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TTEOTM Costume Count: Bai Lu Edition
Did someone ask for a costume count? Well, here you go. This is what happens when you give your designer too much budget.
Bai Lu's characters (35 costumes in total)
- Ye Xiwu - 17 costumes (+5 capes)
- Sangjiu - 6 costumes (+1 cape)
- Li Susu - 12 costumes (+3 capes)
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Starting my Case Files Compendium liveblog here, starting with chapters 1-6
I'm definitely enjoying myself already, I love how immediately He Yu is revealed to be a completely sociopathic manipulative little nepo brat- it's reminiscent of the way meatbun introduced mo ran immediately establishing him as a contemptible and cruel idiot (which he isn't) so it has me wondering how meatbun will develop him from here.
I like how both male leads are absolutely immediately immensely less objectively likeable than mo ran and chu wanning (I'll be comparing bab to 2ha repeatedly btw), between being homophobe4homophobe, He Yu's demented and careless prank to Xie Qingcheng's genuinely frightening and violent raging at Xie Xue and his (horrible) date... I Love Them.
(YUWU CRIT AHEAD) I definitely like them a lot more off the bat than I did Mo Xi and Gu Mang, though I did end up really warming to Gu Mang when he WASN'T lobotomized. Mo Xi is kind of just nothing to me unfortunately, even less character and intrigue than Lan Wangji (who despite people's complaints I find very enjoyable- his silent daddyisms once he's grown up and found his man again, the way he's kind and generous and chilled out from the complete narc he used to be, the way he's overwhelmed and distressed by his own violent lust, the way he acts when he's drunk, he's a fun character) and nothing in the story really changed that for me. I understood why he was so upset with Gu Mang but the way Mo Xi treated Gu Mang when he couldn't remember anything was not charming. He lightly fits into the meatbun mold of younger gong that needs to be taken care of by his older shou but he has none of the charisma or cuteness or charming naughtiness of Mo Ran and He Yu. He provides no textural quality to the constant misery and stifling sweet potato pain of yuwu, and the most unforgivable sin? He's just not mentally ill enough. Neither is Gu Mang- they just don't have the compelling push and pull of complicated mental states that mr&cwn have nor what hy&xqc are very much evidently showing to have. The most mentally ill character I can think of in yuwu is murong lian but i find him completely contemptible for where he allowed gu mang to stay after he got wolf spirit lobotomized. Honestly the way gu mang, my favorite character among the cast gets treated is one of the biggest reasons yuwu falls flat for me. I don't want him to suffer i want him to be a fun and happy daddy and maybe he gets that by the end but wow did he get treated horribly by the two people he ends up happily living around. (YUWU CRIT END)
Back to bab, He Yu and Xie Qingcheng are both saying and doing a lot of things that make me feel like I'll get to laugh at them in the end, in particular Xie Qingcheng's inner monologue about not believing in or understanding love, that it's a disease. You're going to catch that disease eventually my brother. You're in a danmei. You're a homophobe? My dear friend, you are in a danmei. If the sirens aren't blazing for you they soon will be.
One of my biggest points of enjoyment so far with all the danmei I've read so far (mxtx, yuwu, 2ha) is the way that they're love puzzles. How will these two characters end up together with everything resolved? In what ways will they find what they need and love in each other? In bab meatbun presents quite a twisted puzzle so far it almost feels like a challenge: how are this demonic homophobic nepo baby who hates doctors and this cold paternalistic homophobic doctor going to end up together?
Well, I can already see the roots of He Yu's derangement towards xqc beginning especially most prominently in the insane words of "he basically belongs to you, so if you don't help him be successful he might take you as his wife) his mom said to him which I have to imagine warped his mind with simultaneous feelings of ownership and terror towards him- as well as the derangedly florid descriptions of xqc's cold and devastating beauty.
Anyways, Xie Qingcheng is absolutely a daddy, a fussy and mean daddy. Compared to his contemporary meatbun shou (and i do feel that gong and shou distinctions are more meaningful to the actual characters and their temperaments in meatbun's works) Chu Wanning who is a fussy and only really incidentally mean failmommy, Xie Qingcheng is by far more of a daddy (repeatedly being referred to as paternalistic)- he also seems more socially competent and outspoken about his morals but similarly just as incompetent in understanding his own feelings. He's a cute fussy princess of a daddy.
