青, or the most confusing colour word in old Chinese ever.

[foxghost]

This is because while there is a modern distinction between 綠 green and 藍 blue, in the past we had 青 / qing for ‘nature’s colour’. In any old text (and old words still used) it could mean, depending on context:

1. blue
2. youthful / young
3. pale yellow.
   
4. green / verdant
5. the band of colour just above blue in the rainbow (紅橙黃綠青藍紫, which puts 青 in between green and blue）if you’re a kid but when you get to form 1, you get that the rainbow is actually 紅橙黃綠藍靛紫, so the blue-green we thought was blue green is now blue.
   
6. The blue of blue white porcelain (青花瓷）
   
7. clear sky blue - 青天.
8. indigo blue (青出於藍而勝於藍 / qing comes out of the indigo plant and yet it is more vibrant than indigo)
9. black.

Also, 青衫 may read “green clothes,” but together and describing historical / mythical figures it just means “scholar’s robes,” where the word 青 means ‘young’ and the robes could be any colour. It describes the style, not the colour.

A line from Peach Blossom Debt:
青衫公子站起身，本仙君驚且喜，恍若東風拂過，三千桃樹，花開爛漫。
The young noble clad in scholar’s robes stands, and this immortal one is pleasantly surprised, as though the east wind chanced by and every brilliant flower on three thousand peach trees blossom.

So, a very important question — what colour are Kunlun’s robes? Chapter 68:

大慶依稀想起那如遠山一般翠色的青衫，袍袖中帶著新雪與竹製的香(…)
Daqing faintly remembers those scholar’s robes coloured like the bluish-green jade of distant mountains, sleeves carrying the fragrance of new snow and incense made with split bamboo(…)

So, 千峰翠色 / the bluish-green of a thousand mountain peaks, or the colour of 青瓷 / celadon pottery made in the Tang dynasty, not to be confused with blue-white porcelain even though it uses the same character, because that’s a line from some 唐詩 / Tang poetry. That’s anywhere from a brown cast to a very light jade green to a sky blue. (Historically. Modern celadon pottery is mostly light cyan or light green.)

I’m also depending on the words of a cat when he was a baby, so maybe he just means the colour of distant mountains from where he grew up and he’s not quoting poetry.

*squints at Kunlun mountain*

*shrugs* in the drama he wore blue but not a scholar’s robe?

Conclusion: the word 青 has always made me want to tear my hair out, and I’m going to go colourpicker a distant mountain if I’m ever going to draw anything.