#guys..............

apparently ancient chiness tradition dictated that children younger than 7 yrs old should not be excessively mourned or given a funeral* which means jin rusong was murdered (at about six years old) and lxc never had any official avenue to grieve, he just... had to... hold it all in..........

(caveat: i do not know which era(s) this tradition was practiced, which is a significant detail to be missing, i'm aware, given that "ancient china" spans many, many centuries. i also have not done extremely thorough research on this custom, so if my take is inaccurate, please feel free to correct me!)

i firmly believe that lxc went to jgy and offered to make arrangements for a funeral, thereby implying that he believed that jrs should get a ceremony, which in turn would have been an implicit plea to jgy that he hold one, however small and/or private.

this would have been an enormously huge ask.

with that one, hushed offer, wrapped in barely-contained anguish, lxc would have been petitioning his sworn brother to go against the commonly held & widely taught beliefs of that time period. given that he knew how delicately balanced jgy's reputation was, even as sect leader, lxc would have understood the gravity of his request - and he would have made it anyways, because he could not accept the reality that he would simply have to swallow his grief and quietly move on.

"er-ge, my heart is just as shattered as yours, if not more," jgy had cried. "i also, more than anything, wish to give a-song, my a-song, any sort of ceremony. but i have no choice."

he tenderly gripped lxc's trembling fingers.

"this situation is already so difficult for qin su and i. how can i embarrass her by holding a funeral for a child not yet seven years of age? i can't. i'm sorry, er-ge, but my hands are tied... i'm sorry."

(but he wasn't sorry; he wanted jin rusong to be buried in silence and quietly forgotten. a funeral? for that mortifying reminder of his deepest, most painful shame?? never. never.)

so there were no prayers or tears shed in public for jrs. and no mourning garments were worn.

... if anyone noticed the lan sect leader wearing only his whitest robes for the duration of that year, they said nothing.