Whereas Chu Wanning's mommyisms have a counterpart in Mo Ran's (esp Mo-Zongshi) daddyisms, I can't help but suspect He Yu is just going to be Xie Qingcheng's bratty baby boy and I'm excitedly rubbing my hands together for that dynamic. I already like the intimacy of "he's seen me at my worst and already knows i suck so i'll lose my manipulative outer front in front of him and end up showing him my more authentic self". I kind of want to see He Yu calling him daddy while rearranging his guts
I don't think at this point that Xqc harbors the same feelings towards He Yu that Chu Wanning did towards Mo Ran, but I also suspect his thoughts about him are more benign than He Yu thinks. I really love the "don't bother me i'm homophobic" "OH YEAH? IF YOU'RE HOMOPHOBIC THAN I'M WAYYY MORE HOMOPHOBIC THAN YOU THAT IT BASICALLY MAKES YOU LOOK GAY" nevermind the paragraphs he yu spends thinking about xie qingcheng's urethral cold beauty and the paleness of his skin and the way his brows are so dark and his lips thin and perfect and like red blossoms frosted over-
I'm also betting against the house that Xie Xue is genuinely just a kind dummy and not a demented mastermind like the last two effeminate false romantic leads.
I'm writing this while eating fried rice because the description of Xie Qingcheng's cooking made me drool. An entire page of fried rice decadence. I like that between him and He Yu, he's the one who can cook well- He Yu, Mo Ran is going to laugh at you for having nothing to charm your ethereal and bitchy old man with
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Writing propaganda is so difficult for me bc, like, how do I even begin to show it better than lines like “You are the breath-taking view of mountains and lakes in the remaining years of my life, the rising clouds tinged in sunset colours. Now and forever, I will keep on loving you a little more” (4 o’clock flower) or “He loved him so much, missed him so much, he missed him in the barracks, he missed him in battle. In the depths of his shattered memories, he loved him, thought of him, missed him.” (Yuwu) or “If it’s with you, if I can be together with you… I am fearless.” (Where is Our Agreement to Be Arch-Rivals?) or “Only after having met you did I discover that its such a simple thing to be happy” (TGCF) or “In this life, you will be the only one in my heart. In the next life, and the life after that, I will forever remember you, so long as my soul hasn’t scattered.” (Qi Ye) or “To place my life in your hands, even if my end is death, it is something I’ll never regret” (Peerless) or “You are just like my reverse scale. You live, I live. You are my life. Therefore, no matter how difficult things are in the future, or how arduous life becomes, I want you to live” (Nan Chan) or “As long as this ending can be changed, I am willing to die for him a thousand times” (Mist) or “I fantasize about seeing my reflection in your eyes on day, just one look, I’ll be willing to do anything that is asked of me, even pulverizing my body and shattering my bones no matter how many times…” (LHJC) or “Whatever he wants, I’ll give it to him. If he wants my life, I’ll stake my life for him… there’s no betrayal to be had.” (Liu Yao) or “I will always be with you. Life or death, I will bring you home” (2ha) or “This love has always been doomed. Yet, knowing that it’s perpetual doom, that it’s infinite destruction, the moths still throw themselves into the fire until they meet their very deaths” (Cold Sands) or “I hope that you will hate me all your life” (Golden Stage) or “Won’t you turn back and look at me? If you turn back and look at me just one time, even if you were to ask me to climb up to the roof and jump off, I’ll do it.” (GuoMen) or “Whereas Ruan Nanzhu sat at his side, gazing at Lin Qiushi with admiration in his eyes, his whole look a litany of I love you I love you I love you” (Kaleidoscope of Death), or…
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Who were the ghosts that attacked Wen Chao and Wang LingJiao?
The torture and murder of WC and WLJ are some of the most gruesome scenes in MDZS. To me, they are particularly harrowing. Not only because of the implied violence and gore, but the heartbreaking revelation of WWXs mental state after escaping the Burial Mounds.
The contrast between WWX's sudden paled appearance and cold demeanor, against the vivacious and warm WWX we all know and love, always makes me incredibly emotional. Obviously this is because he has been through an extremely distressful experience and is tremendously traumatised. It's quite obvious his thirst for revenge is one of the things that kept him going during his time in the Burial Mounds. Which is why, when he finally emerges from the awful hellhole he was trapped in, his attacks are particularly brutal. I'm currently working on a post about WWX's trauma, which is taking me some time, as it's quite an emotional ride - so we won't go into that too much here. Instead, I want to take a look at something that stood out to me on my first read and even more so on a re-read.
