Kinda fascinatingly how objectively fucked the Jiang home situation was. Like, you have this situation where "everyone knows" that Sect Leader Jiang loves Wei Wuxian so much and favours him over his actual son, INCLUDING his son, and. No. He does not.
You know what the last thing Jiang Fengmian, the man who supposedly "loves Wei Wuxian like a son" says to Wei Wuxian ? "A-Ying... look after A-Cheng". That's it. Not a goodbye, not a "take care of yourself", nada. Just instructions. Jiang Cheng gets "A-Cheng. Be well". Wei Wuxian gets told to ensure that
You know who else did pretty much the exact same thing, five pages ago ? Yu Ziyuan, who tells Wei Wuxian that "even in death, you have to keep [Jiang Cheng] safe"
I cannot stress enough that this is fundamentally the same interaction. Sure, Yu Ziyuan is infinitely harsher with her words and more abusive with her actions, but her last actions are an exact replica of her husband's - they comfort Jiang Cheng like parents, because they ARE his parents, and then they order Wei Wuxian to protect their son.
And that's why I'll never buy the idea that Jiang Fengmian loved Wei Wuxian more than he did his own son. He may have LIKED Wei Wuxian more, but that was because he LOVED the man Wei Wuxian reminded him of - his father Wei Changze. And he may not LIKE Jiang Cheng, for being more akin to Madam Yu than Fengmian, but it's undeniable that he loves him
And the real fucked part ? Wei Wuxian KNOWS this. He KNOWS that he's second-best !! He's accepted that !! You know who DOESN'T know that ? Jiang Cheng. Madam Yu. To a certain extent, I believe even Jiang Fengmian himself.
And also, this might be painfully old news by now, but also... Zidian unravelling itself when Jiang Fengmian touched it ? Both because it was obeying Yu Ziyuan's command to keep the boys safe - and to a certain extent she considered her husband's vicinity safety - and because she trusted him enough to make him one of Zidian's masters too ? Right after we see that Jiang Fengmian went out of his way to repair Madam Yu's hairpin for her ? This, after so many pages of everyone - including Madam Yu herself - insisting that the two hated each other ? Ugh
