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late for 817 but some brainworms about pingxie my beloveds inspired/spawned by this short manhua panel by 刘巴布 (the official artist for the yucun biji manhua among other things) that has That One Scene from book 4 where they talk by the fire

"can you imagine it, wu xie? i'm a person with neither a past nor a future [...]."

spoiler it wasn't just "some" brainworms it escalated

it's a pretty popular headcanon i've also had and even used in fics that the 200k slowburn evolution of pingxie is wu xie's persistent fascination turned deep-rooted adoration/borderline obsession vs xiaoge's detachement and alienation eroding enough over time that he connects with wu xie on a personal and human level

but the more i go back and look at things like the fireside scene in book 4 with hindsight, the more i start to think that xiaoge was also overly invested from day one actually. maybe even faster than wu xie was. and maybe looking at things through that lens sheds light on a lot of the things that he does

so what if we considered xiaoge thoughts? specifically the books from xiaoge's pov thoughts? what about unpacking those thoughts enough to understand how xiaoge ends up being as unhinged and Intense about wu xie as wu xie is about him, and that it's because xiaoge is at his most selfish, flawed, irrational, and therefore deeply human when it comes to wu xie?

consider the idea that xiaoge was just as fascinated and uncharacteristically invested in wu xie from the beginning, and that the entirety of the story is them orbiting around each other like two magnets that don't collide only because wu xie is oblivious to what his own feelings mean, while xiaoge is aware of but constantly fighting himself over his because they're in conflict with his better judgment

consider the main books from xiaoge's pov that we're never getting to find it's just xiaoge and his eight book long internal conflict between the human, and therefore irrational, selfish and flawed part of himself that's rarely (if ever) manifested to this degree that he keeps finding he can't control, and the part of himself that's always been at the forefront by design and circumstance that's more like a benevolent diety detached from mortal concerns and connections xiaoge as a subversion of the sage immortal trope kind of ties into this but it also deserves another post so shh

and it's this internal conflict that creates a constant push-and-pull dynamic between him and wu xie who he craves to connect with, yet who he also keeps pushing away to keep him from getting too deeply involved in things xiaoge knows are beyond his ability to survive unscathed (or survive in general)

except from an outside perspective, all that internal conflict does is give wu xie mixed signals throughout the whole main book series because he wants to be friends with xiaoge and thinks they are friends, but every time he thinks they're getting closer xiaoge pushes him away and wu xie doesn't understand it and Doesn't Like It

there are so many things that xiaoge does that are so ??? when you start to think about them really

xiaoge and wu xie meet when wu sanxing borrows xiaoge from chen pi ah si to go to the seven star lu palace and use him as a convenient scapegoat/bait to help lure wu xie into The Conspiracy™️. there's absolutely nothing from that point onward that gives xiaoge the obligation to ever meet wu xie again or even care to, especially since the probable only reason he was there in the first place was to get the compass key for chen pi ah si. wu xie was meant to be one of many people he's come across in his life who should have blurred into the faceless crowd

and yet

wu xie shows real concern for and helps xiaoge when no one else does or would think to despite xiaoge treating him like a background npc when wu xie tried to talk to him like he does 99% of people (who usually either treat him like a piece of their inventory or an npc back depending on who). in a q&a npss even answers what their first impressions of each other were it's so funny in hindsight and neither of them was impressed they had absolutely nothing going for them ok

"what were zhang qiling's and wu xie's first impression of each other?" "wu xie: wow, what a show-off zhang qiling: it seems there's an amateur in the team"

xiaoge is Very Aware that wu xie is painfully inexperienced and has no business going down into a tomb. he initially has no interest in him at all. and yet that one act of genuine completely unmotivated kindness he's likely never been on the receiving end of in recent (so at this point in the story only) memory is unexpected enough it makes him pause and observe. and that's when he starts to gradually notice things

things like how wu xie, despite his inexperience and fear, is resourceful and quick to act. things like how wu xie seems to extend the same benefit of the doubt and situational trust to other complete strangers like pangzi who he really shouldn't be trusting even at arm's length at that point. things like how wu xie doesn't succumb to baser human instincts and desires out of self-interest or fear when countless others would have, even when prompted. and all of this culminates in wu xie extending concern towards xiaoge again even at a time when he's actively trying to escape certain death and other people are telling him not to gaf about xiaoge because xiaoge can handle himself