When reading the scenes mentioned above, I noticed a few things with regards to the ghosts WWX used to torture and kill WC and WLJ. Personally, I think MXTX hints that the female and child ghosts used to attack WC and WLJ, have some form of connection to the two in some way.
Wen Chao cried sharply in pain. It sounded especially jarring in the empty courier station. Jiang Cheng asked, “Why is his voice so sharp?” Wei WuXian, “Of course it’d be with a certain thing gone.” Jiang Cheng was disgusted, “You’re the one who did it?” Wei WuXian, “It’s nasty if you think about it that way. Of course, I wasn’t the one who cut it off. It was bitten off when his woman went mad.”
Chapter 62 ExR
When I first read the above scene, I had a sudden realisation that WLJ couldn't possibly be the "woman" that WWX was referring to. Prior to WC being attacked, WLJ stuffed a broken stool leg down her throat, while under the influence of an unseen ghost - perhaps even possessed at that moment in time.
On the ground, Wang LingJiao had already picked up one leg of the stool, frantically stuffing it into her mouth, laughing as she did, “Fine, fine, I’ll eat it, I’ll eat it! Haha, I’ll eat it!” An entire chunk of the leg had been stuffed down by her!
Chapter 61
Not long after the above scene, JC and LWJ find her in the same horrific position with the stool leg firmly in her mouth.
The doors to Wen Chao’s room were wide open. Only one female corpse remained in the room. The corpse wore light clothes. Half of the leg of a stool had been stuffed down her throat. She had killed herself by forcing herself to swallow the stool leg into her stomach.
Chapter 61
With this in mind, it couldn't have been WLJ who attacked WC. She was already dead or dying while choking on the stool leg. You could argue that she might have taken it out of her mouth, after she had turned into a corpse that WWX could control to attack WC, swallowing the stool leg again once she had finished. But that doesn't really make much sense. MXTX purposefully drew attention to the fact the stool leg was still in her mouth when JC and LWJ found her. There is even a rather grotesque point where JC attempts to shove the stool leg into her mouth further, when he is kneeling by her corpse. This scene is used not only to emphasise JCs hatred and character, but to draw further attention to the stool leg still being in WLJs mouth. If this scene was purely to show JC's hunger for revenge, MXTX could have had JC slap her corpse - just as JC overheard WLJ state she wanted to slap Madam Yu's corpse after the massacre at Lotus Pier.
I have seen some people in the fandom claim that because of the above contradictions, WWX must be lying. As WLJ, "his woman" was already dead. As such, people insinuate WWX must have bitten off WCs private part himself! Which is ludicrous! He might not be acting himself at this moment in time due to the mass amount of trauma he's endured, but he's not going to do that! Especially if he has others under his control, that are so eager to attack WC in his place.
When WWX said "his woman", I think he was referring to the ghost woman in the room with them at that moment in time. Not WJL as some people assume, but the one who was currently there to torment and kill WC. To me, WWXs words pretty much confirm that he is using one of WCs dead mistresses to torture him to death.
As he spoke, the blue-faced woman crawled toward him using both her arms and her legs. When she had been fighting, her face was almost hideous, but now, with her dark face against Wei WuXian’s lap, she somehow seemed to be a charming concubine, obediently pleasing her master.
Chapter 62
The ghost is even described as a seemingly charming concubine, which could be a hint to her past relationship with WC. Given WCs character, and the fact we know he is a huge unscrupulous lech who treats women as objects - it's not much of a jump to assume this ghost was one of his many mistresses or a "sexual conquest" from the past.
Wen ZhuLiu grabbed the child’s head with his left hand, as though to put so much force on the small, cold head that it exploded. The blue-faced woman threw the bloodstained bandages on the ground and, like a four-limbed creature, she crawled to Wen ZhuLiu’s side almost instantly. A swing of her arm and there were ten lines of blood. The two dark beings, one large and one small, wrangled with him incessantly.
Chapter 62
Of course, there is also the ghost child. The two appear to be working together and the ghost woman seems protective of the child - as we can see from the above. I think this is insinuating that the child might be the ghost woman's offspring and possibly even WCs illegitimate child. It would make more sense then WWX having summoned a random ghost child. If the ghosts already had strong resentment towards the WC and WLJ, (especially if they caused their death in some way) it would also help strengthen WWXs attacks on them both.
A long-haired woman in red clothes, her face blue, fell heavily onto him. The dark face, bright red clothes, and black hair created a chilling contrast. Her fingers wrapped around the bandages around Wen Chao’s head and tore!
