This scene goes hand in hand with Zhao Yuanzhou getting psychosexual hallucinations of his demon ex husband haunting the body of his new human husband, and how the inherent terror of those blurred identities unveils both Zhao Yuanzhou and Ji Ling's most deep-seated, most repressed and yet painfully visceral desire: being known, seen through completely, disarmingly, and beloging anyway. The community of souls only born from going through the highs and lows of fate with someone who has seen all of you, including the worst, most unlovable parts you don't want to acknowledge as parts of you.
This longing is something that both Zhao Yuanzhou and Ji Ling keep buried deep. They don't dare speak of it, of how much it hurt to have shared everything with someone, to have loved them and still love them and need them at your side, and yet not get to. They pretend there isn't an open wound in their heart, despite how much it bleeds into every relationship they form ever since. How it shapes them into people who already expect loss before they even let themselves love someone else fully. In their mind's eye, that loss becomes an inevitability, and one that they dread something fierce.
The doomed past and the more compassionate present blur together, cruelly taunting them. Who are they facing? Their new friend, or the person they didn't get to hold on to? Is there a difference between them?
The dread of Li Lun possessing Zhuo Yichen's body to kill Zhao Yuanzhou is weighty, but so is ZYZ's fear of the past repeating itself. When he sees ZYC's features blur into LL's, it's not the possession he's terrified of. He imagines them at the altar of their old oaths to each other, where new oaths were formed with new people. Li Lun isn't just an enemy to defeat: it's Zhao Yuanzhou's past coming back to remind him of his broken promises, of his failed "forever"s. He doesn't need to physically possess Zhuo Yichen for Zhao Yuanzhou to feel his haunting, suffocating presence.
If Li Lun was a beloved close friend ZYZ was forced to part ways with by the cruelty of fate, but still painfully present in his life in a way ZYZ can't bear to extricate himself from, to put an end to, then the butterfly demon is that and worse. In the latter, the haunting is twofold: it's Yuan Wuhuo the butterfly demon possessing Li Jie, and it's Yuan Wuhuo the human haunting the replica, the painted skin, close enough to the original to taunt Ji Ling with regrets and unsolved issues, but not close enough to bring relief to that hurt, to offer any closure. His existence itself feels like a slight to the idealized memory of the great hero.
In both cases, the image of a loved one no longer in their lives superimposes itself onto that of their newest kindred soul, with an urgency that spirals into almost frenzied desperation. As if to mock the hope of being known again, of being accepted fully. After all, fate is something you cannot change or interfere with. And if you were doomed by it once, doesn't that mean you'll always be doomed to lose what you hold the most dear?