so yeah

consider the idea that xiaoge comes away from that experience with an idea of wu xie like a mechanism that defied his expectations by not working as it should. and the human part of him that's just as irrational and self-driven as everyone else starts to latch onto that idea, and onto the feeling of recognition wu xie gave him as a person that xiaoge is so seldom on the receiving end of that it's incomprehensible coming from someone with no apparent extraordinary qualities. so when he gets the opportunity to cross paths with wu xie again, he suddenly needs to know. for science. just for science. because someone as mundane as wu xie who sees humanity in even the most inhuman of people cannot exist, has never existed, and never will. but he wants to be sure of it

we never really get an explanation as to why xiaoge goes to the paracel islands. maybe it was because wu sanxing hinted something at him deliberately about having some sort of connection to his past, hoping that wu xie meeting xiaoge again would temporarily support the idea of him as a believable antagonist, or as a covert way of making wu xie aware of who zhang qiling was before that name became relevant. maybe it was because the tianshou was leading xiaoge there to put him on track towards the heavenly palace and the ultimate. maybe it was chen pi ah si who sent him there on his behalf to gain intel about the heavenly palace because reaching it successfully was his goal. maybe it was a little bit of all of that

but none of those things explain bald zhang™️

you can't even argue that it was about hiding his identity because even without the majority of his memories he catches onto It™️/the wangs and later qiu de kao's surveillance/presence, yet he never disguises himself to evade it. bald zhang™️ is the only time in literally all of canon that he pretends to be someone else or deliberately hides his identity (unless you include yinsi but that's a special case)

so consider xiaoge knowing that wu xie will be on that ship heading for wang zanghai's tomb. consider xiaoge still curious enough that he wants to know what the fck wu xie's deal is. for science. and so when the opportunity to get himself hired by a ning's team comes, he decides to take it not as himself, but as bald zhang™️

(if a ning hired him on chen pi ah si's recommendation this is like ten times funnier can you imagine xiaoge pitching it to him "i'm going undercover" "why" *stares* "...you know what i don't care just fcking go")

and that's how aside from whatever reason he's there for, he uses the opportunity to observe. to test wu xie. to figure out if the concern he extended to xiaoge was only situational, opportunistic, or if he's genuinely just Like That. and as bald zhang™️ he really tests wu xie. he's Annoying. he's over-enthusiastic and Intense about it in a walking all over personal space kind of way. he's doing all this looking as physically unflattering as he can. he's deliberately pushing all of wu xie's buttons to ellicit disgust, all to see what he does about it. to see if wu xie will surprise him again and look past his instinctive reactions

(i need you to understand the amount of hoops this man is jumping through and it's even more insane because it's zhang qiling doing it, when has zhang qiling ever done anything this unnecessary and convoluted, this is goofy behavior by his standards i expect this from zhang haiyan not him)

so when bald zhang™️ goes off to pout on his bed, maybe it's half xiaoge using it as an excuse to actually step away from social interactions he doesn't have genuine interest in, and half disappointment in seeing that wu xie hasn't done anything more than politely push him away like anyone else would have. maybe xiaoge was already halfway to deciding that whatever happened in the seven star lu palace was a fluke and that wu xie wasn't anything special after all

until he starts doing it again

risking his life in the most reckless way possible to save a ning? insane behavior. xiaoge has to go see it for himself. so he gets onto the abandoned ship behind wu xie to watch what happens. and maybe also to keep him from dying because he keeps heading into danger without knowing how much danger he's putting himself in. by the time a ning predictably betrays them and leaves wu xie and pangzi behind to do whatever in wang zanghai's tomb, xiaoge's seemingly drawn his own conclusions from the bald zhang™️ experiment and decides to take off his disguise that's outlived its purpose. maybe revealing himself to keep observing differently is also a part of the experiment that he's deliberately not thinking about too much

