I NEVER REALLY UNDERSTOOD LUO BINGHE UNTIL NOW
Holy shit I was so swayed by SQQ’s POV that I honestly never truly understood LBH’s intentions until I read this line In Ch 2 (SVSSS Seven Seas)/Ch 13 at the demonic evasion arc:
When a person is affected with Without a Cure, starting from their wound, their spiritual flow becomes disconnected. This schism slowly spreads to their entire body. In the end, not only does their spiritual qi coagulate and stagnate, so does their blood."
So then when in Ch 6 (SVSSS SS)/Ch 34, LBH fed SQQ his blood and subsequently used his blood to seemingly "torment" SQQ during the water prison arc, all of this got me thinking....
What if everything LBH did with his demonic blood this entire time was to save SQQ from Without a Cure?
Like yes, he probably did have other intentions such as tracking him, making SQQ horrified at the fact that he has demon blood inside him when he hated demons so much but I honestly think the main reason LBH forced SQQ to drink his blood, and I would even go further as to say that his main motivation when he trained under Meng Mo, was not to become the “strongest” in the general sense but to heal SQQ. Hear me out. The first thought white lotus LBH has when SQQ got poisoned in Ch2/13 was
the demons had harmed his teacher to the point that he might be crippled—he might even lose his life. And all because of him.
LBH probably was a direct witness to how a whole team of Cang Qiong mountain peak lords needed to revolve around SQQ, with Mu Qingfang constantly providing prescriptions and LQG clearing his meridians and probably YQY hovering around SQQ dying with worries, to maintain his health post the SHL -demon evasion, he must have felt absolutely terrible about it! And that guilt literally haunted our bing-pup like he never once stopped thinking about it; no wonder he offered himself to take care of everything including the nutrition of SQQ's food, snaccs, water, small-big errands, and even wanted to pick that "Snow something Lotus" flower for Shizun! Without a Cure affecting SQQ was on LBH's mind ever since he was 15 and for all 3 years he was in the Endless Abyss.
This is absolutely evident when black lotus LBH returned and started to chase SQQ, SQQ's inner monologue was cursing how Without a Cure is stagnating his ability to coordinate and run, I am certain that LBH was not blind to just how much SQQ was struggling with that poison in his body. My theory was further confirmed when LBH finally caught up to SQQ:
“While Shen Qingqiu was still in the midst of confusion, Luo Binghe flipped his hand over. “You were infected?” .....“This hand of Shizun’s is plagued with misfortunes.”
Bruh, LBH may be giving the sadistic energy of an abandoned demonic child (thanks SQQ unreliable narrator) but here is clear evidence that the thing he was most worried about is SQQ's blood coagulating and him dying of demonic poison. What this tells me is that Without a Cure seemed to be activated and/or further exacerbated by other demonic poisons. LBH was also clearly still carrying the guilt of SQQ saving him with that hand! Following on immediately, what he did was 1) punch SQQ, then 2) says "An eye for an eye. Since Shizun sowed the seeds, he should reap the bitter fruit himself. Shizun should personally make up for himself" and 3) straight up fed SQQ his demonic blood.
White Lotus LBH never died. Both actions are for the benefit of SQQ, 1) I think he did this to get SQQ to cough up coagulated blood after SQQ was poisoned by that Jin Lan City sower and 3) LBH's quick return from Endless Abyss was so that he can feed Shizun his heavenly-blood to help cure him. I have reason to believe that LBH's demonic blood is the CURE to WITHOUT A CURE. Why else pay such specific attention to SQQ's hand out of literally any other body-part after a 3 year reunion?
But what I find most fascinating is 2) LBH’s words are nearly always laced with double meaning. “An eye for an eye” here isn’t necessarily just him blaming SQQ for kicking him and unlocking his demonic heritage but he wants to repay SQQ for taking on Without a Cure back then by giving him his demonic blood as a cure now. Another interpretation is that LBH deflected feeling the guilt of indirectly harming SQQ by verbally jabbing him. He tried to make SQQ feel guilty about tossing him into the Endless Abyss when he himself couldn't bare to think that his Shizun got hurt again on the same hand that saved him all those years ago. SQQ of course is an unreliable narrator and tricks us into thinking that LBH's actions matched his words when if we look closer, they're LITERALLY THE EXACT OPPOSITE.
Right after the reunion, SQQ "didn’t know how he made it back to the Jin Zi Weapons Shop," which has me believing that LBH must have been doing something to surpress SQQ's Without a Cure's effects with his demonic blood.
