#fof thoughts

Li Lun is the type to process conflict as action and reaction. A simple cause and effect that follows natural order. He takes pride in facing things head on, never backing away from anything, so he isn't really equipped to deal with subterfuge or manipulation, which are distinctly human things. Despite knowing and resenting how deceitful mortals are, he’s never prepared for their duplicity. We could say that he’s watched reality through the Truth Eye for so long, he started trusting that his eyes cannot fool him, that he will always know when someone is lying. 

Adding to this, Li Lun is characterized as being more true to his demon nature than Zhao Yuanzhou, who instead tries to escape his own (which he associates with loss of control) and to seek refuge in humanity. Where ZYZ comes to associate an excess of malicious energy as something bad and shameful because he’s the Vessel, Li Lun embraces the darkness inside of him because he sees it as part of who he is. He’s a great demon and a Pagoda Ghost, a tree that attracts malicious energy naturally. So of course he’s meant to have power flowing through his body, and being an extremely forthright person and inflexible in thinking, he sees nothing shameful in taking pride in who he is, in never wanting to be anything else. He firmly rejects wanting to be human, despite how clear it becomes later on that he envies mortals for having an easier time being understood. 

By contrast, Zhao Yuanzhou seeks to escape his own nature – or rather, he seeks to escape the instinctual bloodthirst that he sees as inherent to demon nature. To quote a relevant dialogue here, ZYZ tells this to WX: “Humans are naturally human because they were born humans. While demons need to cultivate hard to become humans. Monsters are simple, but instinctively bloodthirsty. We are more like animals.” To which WX replies: “They want to hunt when they’re hungry. When they’re in danger, they bare their fangs. Humans are a type of animal, but over the course of time, they have created civilization, defined good and evil, and formulated laws and regulations.” 

In other words, Zhao Yuanzhou spends hundreds of thousands of years of cultivation to “become more human” because he is afraid of letting his demon nature dictate his actions. Being the Vessel, the malicious energy inside of him far exceeds anyone else's. Giving way to his instincts is akin to letting his dormant violence run amok and cause irreparable havoc. As a result, he wishes to learn from their civility and resourcefulness. He will always attempt the human way of tackling problems first. Not with raw power the way a demon would, but with human craftiness, cleverness, subterfuge. This is not to say he isn’t above using violence when it suits him too, but he doesn’t default to it with the same lack of remorse Li Lun shows. 

This, however, creates a rift between them: when they discover the dungeons under the clinic, they react in opposite ways to the sorrow in their hearts. Li Lun gives in to his most basic nature. To quote Wen Xiao, he bares his fangs like a wounded animal backed into a corner, wishing to defend itself against a threat. Zhao Yuanzhou, however, had planned to deescalate first, to seek a solution that didn't involve killing more people to correct a wrong. But in a twist of fate, he accidentally hits Li Lun with the Ever Burning Wood, in what is perhaps the cruelest, most treacherous weapon to use against a tree demon. Against a close friend. And that’s a betrayal of everything they’ve ever shared. 

What happened to their vows to each other? If a friend is someone who's meant to share sorrow and joy with, how come Zhao Yuanzhou doesn't share any of the fury Li Lun is going through? Why does he question him instead, calls him crazy? If he cared about protecting the Wilderness, why would he get in the way of punishing humans for how they treat demons? 

To Li Lun, who is so ride-or-die loyal, Zhao Yuanzhou taking the Baize goddess’ side and helping her seal him was more devastating than the fire itself. I can only imagine what it feels like to dedicate 34000 years to someone, only to lose them overnight over your first real fight. This is made worse by the fact that Li Lun admits he had nothing else to call his own, after losing Zhu Yan. His only real match in the whole vast world. The only one that ever understood him. And then ZY goes and picks new friends in a species that has always been deceitful and cruel, lesser and treacherous. 

With his more simplistic, more animalistic thinking, Li Lun can’t make sense of ZY’s motivations. He keeps making it a matter of choices, like it was as simple as picking a side. Why would Zhu Yan defend the oppressors, if he alone had enough power to stomp on the whole mortal realm and wipe it out? Why would he keep surrounding himself with liars and weaklings, if he already had a trusted friend who never lied to him and was always his equal in everything? His new companions don't even come close to ZYZ's level. What does he see in them that LL didn't have? ….was he lying from the start about seeing him as a friend? 

After all, Li Lun has always struggled to parse complex motivators. Since he doesn’t understand that ZYZ’s dislike for giving in to your most basic instincts comes from self-loathing, he takes Zhao Yuanzhou’s attempt at stopping him as hatred for him. So when ZYZ opposes him for the first time, Li Lun makes it a black and white matter. Zhao Yuanzhou hates him because Li Lun killed humans, and killing humans is the thing Zhao Yuanzhou hates the most in the world. 

Of course, we know this is a broad oversimplification. ZYZ’s morality is much more complex than that. Not only has he killed innocent people himself whenever it suited his agenda (the guard at the DHB in episode 1, the pagoda tree girl), but he also had no issue sympathizing with demons who killed a lot of humans, too (Ran Yi, Qing Geng). He also kept Li Lun's primordial root the entire time, was hesitant to oppose him in any way that mattered every time Li Lun possessed someone to target him, and even pleaded ZYC to spare Li Lun’s life. 

None of this paints the picture of a guy who left him in the past. From the outside, however, that’s exactly the impression he gives. You have to know that he did those things, to realize that he still cares. For his part, he never really tries to smooth things over between them. Notably, it’s not even him that offers the root to Li Lun — the thing that finally breaks their miscommunication; it’s Wen Xiao that has to step in and do it for him. But why does Zhao Yuanzhou let it fester for that long? 