(bald zhang is honestly so interesting to me if only because it stands out as xiaoge's one (1) known instance of playing this kind of 4d chess when scheming isn't really how he does things. at all. not because he's not capable of it, but because he has other more efficient ways of reaching whatever goal he has in mind. and because his goal isn't usually another person, even less so a person he has a personal vested interest in)

so xiaoge observes again. and despite wu xie getting piece after piece of life-altering information about wu sanxing thrown at him left and right, when xiaoge suddenly recovers some of his memories and in a moment of vulnerability decides to share them, wu xie listens. even when xiaoge is apparently corroborating the idea that his uncle is the villain every clue he's comes across is painting him as, and despite wu sanxing previously painting xiaoge as a villain, wu xie still listens. he keeps treating xiaoge as a person

consider the idea that that moment as early as wang zanghai's tomb in book 1 is It for xiaoge. he's doomed from there. and by doomed i mean the painfully human core of him is on track to having one (1) purely selfish desire, and that desire is connecting with wu xie and nuturing that connection like his very own treasure against rhyme or reason. there's no backing out of it no matter how hard he tries. and he really does try so hard

he tries so hard he becomes the most flawed he's ever been fighting a losing battle against himself

it's why when xiaoge sees wu xie show up in the train going to changbai mountain he looks visibly annoyed. wu xie's going ??? what did i do why is he mad, while xiaoge's torn between being happy to see him and being very unhappy to see him a) on another dangerous expedition and b) on a dangerous expedition led by chen pi ah si of all people. but to wu xie from an outside perspective it just seems like he's being particularly standoffish

it's why xiaoge can come out with wild seemingly out-of-the-blue statements like "no you're all definitely being influenced by the energy in this room i would know because wu xie's acting out of character he's not usually this angry" that leave wu xie going "??? he's been paying attention to me? does that mean we're friends? for real??", and then effectively dip and disappear for the whole rest of the heavenly palace story because he's already pushing wu xie away and trying to create distance to protect him, to keep him away from the things he's progressively remembering even on an instinctive level

and yet it's like he can't help himself. he should be cutting ties and leaving no trace of himself behind both for wu xie's own good and as the most logical course of action considering wu xie at this point is more of a hindrance than a help. if xiaoge had wanted to make sure wu xie would never find or see him ever again he could have. easily. and yet he agrees to collude with wu sanxing if only to leave wu xie a message (which is interesting because xiaoge colluding with wu sanxing for wu xie's sake is another one of the juicy restart parallels). it's a message he knows is telling wu xie where to find him despite telling him not to come. it's a message that's connecting wu xie back to him, because that flawed and selfish and human part of himself wants that connection to not be severed now that it's been re-established. and no matter how much he keeps fighting it in the end, xiaoge always always surrenders to it because he can't help himself

it's why in golmud it's xiaoge who makes the car stop to let wu xie join the expedition. here again he could have done nothing and left wu xie behind where he wouldn't have been in danger. but again against his better judgment, xiaoge makes the selfish choice of wanting to keep wu xie close at hand instead. it's behavior so uncharacteristic that hei xiazi takes note of it and basically tells him "you know what do what you want but i'm not babysitting this is your problem". it's why despite being the one to let him come along, xiaoge spends the whole time they're en route to tamutuo actively ghosting wu xie who's getting angrier and angrier about all the mixed signals he keeps getting

it might even be why xiaoge very uncharacteristically ends up lashing out at wu xie during their fireside talk in a way so emotionally raw he's literally never given a repeat performance. ever

to be fair there's a lot going on for him at this point. he still has no idea who he is, is probably by that point under the influence of the tianshou to some extent, and the little he does remember is ominous at best. and usually this wouldn't be a problem for him to deal with, because he's presumably dealt with the same situation many times before. what he hasn't dealt with before is All of That while having to try and silence the irrational and uncontrollable beast inside him that wants wu xie for himself in the most selfish way possible. so when wu xie confronts him and accuses him of not answering his questions, of ignoring him, xiaoge first tries to create distance between them, tells wu xie he's overstepping in thinking he has a right to pry into his life. he tells him that sometimes people keep others in the dark to protect them

