Iris

What feels painfully obvious instead is that Mo offers to take care of He Tian’s house because he’s uncomfortable stepping into a part of He Tian’s life he’s long been kept at a distance from. It's his way of defining their roles clearly, roles they know painfully well and supposedly left behind long ago. Mo's creating a controlled structure against his fear of what living with He Tian might lead to.

Because Mo cannot control that outcome, and he is not naive: his anxiety tells him that, now that they will be living in close quarters, it will be easier than ever for the distance he has tried to maintain between them to erode, and for him to surrender to the affection he has been craving all along.

Going back to the newest chapter, Mo realizes that He Tian’s intentions in offering the contract aren’t about controlling him, but rather about challenging him to improve his skills and grow into a better professional.

The fact that He Tian wholeheartedly believes in him, as demonstrated in the infamous box chapter, is one of the things Mo will never, ever forget. Yes, He Tian is still, in many ways, the same meddling jerk as back then; but he’s also the one who will always have his back.

We’ve basically gone from Mo wistfully watching He Tian walk away after practically kicking him out, to Mo SPRINTING after him and offering to spend time together through an act that has, time and again, helped them grow closer and truly get to know each other.

Mo, He Tian has been publicly carrying and kissing you since middle school, you do NOT have a reputation to ruin in that sense💀😭. Straight up "fork found in kitchen" situation

"We also helped each other out" HAHAHAH

Ht is so shameless I love him 😭, its such a bl, enemy to lovers thing to say.

She Li wants to control that which protects him (and simultaneously isolates him further from possible help. Although what help, when adults in this story keep turning an eye towards bullying when it doesn't affect their image lol.) not so much as to become Mo's only source of any semblance of belonging and dependency so as to have Mo become an endless supply of entertainment. An easy-to-maintain caged pet he can poke and prod to obtain instant gratification (a gamut of emotions he can't seem to experience unless he projects onto others).

In a way, for someone like She Li, Mo is the perfect prey: tough and abrasive on the outside, insecure about his class status and very lonely behind that imperfect front. She Li senses how badly he actually wants connection and how much it hurts him to be betrayed. With Mo, who values dignity and defiance, humiliating him cuts the deepest. By turning Mo's self-made image upside down, She Li gets the rush of power he seems to crave.

The more Mo gets involved with She Li, the more people associate him with the delinquent persona they already arbitrarily have set in stone. The more humiliated Mo feels, the more he closes himself off from others and "willingly" walks into She Li's trap, if only because he hasn't got any other choice.

By the time the story starts, Mo apparently has either left the gang or kept She Li at a certain distance. Even so, as we have already seen, that hardly deters She Li from approaching him and laying his hands on him. Mo should resign himself to his fate. After all, She Li insists they two are one and the same; they should stick together as fellow outcasts.

(chapters 368/369)

It doesn't matter if you get expelled.

It doesn't matter if you get labelled a delinquent, just like your father.

As long as you're angry at the world (yourself), and uselessly struggle against it (yourself), you'll have a place here. Resist, and feed my need for control. Endure humiliation, get back up, feed my obsession.

She Li will go to considerable lengths to keep Mo in his clutches:

(chapter 338. She Li claims no one cares about Mo's "shit" except for him. What does he ask in exchange for this great favour? That Mo bring him a piece of his own flesh).

She Li doesn’t just want Mo’s life to implode so he can watch from the sidelines as Mo struggles to rebuild. What he craves is the suffering itself—yes—but suffering that turns Mo inward, back toward him, leaving no room for anyone else. He doesn’t just want Mo broken; he wants Mo broken and his to be 'used'.

Mo embodies some things She Li lacks: resilience before adversity, authenticity and an actual capacity for bonds. She Li can only perform and manipulate; his charm is skin-deep. As a child, he grew up weak with no protective figures or peers. Home is neglectful and emotionally abusive. When faced with his own pain, or rather his 'inability' to access/express his own suffering, he ends up externalising it (blaming the world/justifying his need to inflict pain and feeling it vicariously through others).

So, does he want to corrupt Mo and prove he is not actually strong? Ruin that which he envies so it doesn't exist? Keep him as a reliable supply of emotions he can't directly engage with?

(chapter 294)

He does understandibly react badly to He Tian doing renovations to the place he bought with his hard earned money without his consent, but he seems to mellow up just a tiny bit to the idea when they arrive at He Tian’s place.

One thing I find very interesting about this chapter: we are shown Mo to be uncomfortable without him being vocal. There’s a tension in the air we’re not usually privy to, almost as if we’re witnessing the water flowing backwards before the wave hits. We wish they could go back to the brief flashes of domesticity we got in the She Li arc or the ones we didn’t get to see when He Tian first came back.

But in their current state, it’s very difficult. For both of them.

It’s obvious Mo is terrified of He Tian leaving him, but cannot even acknowledge that even in the privacy of his own damn mind because leaving himself open like that incurs a risk of actually dealing with the feelings he’s been running away to protect himself. However, seeing that He Tian comes back acting all non-chalant, as if nothing happened… I think this is what ultimately makes Mo the most uncomfortable. Mo Guan Shan longs for He Tian’s touch; blushes when he’s at the center of He Tian’s attention and feels uneasy when he thinks He Tian has left their shared bed.

