#but i do think yi city as an arc deals with idealism and cynicism and he is squarely in the position of the cynic in the story

[lgbtlunaverse]

A-qing is such a tragic figure and i care her so much but one thing I love is this quiet character arc she has from a little girl doing what she has to do to survive, already more wordly and bitter than Xiao Xingchen even at her young age, a girl who isn't cruel but isn't here to help other people either, into genuinely a kind of guardian figure. After her death she sticks around and dedicates her non-life to protecting people, leading visitors away from Xue Yang and warning wwx and the juniors about him. And it works, in the end, without her they wouldn't have made it.

The yi city arc can seem so cynical sometimes. Idealism fails, helping a dying stranger by the side of the road only leads to tragedy, but a-qing cares and it helps! She's a counterpart to both xiao xingchen and song lan in that way, and thematically also a kind of counterpart to xue yang, where tragedy becomes a motivation for caring instead of against it. It's a weird thing to say since she's a kid that dies and her soul is shattered, but I think yi city would have come off a lot darker without her.