Chapter 62
The two scenes above are even somewhat reminiscent to the chapter where the corpses of the Mo family were working together to attack the ghost hand that killed them at the start of the novel. I think the parallels between this scene and the scene at Mo Village are quite deliberate and are intended to help suggest that something very similar is happening with the two unknown ghosts in the scenes in question.
Aside from being unable to defy Wei WuXian’s command, the family also loathed the creature that killed them, and let out their anger on the ghost hand.
...
The three corpses and the hand were in the middle of a tough battle, when Mo ZiYuan abruptly moved out of the way. His abdomen area was attacked by the hand, causing a few chunks of his intestines to spill out. As Madame Mo saw this, she screamed incessantly and shielded her son behind herself.
Chapter 5
Not only do we see a mother protecting her child, but we see WWX use the resentment they have towards the hand that killed them, in order to attack it. Which could be exactly what is happening in the chapters with the ghost woman and child.
Wei WuXian took his hand away after patting on the white ghoul child’s sparse-haired head. Holding what he had fed it in its mouth, it turned around and sat down. Hugging his leg, it chewed fiercely as it glowered at Wen ZhuLiu with cold, glistening eyes. What he was chewing were two human fingers. Needless to say—they must be Wen Chao’s fingers!
Chapter 62
Chewing on WCs fingers has a particularly gruesome, yet disturbingly poetic irony to it all if the theory of the ghost being his illegitimate child is true. The ghost child is literally biting the hand that (possibly) should have fed him!
There are a number of hints that could support the theory that WC and WLJ know the ghosts who are attacking them and that they might have had a hand in their demise. If we piece together the little hints that have been left for us, there seems to be an undercurrent of something more sinister being alluded to within the subtext.
She had been following Wen Chao for almost half a year. Half a year was the most time that Wen Chao could spend on a woman, from loving her to becoming tired of her. She had thought that she was different, that she was the one who could stay until the end. However, Wen Chao’s growing irritation during the past few days had told her already. She was no different from the other women.
Chapter 61
The above confirms that WC tires of his mistresses quite easily, usually within six months. From earlier chapters, the reader is already aware WC was married, but still openly flaunted his mistresses and promiscuity. Obviously I'm sure he usually just casts them aside rather than murdering them! Otherwise, there would be a pretty big body count from the sounds of it! But if we consider the fact WC usually tires of his latest conquest within six months, we can assume he dumped this particular mistress way before she'd given birth to the child, more than likely way before she even knew she was pregnant. Perhaps after giving birth she thought presenting him with his child would help her situation, similar to JGY and MXYs mothers holding out hope on JGS taking an interest in his illegitimate children. WC is a cold-hearted, self-centred, greasy, vain psychopath who doesn't care for anyone but himself. It certainly wouldn't be out of character for him to decide to get rid of a mistress and his illegitimate child, because it was an inconvenience to him.
Obviously all we can do is speculate, as there is no solid evidence in the text around the child being WCs. Though the child definitely has a mass amount of resentment towards him and seems connected to the ghost woman in some way - so it is definitely plausible. That being said, I do think we can see MXTX drawing a connection to the ghosts and the two being attacked if we look closely enough.
The chest held all of the valuables and weapons that she had managed to hoard during the half-year of staying by Wen Chao’s side. Valuables she could spend, weapons she could protect herself with. Although she didn’t want it to, the day had finally come.
Chapter 61
So we can see WLJ had a contingency plan for if or when WC got bored of her - as it's apparently something WC does often. She already had an idea that if WC lost interest in her, she would need to leave in a hurry. What is rather interesting from the above, is that WLJ had been stashing weapons away to protect herself with as well. Now I am aware that at present, the cultivation world is at the beginning of a war, so this could be overlooked as her trying to protect herself against the enemy, if all of her current privileges and protection were taken away. But the Wen sect really didn't take the war seriously until very recently, possibly even just in the past few days - as we can see from the below.
Everyone who stood on the Wen Sect’s side took the Sunshot Campaign as a joke. However, three months later, the circumstances didn’t turn out the way they expected them to at all!