which is also a theme that gets paralleled in their relationship later on because while yes, part of that statement is about wu xie's family and wu sanxing specifically not telling him things to protect him (even if it's more about not knowing too much too soon before he's equipped to handle it), some of it is also xiaoge speaking for himself and admitting as much as he ever does that keeping wu xie in the dark/pushing him away is his way of trying to protect him even if wu xie's hurt by it. that idea comes back in sea of lights when it's wu xie who has the opportunity to keep xiaoge in the dark to protect him, but wu xie makes the choice to not go through with it not only because he remembers how much it hurt him, but also because he ultimately values xiaoge's autonomy over his own comfort

but in book 4 wu xie's response is to lash out at xiaoge in frustration, while xiaoge's is to do the same thing back at him so unexpectedly that wu xie's cowed by it. it's a very rare moment of emotional vulnerability for xiaoge where he comes out with his "i feel like a ghost drifting through the world without a past or a future as if if i disappeared one day it wouldn't matter because no one would notice" speech. and i'm not saying it doesn't speak to his genuine emotions, it's that under normal circumstances he has no issues pushing past and effectively ignoring them

but how much of the choice to voice them in that moment came from the human and flawed part of him that so rarely comes alive and was brought to the forefront by wu xie, forcing him to confront those vulnerabilities? and how much of the choice to voice them was motivated, even unconsciously, by wanting to know what wu xie would do with them? he gets his answer when wu xie assures him he would realize it if he disappeared

and the worst part of all this is that the tianshou's memory wipe erases none of this push-and-pull problem even when it effectively sends his and wu xie's relationship progress back to square one. because wu xie (and pangzi, i'm not forgetting about pangzi, i'm just focusing on those two but he to be honest deserves a medal for having a front row seat to this circus for decades) puts his entire life on hold for xiaoge. he goes above and beyond for xiaoge again and again. and that's how you wind up with xiaoge—still amnesiac enough that all the reasons he'd been trying to push wu xie away for haven't resurfaced yet—growing incredibly attached to wu xie incredibly fast

xiaoge would fall in love with wu xie in any universe core they devastate me daily

and yet ironically, it's also why xiaoge eventually ends up coming to the same conclusion he did before the tianshou's memory wipe the more time passes and the more he starts to remember. panma telling them they'll lead each other to their deaths if they stay together is in a way the ghost of books 1-5 xiaoge coming back to haunt him, and remind him that he needs to push wu xie away to keep him safe. that he shouldn't be selfish and try to keep wu xie for himself, because if he were to try, every moment of their search for his past in banai is proving to him that he would only lead wu xie down a road of suffering and death in the long run. it's why xiaoge, bleeding out in the miluotuo cave, lets it slip that "thankfully he didn't kill him". it's why even after he rebuffs huo xiangu and tells wu xie to take him home, the more they uncover from that point on, the more distance xiaoge puts between them, to the point wu xie notices and is upset that xiaoge is visibly pulling away again and acting cold and unapproachable like he did before he lost his memory

all of this push-and-pull culminates in book 8 when xiaoge surrenders again, but this time it's to one of his greatest acts of selfishness in coming to hangzhou to tell wu xie goodbye

nothing was stopping him from going to changbai mountain alone and slipping behind the bronze door, especially since he'd recovered enough of his memories by then that he knew exactly why keeping wu xie away from All of It was the best course of action and a mercy

but if he had, he would have disappeared without anyone noticing

and so he comes back to see wu xie one whole year after they last parted, long enough that wu xie could have and had started to move on, and all but confesses to him. because after an internal conflict of those proportions it's hard to see "you're my one connection to this world" as anything but xiaoge openly admitting that he cares about and wants a reciprocated connection with wu xie beyond his own comprehension and reason

then there's their entire climb up changbai mountain that's even greater proof that xiaoge is ultimately helpless to fight against his own selfishness when it comes to wu xie. he keeps pushing wu xie away even then, but it's a half-hearted effort by that point. he could have successfully ditched wu xie at any time, and yet when he finds that wu xie once again chose to grab hold of and follow the lead he threw to him by telling him where he was going, xiaoge's practically already admitted defeat. he lets wu xie follow him up the mountain

