vale

one difference between them is that xie lian sees his younger self in people’s ideals and morals that he still strongly believes in. he might hold back when it comes to say things out loud to avoid sounding pretentious but he will always uphold those values. the only time he almost fails at that is the white clothed calamity and it’s his biggest regret in 800 years.

whilst jun wu picks and wants to crush xie lian not just because of his younger self’s ideals. there are plenty of people that could remind him of that but he doesn’t care. he hates and feels threatened by xie lian’s power to act on them. because he ultimately couldn’t. he had to convince himself that giving up morals was the only path and he couldn’t accept his failure.

xie lian sees lqq (someone he could understandably hate) with hope in his heart, despite him reminding him of his “failures”. he lies to him and blames himself for the entire banquet so that lqq can still believe in people’s goodness. because despite his failures at saving the common people xl knows that’s the right thing to aim for. however, despite the twisted affection jw claims to feel, he actually sees xie lian with hate, not hope, that’s why their reactions are so different.