#who's hat guy (if he's not fountain boy and/or liu min's bro); lu guang's entire deal (tied in to age probably but);

[muninnhuginn]

thought I'd compile a list of some of the current dangling threads we have in link click. specifically, going to ignore the ones that others have gone into detail exploring and just bring up the ones that haven't gotten as much attention but will almost certainly be relevant.

the missing files on the seventh victim of the serial murders from season one. emma was noted as 'victim one' in the files and there were eight in total. if these killings were done by red eyes then all we know of the victim profiles is that they're not seen to be 'innocent' in the culprit's eyes (ofc, we can only speculate what that means, but I'm currently gunning on it being some form of bystander to crime just going by themes*/what we know of emma/the fact the police struggled to find a uniting motive) and there's no set age/gender being specifically targeted. the killer's methods are said to be 'meticulous' (big qian jin vibes there ngl even if the motive part of it doesn't seem to obviously align). anyway, missing files implies an inside job and timing-wise it's unclear if that means qian jin or if chen bin was somehow involved. chen bin apparently was the last to handle the files before passing them to xiao li, but at the same time he doesn't react in a particularly guilty manner when xiao li asks of the missing file. meanwhile, qian jin would have left the force before these killings started but I'm sure he still had plenty of connections left in the force. either way, the seventh victim has been hidden for a reason. knowing what was in that file should lead to a breakthrough of some sort.

liu min's younger brother mentioned in the first two episodes of season two. said to be the more favoured of the two siblings and hasn't yet officially entered the game, but just from law of conservation of detail I think he is going to be a player because why even bring him up when liu min is already dead.

li tianxi's mutism and subsequent abilities of speech as a teenager. the mutism and later explanation are both such deliberate details to include. I don't know for sure what the answer is, but I do think the idea of tianchen or someone else possessing tianxi is a possibility given we know that possession overrides certain physical traits. cxs even explicitly confirmed that this would include mutism when he spoke as tianxi in his dive. it could also be that tianchen is literally dressed as tianxi and is using the mask to help disguise this fact. or tianxi could be tianxi. but whatever the case, I do think the mutism is a relevant point to return to. (also, in s2e4 it looks like the sibling with the messy fringe (tianchen?) doesn't speak. unsure if this is to hide that there were multiples and we just didn't hear the speech but ig it does add to the option that tianchen and tianxi have swapped bodies entirely)

fountain boy. I know I said I'd avoid the stuff that's already been explored but this is such an obvious thing that *will* come back. my intuition says that the fact they picked such an adult sounding voice actor means the character hasn't yet been formally introduced and will appear later (and so opens up the possibilities of hat guy/liu min's brother etc) but that's purely on a meta level. within the story itself it could be almost any male character sans cheng xiaoshi.

Liu Min's phone, taken by Li Tianchen(? - going by the fringe but not confident of this) without Qian Jin's oversight. Does this mean Tianxi is working with Qian Jin whilst Tianchen is double-crossing? Either way, these three are not all in it together. They have some shared motives but ultimately their own agendas.

*themes here meaning qiao ling's big regret re: doudou was that she saw someone leave with him and said nothing. emma's only 'crime' was that she knew of the financial irregularities but didn't speak up. li tianchen saying about people pretending to be nice but secretly are jerks are the worst. my other idea is 'people the law won't punish' because qian jin's backstory (vigilante justice type deal also kinda fitting the themes) especially as the murderer who killed his wife later 'committed suicide' and it was mentioned that several of the meticulous killings were initially mistaken for suicides. anyway, I'll fully admit I'm running on vibes for this as speculation and am fully open to there being another theme tying together the victims.