#being serious about the war and avenging the dead family and navigating trauma is definitely not being uptight

[symphonyofsilence]

Among the heirs of the great sects, Jiang Cheng is the most balanced one. LWJ is too rigid (and frankly a very unfortunate diplomat), NHS only fucks around, JZX is...well,...JZX. Jiang Cheng, on the other hand, is responsible, serious when it comes to his sect and duties, very competent, good with politics (better than both his parents), has a strategic mind, is respectful to the people of other sects, and is a good representative for his sect, but at the same time when he's not being "a representative for his sect" and is among friends and family, he smuggles drinks to CR and gets drunk with NHS & WWX, he sneaks out of CR and goes to the nearby restaurant, he keeps bantering with WWX while at the same time being an accomplice in all his shenanigans and getting in trouble with him, he runs away from his mother along with his shixiong and their shidi into a boat and starts fighting with WWX in the waters where everyone cheers them on and they steal lotus seeds from a poor farmer.

He was really being a teenage boy before the war took that away from him. And even then this bad boy was totally okay with WWX's dark magic stuff and the black clouds and crows and rotten resentful corpses that followed WWX around.