See I don't necessarily disagree with what seems to be the primary reading that Yue Qingyuan's shifu fucked him over, caring nothing for his needs or preferences and only for whether he was useful. That makes sense, it ties into plenty of the generational and societal themes of the story. It fits.
But iirc we don't actually get enough information to know that's what happened.
And the thing is it would be so in-character and also thematically appropriate if Yue Qingyuan absolutely did not explain his goals or why he was working so hard, because it was private and shameful and he didn't expect any sympathy, and there was a high risk of losing everything if he blabbed.
And also if he engaged with the existing ruleset with which he was presented, i.e. 'can't go off on your own on personal business until you've mastered your sword,' in the most negative and controlling manner possible, as absolute commandments.
He's a different kind of guy but he comes from the same background as Shen Jiu! It fucked him up also!
He is very very very not a guy who trusts the system to make allowances for him--even once he has all the power he 'does what he wants' and 'makes selfish choices' as a conscious transgression; not something he has a right to do, just something he can get away with so he's gonna. (And ofc he spends almost all the latitude he grants himself on sqq.)
And even less is he a guy who opens up easily.
He isn't too proud to ask for help or pity, so much as he just doesn't expect to get any.
So in this interpretation, he understood that rule as a non-negotiable barrier in his path, the target to overcome, and focused all his considerable will and talent on overcoming it through the sphere of action he felt he had control over.
And fucked himself up bad.
Whereupon his teacher, possessing absolutely no context for this dumb shit their star pupil pulled, did the only thing they thought might work to save his life, paying in the process no attention to the raving of someone deep in a psychotic break.
Like, I feel like there should have been a better, kinder medical option, but I don't know for sure that there was, so I can't say with certainty this was the kind of cruelty that derives from not caring enough.
And it really would be kind of elegant and so typical of Yue Qingyuan's fundamental tragedy if the real mistake was 'not confiding in anybody' the whole time.
And he was just so deeply sunk into the understanding that explaining and asking were useless that, even looking back, it never really occurred to him that maybe his mistake wasn't 'fucking it up when trying too hard to solve everything on his own' but 'assuming there was no help to be had, and that he had to do it all on his own.'
Like. What if this really could all have been avoided if he'd just trusted and communicated with the adult in charge of him? But of course, of course his history of trauma (neglect, child abuse, exploitation, being the One Responsible for the younger kids whom he could not keep safe) meant he was absolutely not going to do that.
It was basically impossible. For the person he was, the person the world had made of him. And that's always been the core tragedy the whole novel circles back upon.
People can only ever be themselves, and so very often the elements of self that let them survive until now are that which dooms them, that means they need someone else to intervene if they're ever going to be saved. Because your personal doom is always the thing from which you can't save yourself.
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the gold saints ranked on if/how much they beat you if you're their wife:
Mu: he's against violence
Aldebaran: he doesn't and he's feminist
Saga: he beats you violently then regrets it
Kanon: he beats you when he's jealous
Death Mask: yes
Aiolia: no
Shaka: wich wife
Dohko: ofc not
Milo: he has done it once but now he's changed
Aiolios: he beats the other men that commit domestic violence
Shura: only in special situations
Camus: he prefers psychological violence
Aphrodite: gay
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