#clj thoughts

- she knows that DFQC wants to free the 100,000 soldiers in the Xuanxu realm because he promised so - if she kills herself, the soldiers will be freed, - she knows that DFQC doesn't control Hellfire anymore which makes him weaker - if she kills herself, he won't need Hellfire anyway, - she knows that DFQC needs to find a way how to protect his people because the war is coming - if she kills herself, the war will probably stop or the scales will turn, - she knows that the primordial spirit of the Chidi woman is inside the Bone Orchid, feeding on her and gradually  killing her - if she kills herself, the spirit will be freed, - she knows that DFQC made a pact with the evil spirit which is extremely dangerous - if she kills herself, he won't need it anymore.

And that's why she did it. Not only she freed him of the Heart Curse she inadvertently casted but she freed the 100,000 soldiers and saved his life from the evil spirit because colluding with it would lead to his untimely death. She wants him to live even when she can't be with him (for obvious reasons).

She, however, doesn't understand one thing: - why did he claim that he never loved her and that he just played tricks on her. She obviously doesn't believe it and evidently, she never will. And even if she eventually did believe it, it was never a reason for her to stop loving him.

And then we get the scene on the bridge in the Cangyan Sea where DFQC: - comes up with the best kind of love confession he ever could, - explains that the only way to break the Bone Orchid and save her was to stop her from loving him and that's why he lied to her and humiliated her, - thus doing basically what his father did and what she is doing at the moment.

I just... the way the realization hits her like a ton of bricks is so well told. You can see that she was already fragile and that's why she told him to stop talking. And then, he just blurts this out and it's just too much for her, too much for the mask she willingly wears. And she breaks. And it's heartbreaking, twisted, angsty and beautiful in the same time.

BUT. What I also just realized that his aversion towards the medicine because it’s bitter is a callback to the previous monologue XLH had after he confessed that he wanted to help her pass the Immortal examination in Episode 7.

She says: “It’s like you’ve been taking a medicine. Because you’re used to it, you never think it’s bitter. But one day, someone gives you a candy while you’re taking your medicine. Because you’ve tasted the sweetness of the candy, the same medicine that you’ve taken before will now taste too bitter to swallow.”

He already tasted the sweetness of the candy and now everything is bitter to him so he doesn’t want to take it because who cares about getting better when he’s still getting the candy in the form of XLH taking care of him? 

DFQC, you’re bloody genius in love...

...and she goes for it anyway because she’s full of compassion and love...

...and he eventually accepts it with “Please, hold me and never let me go.”

I mean, just look at it: - "Since I am the ‘high-ranking Moon Supreme’, why didn't you obey my order?" - "Since you said you and I are not friends, I have nothing to blame you for." - "Since you and I are not friends, don't say these empty words anymore." - "You said there's no love between us." And my favourite (there might be more, I'm half-way through Episode 21 to write this): - "There is someone who values love and loyalty in the fairy realm? This is the first time I've ever known it."

He keeps throwing her own words at her, calling out her hypocrisy, jabbing at her and prodding, probably in hope that she would break and tell him that she didn't mean her words that way and there actually IS affection and loyalty between them.

Isn't offended DFQC just adorable?

But... the fact is that she doesn’t. 

She does, at first - not very convincingly, to be honest (funny thing is that when she needs to knock him out, she is totally capable of tricking him but when she actually needs to trick him, she is so obvious that it doesn’t work; another funny thing is that DFQC keeps playing along). But from the moment XLH learns that he is love and seven feelings removed, she just wants to cure his Love Tree because she wants him to experience feelings as they should be experienced.

Yes, she is momentarily swayed by fake Changheng because she thinks she loves him but that changes pretty quickly when she sees through the illusion and DFQC comes to save her. He found her in such a short time and he even assures her that he would always find her, no matter how many Orchids there would be. And the thing is that he SHOULDN’T be able to sense her because she got her hands on the heart-hidden hairpin but he still did and he always will. She wants to keep wearing it because she doesn’t want him to know about her own feelings (besides other things) just yet.

Once she learns that his Love Tree is actually getting recovered (her fault, lol) she is so happy and even more determined not to give up on him, no matter what he says. And so she goes ALL IN (as she always does out of love) and starts investigating the relationship between DFQC and his father, succeeding in her endeavour, only to begin to realize that love can be manifold and the one she feels for Changheng is totally different from the one she feels for DFQC.

We all know that Orchid remembers everything, even things she is not supposed to remember as she demonstrates with Changheng when she repeats his words to her from before he wiped out her memory, allowing him to hope for a second (poor guy) that she might actually be in love with him. That means that by resurrecting, all her previous memories have been restored.

Now, if we all agree that the dream sequence was actually REAL and that dream Orchid was the ray of her primordial spirit in DFQC's primordial spirit, does it mean that she also remembers THAT?

Because she could easily tell him to go away and stop bothering her or just ignore him as she’s been doing, anyway. But no, she actually goes to him to persuade him to leave on his own because she knows that he doesn't want to watch as she marries someone else. Her last words to him in that exchange is "I'm marrying Changheng in three days." as if it was some kind of a warning that he should leave and protect his heart.

We were broken, our love tree withered because of all the past disappointments. Then, our own XLHs came, flooding our timelines and dashboards with gifs, pictures, quotes and other stuff from the show, making us curious but still afraid to give in. Until the breaking point came and we started to watch it with gritted teeth, yelling 'this is all your fault'.

And our XLHs supported and encouraged us as our love tree started to recover until we finally emerged back up, emotionally healed, forever in love and thankful for the journey.