#every day I am haunted by the ramifications of CQL’s adaptation changes

[poorlittleyaoyao]

re: NHS’s vengeance plan (or lack thereof), and how he’s sabotaging his own sect with exaggerated incompetence purely on the grounds of “this will inconvenience JGY and also reduce expectations for me, so if one day I do take action, hypothetically, he won’t see me coming!” since he has no proof of wrongdoing for years…

This choice is arguably MORE deranged in CQL canon, because my least favorite scene of Fatal Journey establishes that he does have proof that JGY killed his brother! He knows that the song JGY taught him wasn’t Cleansing! And since it’s CQL canon, where Turmoil is an obviously different tune and NMJ simply doesn’t know what music is, NHS could have just played Turmoil within earshot of any Lan and raised eyebrows.

(“Why do you know that song, Nie-zongzhu?”

“ohhhhh yes I know this is a secret Lan technique but we were all trying so hard to help poor Da-ge so San-ge taught this to me 🥺”

“You PLAYED this for him?”

“yes I did my very best to play Cleansing but it just wasn’t good enough! 🥺”

“Nie-zongzhu, this isn’t Cleansing. You shouldn’t even know this song.”

“Whaaaaaat??? 🤯 but San-ge said!!!! 🥺”)

And sure, maybe he suspects LXC as an accompliance for that very reason! But is he going to distrust ALL of the Lan? Someone would go and check the Forbidden Library and find those score pages missing.

So CQL NHS is out here with concrete proof that something weird happened there, and decides to still spend more than a decade being bad at his job on purpose so he can… gather evidence that he already has.

(And then if you REALLY lean into CQL peculiarities, NMJ isn’t a rampaging fierce corpse who had to be suppressed via dismemberment; they confusingly say that he “went missing” after his qi deviation, so the discovery of his corpse in Yi City is the first concrete proof that he’s actually dead. It’d make complete sense for NHS to cry and wail that da-ge isn’t REALLY dead, you can’t make him believe that, where is your proof? etc etc, so it’s CRUEL of you to expect him to take the rulership that rightfully belongs to his brother! He could’ve refused to take the title and put someone else in charge of sect business! Or he could have actually done a decent job (albeit in a way that was super compliant with whatever Jinlintai wants) on the stated grounds that he doesn’t want his brother to be mad at him “when he gets back,” which will have everyone doubting his faculties but in a much more sympathetic light than they do when they just think he’s incompetent. What are you doing, CQL Huaisang! You are an enigma!)