@i-fucking-love-myself wanted to hear more so let’s get into it!
tw for a long discussion of children in just the worst situations
(i’m reading the exiledrebelsscanlations translation, so this reading is based on that and not the original text. if anybody has read the original text and wants to weigh in, go for it!)
i was already aware that xue yang and a-qing double each other somewhat but reading mdzs so far (and bearing in mind that i haven’t finished the yi city arc at some point), i think the parallels are really striking
so first off, there’s the obvious similarities: xue yang and a-qing are both street kids, they both make their living in crime, etc. note also that xue yang becomes infamous at 15, and a-qing is noted to be 15 at most but “already quite adept at cursing, and even more adept at snatching people’s money” which is an interesting parallel. so they’re both strikingly young but Not innocent
what’s really interesting to me is that both xue yang and a-qing’s relationship with xiao xingchen is rooted in them deceiving him. xue yang is ofc concealing his identity, and a-qing is only pretending to be blind
untamed!a-qing lying to xiao xingchen never really sticks with me (perhaps bc chen zhuoxuan’s performance is just so delightful lmao) and her latching onto xiao xingchen feels quite sweet? whereas the novel seems to emphasize more her taking advantage of xiao xingchen’s openness. which i like! a-qing’s a street kid! if she’s made it this long, ofc it’s because she’s learned to take people for all they’ve got, just like xue yang did
and here’s xiao xingchen, who looks like something akin to security, which is something that neither of them have ever really known
“holy shit, this man will give me money and a roof over my head and will actually give a shit about me, and all i have to do to keep him is lie a bit”
i think all this also twists the knife a bit further re xue yang’s backstory (again bearing in mind that i haven’t finished the arc in the book, so idk how mxtx herself handles that revelation).
in CQL, xiao xingchen completely misses the actual point of xue yang’s story - that baby xue yang got eaten alive by the class system, and adult xue yang is all that’s left, ie, what xue yang was really trying to get vengeance on was a systemic issue, not just one clan. but ofc the evidence that this is a systemic issue that needs changing is right there with a-qing, the little girl who robbed xiao xingchen and then immediately attached herself to him like a limpet. the little girl who gets groped by a stranger and just walks it off (while wei wuxian, experiencing it through her, has a visceral reaction to it). but xiao xingchen can’t know that because she, too, was lying to him. because - just like xue yang and all that murder - deception the only way that she knows how to survive
tl;dr: a-qing and xue yang are both the products of a system that completely disregards destitute kids. they both survive in any way they can, which means crime and lying to xiao xingchen in order to get some semblance of love and security. and it fucks.
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