Chapter 61
As such, I think WLJ hiding weapons is more of a means to protect herself against a more imminent threat - WC and those under his command, if he decides she is no longer of use to him. We have already witnessed how cold hearted and ruthless WC and WLJ are. They were quite ready to murder or seriously injure MianMian back in the cave of the Xuanwu of Slaughter - so killing and physically harming others isn't something out of character for either of them. I think the above scene shows the reader that WC might be accustomed to getting rid of mistresses who become troublesome, and that WJL knows this. WLJ may have even participated in such things to gain her current position by his side, after all she was particularly ruthless to poor MianMian, so she's definitely capable of such cruelty.
As we've seen, WLJ has an extremely jealous streak, which caused her to pick MianMian as the person to be hung up as bait for the Xuanwu of Slaughter. So it's not really much of a stretch to think WLJ might have had a hand in bumping off her rival and her poor child as well. It wouldn't be much of a surprise if she'd jealousy helped permanently get rid of a mistress who had given birth to WCs child and become too much trouble for him.
From a psychological point of view, looking at what happened to WLJ when she was attacked, we can see a number of things that could support the above even more so.
The woman’s features were all distorted, as though they had been smashed and then pieced together again. The two of her eyes were looking in different directions, the left upward and the right downward. Her entire face was hideously twisted. Wen Chao tried with much effort before he could finally manage to recognize her from her rather revealing robe. This was Wang LingJiao!
Chapter 61
The fact WLJ's face is hideously disfigured is very telling. Whoever attacked her, did so in a very distinctive way. They made her look hideous, they attacked her where it hurts her the most - her beauty. We know the ghost child from later scenes made an appearance in WLJs room, so it's safe to assume that the woman is nearby as well. If the ghost woman was a former mistress who WLJ had a hand in getting rid of, it's definitely something a scorned woman would do to get revenge. Making someone's face look horrifically deformed, sounds very personal to me.
Wang LingJiao staggered before kneeling down and collapsing onto the ground, as though she was kowtowing someone, mumbling, “… I’m sorry… I’m sorry… Let me go, let me go, let me go…”
Chapter 61
WJL is currently being controlled or manipulated by an unseen force. Earlier WJL put a talisman that unbeknownst to her, had been reversed and therefore attracted rather than repelled evil. She also admits that her cultivation is extremely low. With all of that in mind, it's possible that she was possessed by the ghost woman from later scenes, at that moment in time. WLJ is currently half mad and very frightened. She's talking to someone who only she can hear - again possibly alluding to her being possessed by the ghost woman. This makes her words very interesting. Most might assume she is saying sorry to WWX, but he's not actually made an appearance yet - he's outside watching and waiting. To me, WJL is apologising to the ghost woman. Because she's the one who is possessing her, and she is the one who WLJ might have wronged.
On the ground, Wang LingJiao had already picked up one leg of the stool, frantically stuffing it into her mouth, laughing as she did, “Fine, fine, I’ll eat it, I’ll eat it! Haha, I’ll eat it!” An entire chunk of the leg had been stuffed down by her!
Chapter 61
Back to this grotesque scene again! It's quite apparent that the stool leg is suggestive of the scene we now know must follow. The above could even be seen as a metaphor for what happens to WC off page. As I've already explained above, I don't think MXTX intended for us to think WLJ attacked WC. The stool leg is very phallic and the horrendous act seems very personal once again. It's an extremely sexually violent act and not something I think WWX would be capable of thinking of himself. To me it's perhaps something a murdered or scorned mistress would do to her rival in order to exact extreme revenge. Perhaps even a previous mistress who WLJ had a hand in getting rid of, in order to appease WC.
There seems to be two viable options that I can theorise, as to how WWX acquired the two spirits we are later introduced to. One option is the talismans WWX had reversed all around the supervision office that WC and WLJ were occupying. As we know, reverse talismans attract ghosts and corpses within a certain area. So if the poor woman and child met their end nearby and were waiting around for vengeance, they would have been attracted to the area now the talismans were reversed. Or there is the slightly more sinister option that WWX actually met their ghosts along with many others, during his time in the Burial Mounds and brought them along with him when he left. I find the latter option quite interesting, because there is something that stood out to me in chapters 60 and 61, that could support this theory as well.
Wen Chao continued, “Burial Mound is right in Yiling. You Yunmeng people have probably heard of its name as well. It’s a mountain of corpses, an old battleground. If you find a spot wherever on the mountain and dig your shovel into it, you’ll be able to dig out a corpse. Any nameless corpses would be tossed here as well, wrapped in a mat only.”
Chapter 60
Wen Chao immediately refuted her, “It’s impossible even if he’s dead! The people who died in Burial Mound, all of their souls would be shackled there.
