i have a lot of thoughts on wei wuxian, the wen siblings, and how they are affected by their debts to each other (i, for one, don’t think that debt repayment was a major motivation for wen ning’s intervention at lotus pier or for him following wei wuxian post-timeskip) - but i agree that it’s something that burdens all of them throughout most of the story, despite everyone's best intentions.
but i do want to put my two cents in because wen ning and wei wuxian parting ways in the end is so important:
“I built one for the two of you at the Burial Mounds, but it was burnt down,” Wei Wuxian said. “We’ll make a trip to Qishan too.”
He turned to Lan Wangji, but before he could ask for the latter’s opinion, Wen Ning declined. “No, it’s fine.”
Taken aback, Wei Wuxian asked, “You don’t want us to come with?”
Lan Sizhui quickly chimed in. “Wei-qianbei, just go with Hanguang-jun.”
Wei Wuxian wanted to say more, but Wen Ning said, “Really, it’s fine. Wei-gongzi, you have done enough.”
After a brief pause, Wei Wuxian asked, “What will you do after you’ve finished all that?”
“Send A-Yuan back to the Cloud Recesses,” Wen Ning replied. “Then I can take my time pondering what to do next. As for what follows…let me go my own way.”
Wei Wuxian nodded slowly. “…Just as well.”
wen ning doesn't end up following wei wuxian through his whole afterlife. wen ning leaves.
and the way he leaves - freeing himself from revolving his life around wei wuxian any further, from having to protect him at the expense of his own personhood - but also explicitly freeing wei wuxian from all further obligations, from seeing wen ning as his responsibility, from having to choose between happiness and duty for once in his life - is important as well. "you have done enough".
(even though his rejection made wei wuxian sad! but what can you do? wen ning, a healer, is no stranger to breaking a badly healed bone so it can be set clean, even if it hurts.)
the toxicity of being trapped in a cycle of debt and repayment is indeed a major theme, which is why wei wuxian's relationship with lan wangji ("between us, there is no need to say thank you and sorry") is so heavily contrasted with both of his other relationships, which jiang cheng also eventually understands by keeping the truth of his golden core loss to himself, and that’s why wen ning dropping all of this on wei wuxian’s head and walking off into the sunset was absolute king shit on his part. my man saw the webs of obligation around them and went at them with an angle grinder as soon as he could, and he really deserves more recognition for it.
