The Mei Changsu vs Li Lianhua Essay That A Bunch Of People Actually Did Ask For So I Had To Go And Write It Unfortunately
i made a brief post about this the other day and people in the notes demanded the full essay so i was obliged to elaborate. the main thesis here is that while the two of them share a lot of quirks/tropes and plot setup, they are, in many ways, opposites of each other in a really fascinating way
MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR BOTH NIRVANA IN FIRE AND MYSTERIOUS LOTUS CASEBOOK FOLLOW
general disclaimers before i start: i will be talking exclusively about their characterizations from the tv shows here. i tried not to wander off into more theoretical speculation, however meta examination always has an element of subjectiveness. you may not agree with something i say, and that's fine, just don't be an asshole about it thanks
okay, jumping in. meet our two completely stable and honest protagonists, looking fabulous in their matching fur coats
the lads:
both of them were prodigal genius kids who led an armed force in their teens. both of them, at around the age of 19-20, were involved in a fight that they were believed to have died during. both of them ended the fight by falling off something (many such cases for bi men in cdramas). both of them managed to survive but had a deadly poison inflicted on them that drastically shortened their lifespans and the treatment for which altered their appearance so no one recognizes them. both of them lost their martial arts/martial abilities and are sickly, prone to coughing fits, very sensitive to the cold, and, quite literally, dying. both of them show up again roughly a decade+ later and get embroiled in the same events that led to their "deaths". both of them were betrayed
they both also: wear fabulous fur coats, rub their fingers together while thinking, have various degrees of poison immunity due to already being poisoned, high key hate themselves, lie constantly, and, most hilariously, have a nut allergy. there are a comical number of surface-level similarities
but, despite the similar framework, the characters go in very different directions. read on below.
Part 1: Self-Loathing As a Competitive Sport
Back in his formative years, Mei Changsu was Lin Shu, the emperor's nephew and a brilliant young military commander. Pretty much everyone loved him (except xiao jinghuan lol). When his army was framed for rebellion and massacred, it was not in any way his fault. He got fucked over by the political greed of others. There was no hubris involved there; it just sucked.
MCS is still brilliant, but he is frail and sickly and can't do much of anything without help or he'll end up in bed coughing up blood for a week. And he hates that. MCS hates his current sickly self so much. But. He still thinks his past self, Lin Shu, was the greatest guy ever. And despite his self-loathing of his MCS identity, he still somehow manages to retain all his ego and is still an arrogant little shit. So you end up with a guy who high key hates himself while simultaneously high key thinking he is better than everyone else. He's an identity train-wreck. He styles himself at being unreadable and mysterious but spends half his free time staring sadly into the distance because he experienced one (1) emotion and the other half sulking like a teenager in the funniest ways possible.
One of the ways MCS takes out his self-loathing is by styling himself as the most contemptible, scrupleless schemer who will do anything to make his plans succeed. He spends a lot of time trying to convince Jingyan that he is just The Worst, and such an awful bad man. (In reality the amount of truly bad things he does is pretty low (sorry jingrui), especially when compared to the amount of time he spends talking about how bad he is lol). This whole situation backfires on him in the most predictable way possible when Jingyan reacts to him as the person he's made himself out to be and MCS is just standing there with surprised pikachu face over it and then has to go sulk in the snow for like 3 hours to fix it. Basically, only MCS is allowed to hate MCS because anyone else doing it is indirectly attacking Lin Shu and that's illegal.
Now let's hop over to Li Lianhua. Back in his formative years, LLH was Li Xiangyi, a young martial arts prodigy who started his own sect because he looked at the jianghu and was like you know what this needs? Cops. So he made a cop sect. Li Xiangyi was an arrogant little brat who meant well at one point but got too caught up in his own persona and mission and ended up making a lot of people hate him (rightfully so in most cases). Part of the reason he ended up "dying" was due to his own ego and bad decisions. Unlike Lin Shu, he helped bring about his own downfall.
After almost dying and having to deal with losing his martial arts and only having ten years left to live and finding out so many people hated him and getting dumped by text, LLH is pretty fucking done with Li Xiangyi. By the time the series starts he hated LXY with a passion. If MCS heard someone shit talking Lin Shu he would have a temper tantrum. When LLH hears people shit talk LXY he is nodding in agreement like you are so right bestie, fuck that guy in particular he was so cringefail.
While the life he lives as LLH is very different from LXY, he doesn't separate his past and present self in quite the way MCS does, at least in part because he feels the need to carry all the guilt of LXY on his shoulders every second of every day. (I'll go into his life as LLH in the next part). While he is still kind of a little shit and actually trying to find value and enjoyment in what life he has left (sort of), the shadow of LXY is always there behind him.
(As an aside, I'll say that to me LLH felt more mature than MCS in many ways, despite the goofy antics. The self reflection bit is key to this. LXY was a flawed character who had to grow emotionally. Lin Shu was not. It wasn't the point of his story. This is not a criticism in any way as bratty MCS is near and dear to my heart).
So we've got MCS, the man who hates his present self for his physical limitations and worships his past self, and LLH, the man who hates his past self for all the damage he caused and has an uneasy truce with his present self.