Chapter 61
WC seems to know just how convenient the Burial Mounds is if you want to get rid of someone, keeping their soul trapped there in the process. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if WC had used this place as a personal dumping ground for anyone that displeased him.
Apparently MXTX mentioned somewhere in her author's notes that certain things had to be edited or removed due to censorship issues. Perhaps she originally intended for WLJ to attack WC in the above scenes, but decided to rewrite it. Some claim this scene might have been censored and this is MXTX's attempt at working around it. But personally I think that if MXTX wanted to insinuate WLJ was "his woman" without showing such extreme sexual violence, she would have had the reader notice the stool leg was no longer in her mouth in later scenes. Allowing the reader to notice it was still in her mouth, not once but twice, seems very deliberate to me. With that in mind, I think that even if this was MXTX working around censorship, she most likely still intended for the ghost woman to be the one who committed the violent act and had to do so off page and hint as such instead. It definitely ties in with the rest of the evidence in the text and is even reminiscent of the first time we see WWX using his cultivation technique at the start of the novel. It also somewhat echoes his theorising at the Cloud Recesses, where he first talks about arousing resentful energy and using it as a weapon.
Personally I think once you accept WWX is talking about WCs "woman" being the ghost woman, there seems to be hints to an even darker subplot just under the surface. The fact WLJ has a contingency plan for if when WC tires of her and that the plan involves weapons to protect herself with, is in my opinion rather telling. The fact WWX is known for harnessing the resentful energy that an entity under his control has for others, as a way to enhance his attacks is also a compelling argument that strengthens the above theory as well. I certainly think this is a credible theory and even helps explain a part of the plot that some have found a little confusing, due to what may come across as inconsistencies in the chapters in question.
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I know everyone's entitled to their own opinion but daaamn, some opinions just ain't it.
Like shipping Xie Lian with Jun Wu and making lovey-dovey fanarts of them? (Tian Guan Ci Fu)
Saying Shi Mei from Erha deserves all the forgiveness in the world and wishing for Mo Ran to reconnect with him some day, sit down to drink tea and tell him he missed him? Jeeez.
Forgiveness doesn't equal reconnecting with someone, especially when that someone hurt you and your dear ones deeply, betrayed you, manipulated you, took advantage of you... You can choose to forgive in order to free yourself of resentment and hatred but you don't have to be friends with the person that "casually" destroyed your life.
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haha *twirls hair* i am soooo normal and not at all insane about taxian jun
when Taxian Jun refused to let Chu Wanning die at his own coronation..".not yet...he has to live", when Taxian Jun forced Chu Wanning to marry him to humiliate him but refused to allow chu fei's identity to be known. because Chu Wannings humiliation and misery at his hands was his and no one else's. when Taxian Jun comes back to Wushan Palace after a bloodbattle and buries himself in Chu Wanning's lap because he is the only thing that could calm him down. when Taxian Jun would hold Chu Wanning when he was sick and kiss medicine into his mouth. when Chu Wanning dies and Taxian Jun goes insane and loses his mind because he couldn't do it without Chu Wanning with him. when Taxian Jun kills Song Qiutong even though the only reason he kept her around was because she reminded him of Shi Mei the one person he thought he loved. the one person he wants to burn down the world for. When Shi Mei died Mo Weiyu dissapeared from the world but when Chu Wanning died he didn't know what the world was anymore. when Taxian Jun kowtowed three times to Chu Wanning after his death. when Taxian Jun preserved his body for two years because he couldn't let him decay he has to stay with me. When Taxian Jun lays beneath the haitang tree but doesn't even know why. when he wakes up and has to continue for eight more years in the cold and empty palace without Chu Wanning, having continue to kill and suffer even though he ended it all. When he finally gets a hold of Chu Wanning again but Chu Wanning is sick and feverish and he holds him so he doesn't get worse and Hua Binan tells him its useless because he is a corpse and doesn't have a temperature and he points to the part of himself that was touching Chu Wanning and says he has warmth when Taxian Jun calls himself a disaster and a monster. When Taxian Jun see's Chu Wanning with an injured Mo Ran and asks if he would have done the same for him. If he would have protected him...if Chu Wanning could have loved him.
but most of all when 15 year old Mo Ran stood in front of Chu Wanning and begged to take the cursed flower in his place. because Chu Wanning was too gentle and he wouldn't be able to live with himself. When 15 year old Mo Ran with cuts on his back decides to protect Chu Wanning.
yeah uhhh totally normal about him
