Oof this scene really hits because Meng Yao/Jin Guangyao always has me torn between “you go honey, you don’t let classism and the terrible structure of society hold you back from realizing your dreams” and “YOU HAD A GOOD THING GOING FOR YOU DAMMIT, YOU HAD PEOPLE WHO LOVED AND APPRECIATED AND RESPECTED YOU WITHOUT ALL THAT MURDER AND A HOUSE OF LIES THAT WOULD INEVITABLY COME CRASHING DOWN”
And this scene in episode 10 really pushes me towards the latter because
1) you have Jiang Cheng admiring Meng Yao instead of calling him a son of a whore and trying to murder him,
2) you have Nie Huaisang talking about how great Meng Yao is and how much his brother respects him, instead of cooking up an elaborate 10-year revenge plot to drag Meng Yao/JGY’s name through the mud before having him killed,
3) and you have Wei Wuxian believing that any sect would be lucky to have Meng Yao and his talents, instead of trying to expose that aforementioned house of lies and whistling up the ghosts of Meng Yao/JGY’s victim’s to terrorize him
and YOU COULD HAVE MADE BETTER LIFE CHOICES MENG YAO, DAMMIT
though considering Xue Yang’s grin the foreground, Meng Yao might have already made a deal with Xue Yang at this point
