#but how Zhang Mu was with the FALCON

[foxghost]

Hello, I just want to let you know you are the best for translating Joyful Reunion. I can feel your love and dedication to this novel with your translations, thank you so much for translating it. Now on to the question - why was Lang Junxia so enigmatic and why wouldn’t he answer Duan Ling’s questions about his intentions?

Because some people would rather die than talk FEELINGS O_O (I'm putting the spoilers under this cut)

Lang Junxia initially decided against telling Duan Ling anything after seeing the fear in his eyes when they saw each other face-to-face again in the alleyway in book 2. His first priority was Duan Ling's safety. Was he safe? Yes, he was staying with Wu Du under the chancellor's roof under an assumed name. So he needn't worry -- until he left for Tongguan.

Then books later on, when they're essentially working together, he didn't think there was a need to tell him. By then, he knew he had to "die" officially because the court officials needed their pound of flesh and he was glad to give it, just not literally since he knew Duan Ling would have need of him during the war. But if he allowed Duan Ling to get any more attached to him, Duan Ling would ask for leniency on his behalf -- this isn't good for his status as heir or the future emperor, so he kept his distance.

(Well of course Duan Ling was going to ask for mercy anyway, so Lang Junxia had to beat him to the punch)

I think he may have told Duan Ling in Luoyang inside that interrogation room. If Duan Ling had acted even more like his father and deduced all of Lang Junxia's actions during the poisoning and afterwards, then just throws them in his face not as questions but as statements, Lang Junxia would have admitted to it all with his silence. But Duan Ling wasn't Li Jianhong and didn't have his ability to sacrifice his underlings when necessary, so he just held his tongue again.

To figure out what's in Lang Junxia's head, since Feitian isn't going to tell us, we have to keep him mind that Lang Junxia will always consider "would telling Duan Ling the truth be good for his growth as the ruler of the empire", and I think that by the time he planned to leave, he'd decided that telling him would be unnecessary. (Even that letter is OOC -- but it needed to be there for OUR benefit.) By assuming that the person he trusted most had betrayed him, Duan Ling had matured in ways that he never would have by depending on everyone around him. This is further proven by his lack of character growth in the Watchtowers extra.