笙箫 and 默. 🙂

我叫赵默笙，赵就是那个赵，默是沉默的默，笙是一种乐器，我的名字有典故的哦，出自徐志摩的诗……”悄悄，是离别的笙箫，沉默，是今晚的康桥。”

Roughly translates to:

My name is Zhao Mo Sheng; ‘Zhao’ is this ‘Zhao’; ‘Mo’ is the ‘Mo’ from silent (Chen Mo); Sheng is a type of instrument (reed pipe). My name is actually an allusion to Xu Zhimo’s poem…”Quiet, is the departing reed pipe and flute; Silent, is Cambridge at night.”

Haha, maybe. But I think the main purpose is to be part of 笙箫. It seems a bit weird to me if Xiao Xiao was stuck right in the middle of the two. As much as she’s a part of the story in the drama, she doesn’t really play a huge part in the book.

Thank you for the detailed reply! I tried googling but couldn’t understand what it means. This is very helpful 🙂 I realised the 箫 is also the same character in Xiao Xiao’s name. I wonder if it’s a coincidence or on purpose haha.

You are right about the name being made up of their names. In “He Yi Sheng Xiao Mo (何以笙箫默),” the “He,” “Yi,” “Sheng,” and “Mo” comes from the male lead’s name, He Yi Chen (何以琛), and the female lead’s name, Zhao Mo Sheng (赵默笙). According to some, this actually was the start of authors using a combination of the names of their leads as internet novel titles.

As for whether it actually means Silent Separation (the official English name listed), let’s break the name down into parts. The literal translation of “He Yi (何以)” is “from where/whence”. From what I gather, “Sheng Xiao (笙箫 lit. reed-pipe wind instrument and a vertical bamboo flute)” is said to be a reference to a poem by 20th century poet, Xu Zhimo, where it is used in the line “悄悄是别离的笙箫” to represent “leaving or parting from.” The last character, “Mo (默),” is directly translated as “silent” and is also a part of the next line in the poem. So paraphrased, the name of the book can also mean “why did you leave without saying anything” or “Silent Separation”.

You can read a translation of the poem on Xu Zhimo’s wikipedia article.

Hope that helped! 🙂

I liked how she only gave a few tidbits of their past to show us why they are so passionate with what they have. A little conflict with thw ex wouldn’t hurt though, I think they’ll give us that in the drama though.