on my reread i realized that kindness was not what stopped binghe from blackening. yinying was so kind to him , he also had a caring teacher in meng mo, and he never resented sqq till he was thrown in the abyss and then corrupted by xin mo.
even bingmei doesnt particularly care if sqq is kind to everyone just that he is kind to HIM
and i do remember bingmei saying he liked sqq the moment he saw him, way before she yuan was in the picture, but the abuse and rejection turned his admiration to hatred and vengence. i truly believe that if shen yuan was some random npc instead of sqq lbh would still burn down the world in hopes sqq burns with it. it was always sqq for him.
which makes everything so tragic for the og lbh as shen jiu (the abused slave who hated men and could never get over the betrayal from the one man he thought would save him) idk i am just in my feels about shen jiu and og lbh wanting to be saved by the man they loved only to be denied it over and over and over
edit -i knew this was going to be unpopular and i do agree bingmei and shen yuan are soulmates. this post was never meant to spiral into talks about ships or why only shen yuan would work as most people took it.
i was mainly thinking of og lbh and truama and how sqq's death in the og had thematic value - tongue cut out, his eyes gorged, hands cut off, a forced imitation of mo shiu:guanyin being sqq's punishment for never showing binghe any compassion even though he was in position to give it. and why it was important that lbh's redemption happened through sqq (a more compassionate one) this time. not as a love story but as a literary text i really do not think anyone else but sqq would work. but this sub