During the Water Prison arc, LBH seems like he is tormenting SQQ by demonic blood manipulation but if we really read carefully:
…strange sensation of something crawling inside his blood vessels....Luo Binghe said leisurely, “Spleen, kidneys, heart, lungs.” Though it wasn’t to the point of extraordinary anguish, it was still awful to suffer through.
Doesn't this sound like LBH trying to get the blood in SQQ flowing again to prevent coagulation after SQQ had been in presumably a seated position for a long time jailed in the Water prison? Once again, LBH's intentions behind his actions are the opposite of his words, he may be emotionally hurt by SQQ's silent response to him asking whether Shizun regrets kicking him down the Endless Abyss but his first and foremost concern is SQQ's health. This totally explains LBH's extremely low anger points! SQQ seemingly mistook LBH’s worry as anger! If SQQ asked the System for LBH's worrywart points, it would have been like ~the limit does not exist~. 🤯🤯🤯
Bruh, it’s so telling when Gongyi Xiao went to untie SQQ's immortal binding cables two days later when SQQ noted:
His spiritual energy was unmistakably back in operation and flowing smoothly. When he’d been imprisoned, he had been in the middle of a random Without a Cure flare-up, but after two days of being tied up by the immortal-binding cables, the poison had unexpectedly been suppressed again. Was this following the same principle as fighting fire with fire, or how two negatives make a positive?
No SQQ you oblivious gay, LBH was circulating your coagulating blood for you and suppressing the effects of your poison! We as readers can get so misled by SQQ constantly worrying about how Without a Cure randomly stops his spiritual powers that we forget about the actual main issue, blood stagnation and coagulation, which can absolutely kill him. Also, when SQQ escaped the Water Prison, LBH didn't try to manipulate the blood in SQQ's body because now he didn't need to, he’s done it already. He never wanted to do more than what was necessary for Shizun’s health. LBH tried to convince SQQ to come back when he could have used his powers. SQQ always had agency because LBH loves and respects him too much.
The next time SQQ got poisoned was by that sower who hid amongst the Huang Hua Palace disciples in Hua Yue city right before his self-detonation. He couldn't attack the sower with fire but then complained that it must have been Without a Cure that flared up again. Somehow, silly SQQ kept randomly getting himself poisoned so doesn’t it make sense that LBH keeps track of his Shizun so that his own demonic blood could notify him of any potential future SQQ demonic poisonings?
Bruh, the worrywart White-Lotus LBH never fucking died, SQQ ah SQQ you silly silly man. LBH has always been, even if he says hateful words, worried about you and your health and made it his top priority. What made LBH lose his mind though were
everytime LBH tries to save SQQ, SQQ thinks that he is using his demonic blood/demonic poison to do all these unfathomable things when using demonic poison is literally the last thing LBH would do because he has literal guilt trauma around it.
SQQ keeps calling LQG, GYX and literally anyone else to save him when LBH has been the one doing all the work.
Then we arrive at Xing Mo’s recoil exacerbating LBH’s insecurities.
“Shizun, look at what I’ve become. Am I strong enough? Do you know how I spent those years within the Endless Abyss? For three years underground, at all times and all moments, my mind thought only of Shizun. I wondered why Shizun would do this to me, why he refused to give me even a single chance to explain or plead my case.”
He did so much for Shizun’s health but never got a chance to explain why! And then when SQQ self-detonated, LBH thought:
Didn’t Shizun hate his blood more than anything? Wasn’t he unwilling to even be near him, to associate with him at all?
So why, at the last moment, had he so gently helped to contain Luo Binghe’s mind, as tender as he had been in those years long past?
The blood here doesn't just have racist but literal connotations, LBH literally thought that SQQ hated the very demonic blood coursing through his veins, so that's why he kept forcing SQQ to drink it. LBH's every action, with me now looking back at all this evidence, is SO fricking justified. From his POV, isn't it more like SQQ is the constantly sick child throwing a tantrum about not wanting to drink bitter medicine? LBH, After all this effort of forcing himself to go through literal hell, training himself, chasing SQQ, imprisoning SQQ (LBH is giving Lan Wangji energy here) so that his Shizun can stop accidentally poisoning himself, SQQ somehow got put in harms way again but on top of that, died because of him. SQQ died whilst also restoring and reaffirming himself as the Shizun who had once been so good to him. 😭😭😭
All this absolute adds so much more weight as to why LBH was never ever going to let SQQ out of his sight ever again, as a corpse or alive, from that moment onwards.
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