#or like the toughest jerky you can conceive of

[labyrynth]

i don’t agree with what i think is your main claim, which i think is this

-> Wei Wuxian's assumption that jgy set the suicide up and compelled her somehow is the most logical inference.

but i think that might be in part because some of your information actually contradicts the text, so here’s a mostly unbiased fact check

(i.e. i tried to limit to just things that are pretty straightforward readings of the text and simple logical conclusions, and not get into broader scope or more interpretive things. please don’t take this the wrong way, op!)

most quotes are from the 7s official english translation, vol 2 Chapter 10: The Beguiling Boy, save a few at the end which are from EXR 86, Loyalty 8.

-> If Qin Su was going to commit suicide about the bad news, there would have been hints that this was the direction her thoughts were trending during the preceding scene, where we're introduced to her reactions. And there aren't.

-> Her primary reaction is anger.

“Qin Su had nothing left within her stomach to expel. She crouched on the ground on all fours, sobbing. ‘It’s true, you’ve treated me well… But I… I’d rather I’d never known you! No wonder that, ever since… That ever since, there was never… Rather than do that, you should’ve just killed me!’” (261)

hints of suicidality: she explicitly expresses a preference for death over living in an incestuous marriage. you could argue that it’s hyperbole, but. she DOES ultimately kill herself.

anger: one example, but she’s feeling a lot here—disgust, betrayal, sadness—not just anger.

-> She is contemptuous of his caring almost exclusively about what all these horrors could do to their reputation

-> There is nothing in the scene to suggest she would, given the opportunity to denounce him to the cultivation world, choose instead to escape by knife.

“‘…But if this gets out—you are my wife, what would others say? What would they think of you?’

Qin Su clutched her head. ‘Stop talking! Don’t say any more, stop reminding me!!’”(263)

denounce jgy: there is nothing in the scene to suggest she would want to denounce him to the cultivation world, because…

reputation: qin su is not contemptuous of his concerns. rather, she finds the prospect of others finding out too upsetting to think about. comes up later, but wwx theorizes that she knew that she would be subjected to contempt, mockery, and joy masquerading as false pity, and

wwx expresses contempt at jgy’s concern over hosting their guests (264) but not qin su.

-> The interpretation…that says she Just Did That really annoys me, because it requires ignoring basically every single piece of information about the character other than…Wei Wuxian always thought…she wasn't very bright

ignoring other information: such as? we know very little about her. you acknowledge yourself that she only has one scene, where she’s very clearly in incredible distress.

not very bright: wwx thinks she’s naive (260, 262), innocent (260), ignorant of the world (262), and “even a little foolish at times” (262), but not dumb. i dont know what that has to do with whether or not her suicide was her decision, though.

-> it would be out of character for Jin Guangyao to have knowingly arranged a situation likely to go so badly for him

going badly for him: see above; only if qin su threw herself upon the proverbial knife and spilled the beans, thus also damning herself, something she does not want to do.

paraphrasing the next part, because i had a really hard time parsing it:

->if Jin Guangyao had not been assured of Qin Su’s silence (her death), the sensible thing for him to do would be to make her Disappear, as he did nmj’s head, even if it meant killing her, and pin it on “Mo Xuanyu”

“He couldn’t possibly have moved Qin Su somewhere else in such a short period of time without anyone noticing.” (339)

it’s probably safe to assume either dead or alive. bodies are fairly large, and not terribly cooperative about moving.

killing her: qin su’s death at this point is to jgy’s detriment: the informant is the threat, not her. if he kills her, he will never find out who gave her the letter.

-> If Jin Guangyao had actual mind control powers he definitely would have used them a lot

this is true. his life would have been so much easier if he could control others’ minds. i think he deserves a little mind control. as a treat. unfortunately, the universe said no treats for a-yao.

->he used some technique or drug that would confuse her and suppress her cognition…

“…he moved next to Qin Su, carefully examining her profile. She was still alive and well. Although her expression was wooden, Wei Wuxian was certain there were no evil spells cast upon her, nor any strange poisons affecting her. Her mind was clear.” (340-341)

influenced: by wwx’s own judgement, she is in control of herself, and is not in any way impaired.

-> …then deliberately put 'cursed dagger that preys on your negative feelings and makes you kill yourself' within reach just before everyone entered

also later referred to as

-> evil dagger that [compels] you to kill yourself

here’s everything the book says about the dagger:

“The dagger emitted an eerie, frigid glint, roiling with a murderous aura.” (341)

“‘This dagger was the weapon of an assassin. It has killed countless people and is incomparably sharp. Take a look at the blade. Look closely. You’ll see the reflection is not your own, but sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes an elder. Each is a soul that died at the assassin’s hand. The blade is heavy with yin energy, so I added drapes to seal it off.’” (341)

which does not include anything about feeding off of resentment or other negative emotions, compulsions to violence, let alone making you kill yourself.

furthermore, wwx’s own conclusions are conflicting.

first:

“Qin Su stood by Jin Guangyao’s side, watching as he fiddled with the dagger. Suddenly, she snatched it from him! Her face started to twist and tremble. The others didn’t understand her expression, but Wei Wuxian, who had just spied on her dispute with Jin Guangyao, could easily read the pain, anger, and humiliation written there.” (342)

the pain, anger, and humiliation were too great.

next:

“Who could’ve imagined that Jin Guangyao wouldn’t just move the head in such a short period of time, but also do or say something that drove Qin Su to kill herself in public and seal her own lips?” (344)

jgy said or did something that drove her to it.

then:

“He immediately fabricated a slew of lies, talked Qin Su into suicide, then purposely cornered me to the lattice shelf where Suibian was stored to tempt me into pulling the sword and exposing my identity.” (348)

jgy talked her into it.