by the time they reach the hot springs and he's seen and heard enough of wu xie's conviction and determination that he knows he can't be deterred, xiaoge finally decides to give in

he's tired of fighting against what's probably the one thing he's ever genuinely wanted for himself in his entire life. so he leaves wu xie with just enough of an explanation, and more importantly with a promise that they'll reunite one day should he want it. but to xiaoge, it's as much of a gamble as is it a promise. he just doesn't realize at that moment that he'd already won that gamble all the way back in tamutuo

wu xie waiting for xiaoge outside the meteorite vs wu xie waiting for xiaoge to come back from the gate narrative parallels my beloved

xiaoge wants wu xie to come find him in ten year's time. he paves the way for wu xie as he goes down to the bronze door in the hopes he'll remember him and reciprocate the connection xiaoge no longer has the will to break free from. he paved the way for wu xie even before going to see him in hangzhou by leaving pangzi with instructions in case wu xie decides to keep chasing after him in his absence. he hopes for wu xie's sake that he doesn't, even if he probably remembers enough by that point to have realized that wu xie will have to get involved in the deeper conspiracies sooner or later. but he hopes for his own sake that wu xie never stops trying to reach him

for once, zhang qiling places his hopes in someone instead of the other way around. maybe he wouldn't have held on to his memories while behind the gate as hard as he did if he hadn't had that faith in wu xie to cling to

and if you think this insanity stops once xiaoge comes back out of the gate ten years later think again

because the entirety of restart exists. and in the background of wu xie's identity crisis and spiraling mental breakdown ten years in the making is xiaoge refusing that wu xie die. he refuses it so hard he colludes with wu sanxing again (restart narrative parallels my beloved) because he's willing to try anything to save him. he refuses it so hard he practically bleeds himself dry to keep wu xie alive. he refuses it so hard that when wu xie starts insisting that xiaoge listen to his last words xiaoge would rather knock him out than have the possibility of him dying acknowledged. wu xie interprets it as xiaoge having heard so many people's final words that they've lost all meaning to him, but considering wu xie, even after everything, still doesn't dare to measure his own worth in xiaoge's eyes, is that really all it was? or was it that the flawed and human part of xiaoge that he stopped trying to silence when it comes to wu xie couldn't bear to face the reality of their inevitable parting?

maybe one way to get something of an answer is a recent extra that's about wu xie meeting a zhang woman who's distanced herself from the zhang family, just to ask her what a zhang does and feels once they've managed to find the same kind of mundane peace that xiaoge has presumably reached. it's as close to a proxy conversation between wu xie and xiaoge as we're probably ever getting on the topic because wu xie wouldn't be brave enough to ask xiaoge these things. the conclusion he gets from her is that her last husband died "during the days when he loved her the most", and when faced with the choice of detaching herself from his death and moving on as she'd always done, she refused to make it. instead, just like xiaoge once did, she let the human and vulnerable part of her win. she chose to let it hurt. to grieve. and in regret give meaning to what she'd lost

wu xie walks away from the encounter with complicated feelings, and in passing hears a song playing on the radio that goes like this:

注定你是我命中的过客，却要我这一生一世受折磨，你可听见了我心疯狂碎疯狂过。 though you were destined to be a passerby in my life, you condemned me to torment for all my days. could you hear my heart, that has already known the taste of madness, as it shattered? translation is mine so any awkwardness is me fighting for my life constructive criticism is my friend

when asked if he had any short stories like this one planned but from xiaoge's pov, npss answered:

"there are the lyrics"

wu xie is, in the most painfully human way possible, xiaoge's greatest weakness. people always talk about how Not Normal wu xie is about xiaoge and how nothing and no one can make wu xie lose control the way xiaoge does, and it's very true. there's thousands of words from wu xie's pov that are all about how Not Normal he is about xiaoge and how he's powerless to stop himself from losing it where xiaoge is concerned even after all these years. but even if it feels less obvious because we so rarely get access to xiaoge's direct pov on anything, xiaoge is undoubtedly also at his most human, selfish and flawed when it comes to wu xie

in conclusion pingxie are unhinged levels of Intense about each other and made it everyone else's and each other's problem really

#dmbj

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scattered meanings