#ep42

Jin Guangyao tells him "boy howdy you sure did fool everyone; even Hanguang-Jun was fooled by you" and Wei Wuxian says "that's right!" even though he fooled hardly anybody, particularly not Lan Wangji.

Lan Wangji finally speaks, and says nope, I knew he was Wei Ying all along, gazing at Wei Wuxian with utter devotion.

Then he draws his sword and starts singing "Stand By Your Man" stands ready to defend WWX. Wei Wuxian tries to stop him, despite being surrounded by 40 people who definitely heard what Lan Wangji just said and who have eyes to see that he's drawn a sword on everybody.

WWX grabs his wrist and says he, himself, is used to this kind of thing, but Lan Wangji doesn't have to roll with him. He says they should escape and then Lan Wangji can tell everyone that he was tricked by the Yiling Laozu, thereby preserving his reputation. I'm really not sure how "I didn't realize the twink I've been banging was the Yiling Laozu" is supposed to help his reputation at this point, but okay.

Lan Wangji puts on his serenest expression and asks if WWX remembers what he asked LWJ back in the cloud recesses. WWX says "bitch, you have spent the past two months roasting me about my bad memory and now we're in a high-pressure situation and you have the nerve to ask me that?"

Just kidding, thanks to a convenient flashback, WWX understands exactly what LWJ is asking him. He flashes back to when he first woke up in LWJ's bed and asked if, in the past, did Lan Wangji trust/believe in him.

Lan Wangji didn't answer him at the time, because his answer would have been "nope," but WWX figured that out and was hurt by it. (See Episode 33 part 2 for my recap of that).

Lan Wangji doesn't answer the question, exactly, this time; instead he says "the feeling of walking down the single-plank bridge until the dark end really isn't so bad." This is another callback to an earlier time (in Episode 29), when he watched WWX walking away from him into the burial mounds with A-Yuan. WWX said his bit about "walking the single-plank bridge" to compare his life path to Lan Wangji's, unaware LWJ was listening.

Lan Wangji isn't answering WWX's question directly; he's skipping over his answer in order to explain that he's arrived at a new way of seeing things. He's saying "I didn't put my trust in you in the past, because I was keeping to the broad road, but now I have learned to prefer the narrow path, and I am putting my trust in you now."

Then he actually honest-to-goodness SMILES at Wei Wuxian, complete with cat-blink, and Wei Wuxian laughs and smiles back, looking into his eyes, accepting this as the declaration of love it absolutely is, and says Lan Zhan ah, Lan Zhan. Viki translates that "ah" as "oh." Ignore whatever Netflix's subtitles say it means. I believe that it is idiomatically used after a name to indicate affection; Lan Xichen calls LWJ "Wangji-ah" later in the episode.

Then Wei Wuxian warns him that if he really goes through with this - leaving with Wei Wuxian - his reputation will be ruined. They turn back to back to face the crowd and WWX asks him "do you still want to fight [them]?" Lan Wangji says "too much talking" and WWX chuckles and then hollers "Fight!"

Then we FINALLY get a fight scene, and it's well choreographed with a couple of good moves in it for Wei Wuxian and his beloved Suibian - which, I'd like to point out, he is wielding just fine in a skirmish, although he's not flying on it or doing fancy stuff.

Although the show isn't as clear as it should be about this, I think this is a solid indication that WWX 2.0 does have a core; it's just not very good. (Novel WWX 2.0 definitely has one, per the author.)

We also get to see Lan Wangji use Su She as a springboard. Then they jump down to the bottom of the stairs.

Suddenly Jin Ling appears with his sword drawn, even though he totally was not there in the wide shot. The adults make reaction faces while Wei Wuxian suddenly decides to forget everything he knows about teenagers. First he tries to walk away without saying anything, then he says "I'll explain it to you later, ok kiddo?" and tries to walk away again.

Jin Ling stabs him in the liver with a full-sized sword. Unlike Qin Su, who died instantly from a similar stab, Wei Wuxian has plot armor so he is just wounded. He mumbles "why did this brat stab me in the same place as his uncle" and Jiang Cheng, who is still at the top of the stairs and has hearing like a bat apparently, makes a pained face. Then Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji stumble away together while Jin Ling has feelings.

I Can't Stand the Rain

Next we see them stumbling through a forest in an absolute freaking downpour. Wei Wuxian is pretending not to be tall while Lan Wangji holds him up. This is one of the rare times Wang Yibo's physical mismatch with other versions of Lan Wangji (novel/manhua/donghua) stands out to me. Those other versions of Lan Wangji would 100% have snatched WWX up in a princess carry at this point. But Wang Yibo perfectly embodies Lan Wangji's physical grace and his complex emotional life, so I'm ok with him not manifesting the Extremely Tall and Utterly Fucking Jacked elements of the character.

Lan Wangji has wet, shivering WWX lean against a tree while he transfers spiritual energy into him, hearkening back to their Xuanwu Cave adventure, so many years ago. We flash back to the time on Mount Yeet when Lan Wangji tried to warn him against using the Yin Tiger seal, and that other time on Mount Yeet when Lan Wangji tried to keep him from plummeting to his death.

WWX laughs a bit and when LWJ asks him why, WWX says in the past, when everyone feared and flattered him, LWJ was the only one who scolded him; now when everyone hates him, LWJ is the only one standing by his side. I think this means that WWX finally understands that LWJ's scolding of him came from the same devotion that his current care is coming from, but it's hard to say because he promptly ruins the moment by horking up a bunch of blood.

Camera operator: Bruh! Whyyyyyy?

(Continued in Ep42 part 3!)

Soundtrack: Superfly by Missy Elliot