#the person in the epilogue is an illusion or a ghost or an afterimage

[qilingxiong]

it's been about three months since mysterious lotus casebook finished airing, and in reflecting on my initial reaction to the ending versus now, what's changed most for me during that time is that i'm far less concerned with whether the person we knew as li lianhua is physically alive or dead. he could be in either state. i don't know which, and i don't find it as interesting to choose one over revelling in ambiguity. what's more important to my personal reading of canon now is that li lianhua, as a persona and a mask, no longer exists.

like li xiangyi, although the man might still carry breath, li lianhua is dead in the eyes of the narrative. that phase of life— the life assigned to someone who tried not to be or want more than a ghost— is over. if you choose to believe that the person standing on the beach in the epilogue truly exists in the flesh, there to reunite with fang duobing and di feisheng? in my opinion, that's not li lianhua. he's someone new with a different name, freed of past chains. the man who wears his face may yet live, but if he cannot completely shake loose the expectations people placed on the past versions of him, then no one including himself can move on.

li lianhua must be dead by the end of the story.