"you know, this pair of hands used to bend bows and tame horses but now they can only hide in the dark and plot and scheme"
made me think way too much about what a bright future lin shu had, how he never wanted this
he was supposed to live in the field and command an army and help his jingyu-gege rule the country and defend its borders. he was supposed to marry his childhood friend and have kids and show them off to his parents and play around with jingyan
and then it all got taken away from him at age 19, without anyone even expecting it, the whole empire thinks he's dead and, worse, a traitor, his parents are dead, the man he looked up to and was supposed to become emperor and would've changed the country for the better, is dead, his fiancee is still in mourning, his best friend is ostracized and while he's alive, he can't do any of those things anymore
can't hold a bow, can't ride a horse, can barely lift a sword, gets sick at the slightest gust of the wind. the only thing he can do is become one of the people who destroyed his world and plot and scheme and push his best friend down a path of no return, that he wasn't supposed to be on in the first place, that will leave him lonely forever. he can only make people think the worst of him and betray them and kill or ruin people through underhanded tactics until all that's left is ashes in his hands and a place he can't come back from
