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I’m sorry, but do people not realize that Jiang Cheng’s actions led to direct, causal consequences? Jiang Cheng lets his petty insecurities get to him, which leads to:

him publicly abandoning Wei Wuxian, openly declaring him as an enemy to the (orthodox) cultivation world, and withholding why he owed a debt to the Wen siblings because “tired baby is cranky baby,” while at the same time…

not completely cutting off contact but, instead, covertly helping sneak Jiang Yanli to Yiling to show off her wedding gown, giving Wei Wuxian the false impression that he was still conditionally welcomed enough that it would be safe to accept the invitation to Jin Ling’s one-month celebration, and these first two points lead to…

the Jin Clan feeling comfortable enough to ambush him on the way to said one-month celebration, because they were both positive that Wei Wuxian would show up AND assured that no one would be around to defend him. Jin Guangyao takes advantage of this to kill off Jin Zixuan. That’s one parent down, and the consequences of this are…

…now an unjustifiably angry Jiang Cheng, rather than staying behind to comfort his grieving sister and fatherless nephew, attending the murder banquet, showing a united front to all other clans that Wei Wuxian is neither supported nor welcome. He provides no explanations in neither Wei Wuxian nor the Wen siblings’ defenses, and when Wei Wuxian shows up to said murder party, he keeps silent as Wei Wuxian is verbally AND physically attacked, making no attempts at diplomacy or de-escalation because he doesn’t view this battle as affecting him (because correct me if I’m wrong, but Wei Wuxian’s corpses don’t attack the Jiang disciples at this moment). Which leads to…

Jiang Yanli running onto an active battleground to find Wei Wuxian and, eventually, giving her life for him.

Then as a little treat, instead of Jiang Cheng taking responsibility for his hand in how all of these events played out, he instead teaches his orphaned nephew that Wei Wuxian intentionally killed both of his parents in cold blood and that this young child should kill anyone who reminds Jiang Cheng of Wei Wuxian, grooming the kid into his tool of vengeance. Guanyin Temple is the only moment where he drops the facade that this was ever about Jin Ling, when he basically says “You took everything from me and left me with this orphan” pointing directly at Jin Ling and causing the kid to deflate.

This is also what I mean when I say that Jiang Cheng is a follower who wants to be treated like the leader be refuses to be. He wants to play both sides—posturing to the cultivation world that he’s cut all ties with Wei Wuxian with that staged fight but then sneaking Jiang Yanli to him when she asks, siding with the cultivation world wanting to exterminate the Wen remnants and shun Wei Wuxian at the emergency conference but telling Wei Wuxian that he’s there for the latter’s “benefit”—because he never wants to make a decision that can be confidently placed on his own head. He wants the benefit of actions he didn’t take—“why am I not being praised as if I killed the xuanwu of slaughter when I led the search party afterwards?” “I’ll take credit for killing Wei Wuxian even though I literally didn’t.”—while shoving all of the responsibility to others—“you repaid my debt to the Wen siblings, so that’s your bad luck,” “you almost died to save everyone in the cave and now the Wen are knocking on the door, so that’s your bad luck, nevermind that I also tried to kill Ling Wangjiao in that same cave.”