If he doesn’t do anything about it sooner, I think it’s because he attributes their separation entirely on Li Lun, citing how it was his choice to “go their separate ways.” It was Li Lun who gave him an umbrella, a symbol of parting for humans, and it was again Li Lun that couldn't forgive him for the accident with the Ever Burning Wood. 

But if Li Lun's rampage wasn't enough to cross him off Zhao Yuanzhou's heart… if he still longs for his presence at his side enough to dream of him alongside the dead Zhao Wan'er at his table, sharing tea together… Then his continued avoidance is meant to tell us more about his character flaws, than any contempt he might have for Li Lun's methods. 

The idea, I think, is that Zhao Yuanzhou cannot face Li Lun after condemning him to burn to his death, even if he didn't do it on purpose. After all, it wouldn't be the first time he beat himself up for things that were entirely out of his control, but that caused so much pain and misery. What's for sure is that ZYZ has a pattern: he always chooses self-punishment to deal with his regret, rather than spend effort into making amends. It's Zhuo Yichen who exposes this flaw of his first, but we have several examples of it throughout the story. Avoiding a proper confrontation with Li Lun until he's backed into dealing with his messy baggage is one. The fact that he kept his identity a secret to Wen Xiao upon meeting her again is another. Then of course there is his ultimate sacrifice itself, giving up his life to repay his “debt” to Zhuo Yichen. 

So it’s a mix of his fear of confronting his past + Li Lun's inability to parse complexity that causes the rift between them. Li Lun becomes convinced that he was easy to discard, despite having been close enough to share destiny itself up until now. And that in turn amps up his belief that it is truly impossible to tell what lies inside a person's mind. After all, even someone he's known intimately for 34000 years ended up harboring what Li Lun perceives as human duplicity – the ability to hypocritically call someone a close friend, only to turn your back on them without warning. 

This is not to say that Li Lun is incapable of lying or manipulation, by the way. He lies to all the demons he cooperates with. He lies to himself about what he wants all the time. His character hang-up is specifically how unprepared he always is to face deceit when he feels common ground with someone. It stems from ZYZ's betrayal, but it's made worse by the fact that he watched reality through the Truth Eye for so long, he lost the ability to make his own judgements, to see nuance. Reality is hardly ever factual or black and white. To quote Zhuo Yichen's brother, “your eyes lie, but your heart will tell you the answer.” Li Lun becomes unable to parse people's true intentions because he trusts only what he can see on the surface. For example, he sees Zhuo Yichen's hatred for the demon who killed his family, but not the developing warmth between them, or ZYC’s unwillingness to betray a comrade who pierced himself on his sword to get Zhuo Yichen out of nightmares, or who bled for him easily, yet used his magic to cure ZYC's wounds when he didn't have to. 

Times and times again, Li Lun flattens complexity into something that is close to the truth, but lacks depth. He reduces it to simpler emotions, more basic reactions. He tries to bring people down to his level so that they can see eye to eye because he wants to be understood, to have that common ground in misery, if he cannot have it joy. Qing Geng must've resented being sealed at Lingxi villa for eternity because Li Lun resents his own captivity and seeks freedom. Wen Xiao must've resented Zhao Yuanzhou for letting her believe someone else had killed her shifu because Li Lun hates him for the cowardice of never facing him after their fight. 

So he backs people into a corner and demands they make a choice, waiting with bated breath for their answer. Sometimes he thinks he knows what they’ll pick – the answer he hopes to get – but then they don’t, and his reaction is always so excessive it reveals the desperation underneath. 

That he was willing to hand over the Yao water to Wen Xiao when he thought they had reached an understanding, despite how he shouldn't be helping her restore the token, is also very telling imo. Sure, one might argue that he only offered the water because he knew the Divine Tree had already withered. But he could've polluted it from the start, and he doesn’t. He could've gotten rid of it altogether, and he chooses not to. I think handing it over counted as a genuine peace offering. He wanted Wen Xiao to be on his side. Just like how he wanted Zhao Yuanzhou to offer him an alternative when he sat down to play go with him, listening to his attempt at negotiation. If he renders the yao water temporarily useless, it's only because Wen Xiao hits his sore spot dead in the center, mocking him for being easily fooled and never learning better. That's always what sets off his rage btw. Thinking he has common ground with someone, only for them to reveal themselves as two-faced.

Much like Zhao Yuanzhou, he’s a character shaped by loss who mistakenly seeks to find meaning in self-destruction and death, even when he knows that cannot cure him of his loneliness. Zhu Yan made new friends, but what does Li Lun have? If he goes up in smoke, what will remain of him if he never made a name for himself? Before he dies, he wants his life to have meant something, so he becomes consumed by the obsessive need to be understood, to be accepted, and lashes out when he isn’t. 

Every traveler seeks shelter from the rain, every person stuck in the depths of an abyss wishes for the light of a lantern showing the way out. And so he keeps demanding, where is my light? Where is my shelter? 

This is of course a nod to the main themes of the story. Li Lun wants to be “chosen firmly”, but he thinks Zhao Yuanzhou prefers humanity over him. And so he keeps asking, with more and more frantic urgency, “What is better? To be a human, or to be a demon?”

But at the end of the day, Zhao Yuanzhou never really gave up on him, despite Li Lun's belief that he had. And it's the reassurance he feels at being chosen firmly, in the end, that makes Li Lun leave Bai Jiu's body for his primordial root. It was a simple truth, in the end. One he could’ve easily reached, if only he had trusted himself enough not to doubt Zhao Yuanzhou. 

This is why I think it's so symbolic that he decides to give up the Truth Eye in the end, deciding to let his heart guide his choices from then on. Even if all he has left to live is a few precious minutes. And why those minutes make a difference, as does his willingness to accept Zhuo Yichen and pass on his powers onto him.