Subsconsciously, however, he may have been waiting for He Tian to take the first step; not necessarily a romantic one, but a vulnerable one. What would that have looked like? That’s not to say that Mo hasn’t made it close to impossible for this to happen, by telling He Tian he’d have forgotten him if he hadn’t come back.

I mean in his heart of hearts; the core of his trauma. I am talking about how he felt abandoned by his father after he was arrested after a very traumatic event for the child Mo, and how, as a result of that, had to receive the brunt of a violent system who punishes children of convicts and shuns them into marginalization.

(Violence is present at every level of his formative years: institutional, interpersonal and, sadly, internalized. What good -and I’m saying this from Mo’s POV- would feelings do in this situation, if all people see of him is a delinquent and no other bothers to look beyond that? I could write tens of paragraph about why He Tian, Jian Yi and Zhan Zhengxi are so important to Mo’s breaking from this outlook, but I want to focus on the future timeline).

For how big a wall he builds between himself and He Tian in the adult timeline, I’m sure Mo would have come to terms with whatever He Tian told him, as long as He Tian was being honest.

On the other hand, He Tian, who we know absolutely hates having to leave Mo behind, comes back speaking to Mo very casually. He keeps flirting with him, seeking reactions from him and taking everything because even his anger is a side of Mo he likes and reminds him of the Mo whose memory he must have kept in his heart all the time they spent apart. Better to have Mo “mad” at him, or cursing at him, than nothing.

The only times we see him react with anything but his usual cool is when Mo tells him we would have forgotten him, had he not come back to pester him. That feeling of dejection only lasts so long, though, and he comes back (coughcough breaks into coughcough) to Mo’s apartment.

The other time we see underneath He Tian’s mask is when he finds Mo’s box with trinkets that remind him of He Tian. Mo refuses to talk about his feelings, but this shocks He Tian to the core and practically recontextualizes Mo’s attitude towards him. He already knew that Mo missed him, but wasn’t fully aware of how much hurt he unintentionally caused in Mo after leaving.

A while back I said that He Tian is on damage control mode, and I still strongly believe that. His behavior suggests an attempt to (perhaps excessively) compensate for what he imagines Mo experienced. But he himself makes no effort whatsoever to bridge the gap or offer a reason for his disappearance. True, part of the reason is Mo’s lack of receptiveness. But it’s also rooted in He Tian’s upbringing — in a household where vulnerability was dangerous, and concealment was essential for both self-preservation and protecting those he loved.

This guy cannot be vulnerable for the life of him. Whatever the reason for his departure is, it's clear that it's been weighing down on He Tian for a long time. And even if it's not the reason itself, it's the fact that it stands between him and his goal: living with Mo and giving him the life he deserves.

Now, chapter 472 and 473 are finally this wave I mentioned coming back with a vengeance. He Tian asks Mo to kiss him, but backtracks immediately. This is a first for him. Every time he has teased Mo, he’s done so unapologetically because he adores Mo’s reactions. But maybe because of the uncomfortable silence, He Tian says it was only a joke. This makes things worse; we have been shown time and time that Mo can get mad over things that don’t really bother him in the long run. When something REALLY bothers him, though… that’s another whole story. He doesn’t yell, he stays quiet. Frozen.

To me, Mo for a second takes He Tian’s words seriously, but feels betrayed at the thought that He Tian is playing with his feelings when he takes them back. And why wouldn’t he come to that conclusion, seeing the things He Tian has done in the last chapters?

We, the readers, know He Tian does all this out of a need for things to be back as they were, because he loves the only boy who truly understood him. But their teenage love can’t (and shouldn’t!) stay as it was. They have both changed without the other, and must learn to accept it and move on to truly start over.

I love and hate chapter 473 (this seems to be a trend with the newer chapters lol). On the one hand, it seems like He Tian will finally fucking fess up. However, the way we got there… Well, to say this confrontation reminded me of these two in their “earlier days” would be an understatement.

He Tian provokes Mo with a statement he KNOWS will rattle him. Mo, in a fashion resembling his teenage-self rather than the adult we’ve been seeing, reacts with a level of violence we haven’t even seen in a comedic light for a LONG time now. In fact, it gets so out of hand that He Tian has to resort to using his strength when Mo is about to punch him.

One might theorise that He Tian is giving Mo an outlet to vent his anger, but then… why does he mock him? Why the attitude? Honestly, I’m not too sure. Maybe it’s finally sinking in that he has no choice but to explain himself, and at the same time, he’s slipping back into old habits because they feel safer. Hm.

(this is just an incredibly biased aside, but He Tian intentionally ragebaiting Mo and then telling his very visceral reaction is a mere “tantrum” consitutes a certified Asshole (tm) moment. Goddammit, He Tian!)

Then again, we see this panel where he gazes upon the utterly defeated Mo, and… somewhere deep down, He Tian has to know that what he’s doing is not right. This is the moment. The tipping point between clinging to the status quo and finally giving them a real chance. Because if they keep going like this, it won’t be a relationship; just another on-and-off mess, looping back on itself until there’s nothing left.

It’s a shame that it took this to get this conversation going, but the moment we saw these two back in the first chapter of the adult timeline and how they acted around each other, something was bound to give.