#to the point where when wen xiao Found Out It Was Her (? shige?) i was like wtf why is he crying

[i-cast-zone-of-truth]

idk guys like zhao yuanzhou trolling zhuo yichen and wen xiao and everyone is funny and for sure he is just doing it for fun sometimes and to create safe distance other times but definitely a good chunk of the time he is genuinely like being vulnerable or trying to connect and being met with of course skepticism or some other refusal and then haha of course he was acting, he was just messing with them. Like he makes things jokes that didn’t start out as jokes. Right? Like even on day 1 when he was generally trying to be sinister and confusing like he was so happy to see wen xiao as happy as he could be about anything in that headspace anyway and really tried to tell her about his promise to protect the wilderness and then even after she scoffed and he decided to make it a joke, the “if even you don’t believe me—“ that part too came from something real, that is a real desperation that he is tamping down, and i think so many times pre-ep-17 wen xiao or zhuo yichen giving him that look, like ‘wait that seemed maybe real, or is he fucking with me again’ it’s not just because they’re naive, he’s really not so much more worldly than they are, i think it’s because they feel or see for a second that this isn’t a joke, and then either they decide no it cant be real that would be too— (too sad, too absurd, too much right now) or he decides first and either way haha what a good actor what a tricky demon. Can’t believe he got me again!