#*synco has re-entered the chat!*

[syncopatedid]

So what if I told you that Lu Guang has been living on "borrowed time" with Cheng Xiaoshi as far back as the very first episode in season 1?

Tl;dr thoughts and other sidetracks below the cut:

One: Xiaoshi lamenting to Lu Guang if "high-fiving" was the only way for them to maintain contact with each other when he dives.

If they had been at this gig for a long time, surely Xiaoshi would have already known this (or at the very least, have experimented other methods, maybe, if he suspected they could go about it another way?) That is not to say that the two of them hadn't been running a legit photo studio business prior to this (definitely feels longer), but the fact that Xiaoshi questions this did come across as being unusual to me, unless it was something "fairly recent" to him, and he was still slowly getting the hang of it. But a much stronger evidence would be:

Two: The rules set by Lu Guang as a condition of their partnership, specifically the second and third rule: to "change nothing", and "let the past and future be". Would Lu Guang have been so insistent on imposing such restrictions on Xiaoshi, had he not already experienced losing Xiaoshi once and wanted to rein Xiaoshi in from acting on his own? And why did Lu Guang feel the need to do so?

-------- Sidetrack thoughts #1: Was Xiaoshi even aware of his powers before Lu Guang came into the picture, or did it only manifest when Lu Guang entered his life? As evident in episodes involving the police, it suggests that in this universe, ability users are an abnormality and not public knowledge; they fall under urban lore and internet rumors, with whispers about a "photo studio run by a witch who can perform magic".

Did Xiaoshi accidentally jump into a photo one day and freak out, only for Lu Guang to assure him by outing his own abilities? (I can't see Lu Guang willingly volunteering that information to Xiaoshi unless something had forced his hand, esp given the above assumption it's not knowledge a layman should possess.) --------

I feel, the reason why Lu Guang holds Xiaoshi so vehemently to the rules would make sense if we consider that Lu Guang sees Xiaoshi as an "unpredictable node".

As far back as S1e3, we can tell that Lu Guang was able to "see" far ahead enough in the timeline that Xiaoshi had leaped into, to know if the future of that timeline had been altered or not. Example: little changes that Xiaoshi did (making a slam dunk) were inconsequential enough that Lu Guang could tell Xiaoshi it's fine, and the future remains relatively unaffected. But Xiaoshi changing a "key node" in that timeline (helping the losing team win), had drastically altered it to the point that Lu Guang tells Xiaoshi he doesn't know what's going to happen next. Why? Because the timeline had already branched out into a parallel universe, so to speak. And no longer holding on to the photo of the "right" universe - a new universe that Xiaoshi had inadvertently just created - meant Lu Guang no longer had the power of foresight.

Getting back to Lu Guang's real predicament, I suspect Lu Guang has been living in a timeline where he is unable to "see" Xiaoshi's future because he hasn't known a future where Xiaoshi has been alive for this long.

Just because Lu Guang is now in a timeline where Xiaoshi didn't die before 0913, it doesn't mean Xiaoshi is safe in the present universe - the same thing happened with Emma; while she didn't die in the hands of a kidnapper, she still died by falling off a building. And that's why Lu Guang has been rather protective of keeping Xiaoshi out of trouble, but I also speculate hard, that he doesn't want to further "destabilize" the current timeline and create more obvious time ripples that will draw attention to them, because... Lu Guang knows Xiaoshi should not have lived, and that they're being hunted.

Xiaoshi, the "abnormality" who is causing all the splits in time due to his unpredictable nature, would make the absolute antithesis to the new antagonist, who seeks to merge all the universes into one single unchanged ending. -------------------------- Sidetrack Thoughts #2: Since when was Lu Guang able to time travel on his own anyway?? My personal hunch: his time leap abilities were not his own, but from Cheng Xiaoshi of the parallel universe where he died. The scene before Lu Guang jumped back in time showed bloodstains on his shirt, suggesting that he had contact with Xiaoshi prior. This would mirror what we saw between Xixi and Qiao Ling, with Xixi's powers being transferred over to Qiao Ling through contact, and Qiao Ling briefly able to see all the memories of the people she had previously read.

If ^ proves to be true, what does that mean?

That Lu Guang is unable to time leap UNLESS Cheng Xiaoshi dies. He does not have the ability to do so on his own. This also means that for as long as Cheng Xiaoshi is alive, Lu Guang will not have the means to time leap on his own or dive back into the past. Which brings me to:

Sidetrack thoughts #3: This image makes me reallllllllly wonder if Lu Guang had already gone back in time to save Xiaoshi multiple times, which would make Lu Guang wanting to stabilize the current timeline even more valid and tragic. ---------------

Is there any light at the end of the tunnel? Frankly, such stories seem destined to head down the tragic/bittersweet end. Either: 1) Lu Guang dies so that Xiaoshi may live; 2) Xiaoshi dies anyway; (bonus 2.5: It's a combi of both; Guang tries to die to save Xiaoshi, but Xiaoshi pulls an "uno reverse" card on him and still dies as he was meant to, this time making Lu Guang promise not to try and save him again.) 3) Nobody dies, but they end up being apart. Lu Guang OR Xiaoshi discovers that in order for the both of them to survive, he would need to go further back in time to reset the past so that they never cross paths in the first place. This would mean one would likely forget the other entirely, and they would become nothing more than passing strangers. I kind of hope if it's headed for tragedy, that this option will be picked over the other two because I find death for melodrama too contrived a plot, but also FML. But what if... there is an option 4? A possibility for an actual good end where they can all be happy together and nobody dies? I'd like to think that if they could give others their happy end then surely they'd be able to find a way to happiness themselves! One such end-game could be them defeating the bad guy and branching out into a new universe yet again, but forever losing their abilities and stuck living in that timeline (where abilities do not exist) for the rest of their lives, no longer able to return to the time they had jumped from or knowing what their future will entail. But it's fine, they'll make it work because they have each other, 完结. cue ED and everybody claps, believing that perhaps they are now happily living in our universe.

And that's all the TL;DR for the day. Thanks for listening and enjoy your timeline!