sometimes i think about how zhancheng’s relationship is (almost) double the lenght of wangxian.
wangxian is like... they met in CR and lwj fell in love & wwx became kinda obsessed/found a friend (time: about maybe 6 months)
and then only had occasional meetings over the next years before the war fully breaks out when they are maybe 17. upon which they alienate each other through continued miscommunication and omissions. after the war lwj spends a year at CR and wwx at LP until wwx frees the wens and spends another year, with one (1) a visit from lwj, at the burial mounds until he dies at maybe 22. when he and lwj knew each other for less than four years (i’m excluding the time they spend apart)
13 years after that he spends months with lwj, getting to know him, falling in love, etc. until they get married at the end of the story.
meanwhile zhancheng is like... they also met in CR but didn’t have much of an impact on each others’ lifes other that lwj was the guy wwx was obsessed about. but then they spend those three months with eachother. jc who just lost his sect, wwx and won’t let himself fall apart. and lwj who is looking for the guy he loves while they’re in a war and his home was burned and his father is dead. and they do this together.
then during the war i think they kinda drift apart bc wwx was found and wwx was what pulled them together in the first place and now he is pushing lwj away.
then jyl is dead. wwx dies. lwj vanishes with wwx. and wwx is dead. jc is alone and rebuilding a sect and partly raising a baby and hates. lwj meanwhile mourns his love and heals and raises lsz and hates.
three years after that they meet again and at maybe 25 is when their story really starts.
they hate each other. lwj is the one who protected wwx when jc couldn’t - because of his feelings, because of his sect, because of jyl. jc is the one who didn’t protect wwx - was the one rumored to have killed him.
they push each other. tear each other apart. ruin each other and there is no other person who knows either of them as good as each other. not jl who understands jc’s brashness and cruel words, and soft hands when he had a nightmare or feels inferior to his parent’s legacy but has things that are out of grasp for a child. not lxc who almost knows lwj as good as he knows himself but doesn’t understand him sometimes. not nhs who grew up with both of them but pulls always further into himself after his brother’s death and while there, his presence is always superficially and never meaningful. not the few civilian elders who survived the burning and knew jc as a child. not lsz who adores his father.
and even if their relationship stays one of hate forever i fell like spending ten (thirteen) years hating someone brings a whole new kind of intimacy and depth.