Part 2: Life After Flunking Gym Class
When MCS wakes up after his "death", he dedicates every remaining second of his life and health to seeking justice for his army and friends who were betrayed (well, first he rejects being a yeti.....just...don't ask). He builds the most powerful sect in the jianghu and plots and schemes to enact a glorious plan to set everything right. He tells himself that nothing matters anymore except justice and he is only the vessel for enacting that. He tries really hard to act like nothing else matters to him anymore, which fails miserably. He spends a lot of time gazing sadly into the distance in the manner of a golden retriever staring mournfully through the window at its frisbie in the yard. But, for the most part, he does in fact put all his time and energy into achieving his goal to the exclusion of all else.
LLH learns to cook. Terribly. Well, let's back up. In one of my favorite parts of the show, LLH recounts learning how to grow his own food and cook after his "death" and how he began to see value in the simpler things in life, like dog ownership and overspicing food. He does have a goal (finding Shan Gudao's body), but he also makes a life for himself outside of that. He's a traveling doctor (of sorts), he's got his own house, and dog, and kind of has a life. It's not much, but it's his and he built it all himself despite not being very good at any of it. That's actually a pretty key point. LLH, who once was a prodigy child, spends his time doing things he's not naturally good at and has to work his ass off at and sometimes failing. And he's happier for it. Like yes, he is massively depressed about everything that happened, but he still has simple joys in his new life that he never had in his old life.
While MCS spent his remaining time pushing himself harder and faster to achieve his goal and never really changed his view on the world, LLH took the slow road and reevaluated his life and the world.
Part 3: One Of Them Only Tells Lies, And The Other One...No Wait He Only Tells Lies Too
This one they are a little more similar on. I think the really big difference is that MCS tends to lie to himself (poorly) as well as others, whereas LLH has a surprisingly honest view of himself and just lies like a dog to every person he meets. His crashout after "death" let him do a lot of self-reflection.
The person MCS lies to the most/longest is Jingyan. There's arguments to be made on both sides about whether he let that go on too long, and while he says it's only for Jingyan's own protection, there are indications that it's also because he doesn't want Jingyan to see what Lin Shu has turned into (and on top of that, he also has several sulking fits when Jingyan treats him as MCS and not LS despite the fact he's gaslighting the hell out of him lolol. MCS is really the guy of all time)
The thing they overlap pretty firmly on is lying about their health, and I'm not going to write another essay about why that's completely reasonable to me but I do think it is. To an extent anyway. But I digress.
The other difference is that LLH's former identity is, frankly, none of FDB's business, whereas Jingyan knew MCS before and has been grieving him for years. (It's an interesting distinction and overall played out better in nif imo).
Part 4: Coughing Up Blood Is Kinda Sexy ngl
Ignoring my title, obviously both of them are chronically, terminally ill and there's a lot that could be said about the writing for that (good things for the most part), but again, that's a different essay.
I did want to take a moment to give MCS props for coughing up blood whenever he experiences An Emotion. He is doing great.
LLH's illness does trigger at certain intervals (usually when convenient for the plot) but primarily gets set off when he uses his qi/martial arts and is tied into his suicidal tendencies and protectivness of others at his own expense...which in turn is tied into his guilt complex. He is also doing great. These guys are so stable.
MCS's illness is more pervasive and consistent in the story. His every action is affected by it. He is definitely killing himself faster by pursuing justice and getting himself fun double poisoned, but it lacks the altruistic feel that LLH's situation has. MCS is in an intense battle with himself and his failing health.
Part 5: Local Man Avoids Uncomfortable Social Situations By Just Fucking Dying
For the sake of this essay, I'm mostly going to assume LLH ended up dead. I did like the ending ambiguity and felt it was the best fit for his character, but I went away from the show being like yeah he probably died.
MCS was 100% going to die (post yeti-gate anyway). Always. Nothing could change that. At best, his life could have been prolonged for a little bit if he was a good patient and did everything Lin Chen said. But really what he had to look forward to was getting worse and worse over several months and losing what autonomy he had left and going out with a whimper. He saw an opportunity to go out with a bang and reclaim Lin Shu for a few glorious months, and he took it. It was a deeply personal decision and one that felt cathartic to me rather than tragic.
LLH had a potential cure, and, even before he gave it away, he clearly did not want it. I've seen a couple different theories about why he gave it to the emperor, but the one that makes sense to me is he did it primarily to save the Fang family and because he really did not want to live. It's complicated because he did actually find value in his life after his first "death" but the story points to him still wanting to die and in fact doing exactly what MCS had originally planned: running off to die alone away from anyone it might upset.
His story is ultimately more tragic in these terms. He found joy and satisfaction in things like growing vegetables and learning to cook and talked about not having enjoyed the small things enough when he was younger, but in the end, he gives up those simple pleasures as well. The other way to view it though is that he had righted the wrongs from his past and passed on his legacy. If you see him as a ghost who lingered to take care of unfinished business, then perhaps it's not tragic after all. The tone of his death is a matter of your perspective and much less cut and dry than MCS's situation.
Identity also plays into their endings in exactly the opposite ways. Part of LLH's ending is letting go of LXY. MCS's ending is reclaiming Lin Shu. They each get closure with their past vs present self in their own way.
Bonus:
The judges have declared that LLH wins the Superior Poison Award as the bicha poison cured his nut allergy. MCS got ripped off
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