MUCH later:

Wei WuXian smiled, “But have you never thought what a blow it'd be to her after you told her? Or do you really not know? That it's because you went to tell Qin Su of the matter that she killed herself?” (EXR 86, Loyalty 8)

she couldn’t bear the revelation of her incest

and finally:

…“Qin Su was still too fragile."

…"Qin Su was so pitiful."

…"Back then I even envied her[…]But who knew? Tsk, tsk."

…"That's why these seemingly beautiful things are often full of holes beneath the surface. There's nothing to envy at all."

…Perhaps it's precisely because of these people who comment in joy masked as pity that Qin Su decided to take her own life. (EXR 86, Loyalty 8)

she couldn’t bear the humiliation of the public’s (inevitable) delight in her trauma.

uhhh ive spent way too long on this already and i don’t really know how to end it

to leave the text behind a little bit, i think the main, purely emotional reason i don’t like the “she was manipulated/forced/mind controlled/whatever” theory is that it denies her the last little bit of agency she could have had, and she gets so little of that anyway.

in the end, no one gets to make decisions for her anymore, and that was her decision—nobody else’s.

So re: Qin Su's death, one thing I'm absolutely certain of is that she did not just conveniently kill herself due to her high level of distress, at the exact moment most convenient to a person she was super mad at.

Because, frankly, mxtx is not that shitty a writer. She doesn't sweat the details or logistics of things, characters are allowed to coincidentally turn up in the right place to make the plot work and so forth, but these novels are intensely concerned with character motive and internal life. Everyone does things for their own reasons.

People do what the plot requires, but a defining feature of her writing is that everyone is fashioned into the shape of the kind of person who would do that thing in this situation. Sometimes whole scenes or subplots exist mainly to put on display the underlying cognitive patterns that justify as individual choices the kinds of things stock characters routinely do in genre novels, for no reason than that they are The Type Of Character who Does That.

If Qin Su was going to commit suicide about the bad news, there would have been hints that this was the direction her thoughts were trending during the preceding scene, where we're introduced to her reactions. And there aren't.

Her primary reaction is anger. She's scared to death when her husband paralyzes her and puts her on his dismemberment table to interrogate later for the name of her informant. She is contemptuous of his caring almost exclusively about what all these horrors could do to their reputation.

There is nothing in the scene to suggest she would, given the opportunity to denounce him to the cultivation world, choose instead to escape by knife.

The interpretation of this sequence that says she Just Did That really annoys me, because it requires ignoring basically every single piece of information about the character other than the fact that Wei Wuxian always thought since they were kids that she wasn't very bright.

Furthermore, it would be out of character for Jin Guangyao to have knowingly arranged a situation likely to go so badly for him, and wildly unusual for him to get so lucky if he had. This man has shit luck normally.

The sensible thing for him to do, in a universe where Qin Su just conveniently opted for suicide instead of ratting on him, would have been to take the ten to twenty minutes of prep time he had to work with to disappear her the same way he did nmj's head.

This might have required killing her first, since we don't know where he put it, but while I'm sure he didn't want to do that I'm equally sure he was entirely capable. He had a convenient scapegoat handy to blame for her disappearance.

He had no reason to allow her to be visible and capable of independent action when his cavalcade of guests arrived. But there she was, dazed but unrestrained. And then...cursed knife time.

Super convenient! She's dead and can't blab, and lots of important people saw her do it and saw how horrified he was and are disposed to be sympathetic. Works out much better for him than the risk of being blamed if she disappears.

So Wei Wuxian's assumption that jgy set the suicide up and compelled her somehow is the most logical inference. Neither of their characters is really compatible with the other scenario.

If Jin Guangyao had actual mind control powers he definitely would have used them a lot, so the most straightforward version of what happened is he used some technique or drug that would confuse her and suppress her cognition, then deliberately put 'cursed dagger that preys on your negative feelings and makes you kill yourself' within reach just before everyone entered.

I'm sure if it hadn't worked, and she'd just kind of stared into the distance while he talked his way out of the unproveable allegations and weaponized Mo Xuanyu's bad reputation and so forth, he'd have been happy with that outcome too, since it would still have meant a lot of important people saw her alive and not freaking out, and then he'd still have been able to torture her for information later. (Again, something I'm sure he didn't want to do, but absolutely would have.)

But this worked out well and got rid of two exposure threats at once while buying him sympathy points.

Although considering his shit luck, I wouldn't rule out that his plan only went as far as sedating her so she couldn't make trouble and he could show everyone how not paralyzed on his murder table she was, and he'd forgotten he had an evil dagger that compelled you to kill yourself lying around in reach of a woman whose ability to exert force of will he'd just reduced to nothing.

And he wasn't expecting that result at all.