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Theory explaining Ruan Nanzhu's attitude towards Zhuang Rujiao

What happened between the Human Skin Drum arc and Sako/Zuozi arc (episodes 10 - 12), inspired by this post: https://www.tumblr.com/lonelylonelyghost/754097337279954944/re-watch-of-the-spirealm-episode-14

To preface, Ruan Nanzhu's behaviour towards Zhuang Rujiao is quite interesting. She was neither a competitor for Lin Qiushi's attention like Xu Jin nor hostile towards Lin Qiushi in any way. She maintains a neutrally positive attitude towards Lin Qiushi. So there isn't a clear reason why Ruan Nanzhu was "bullying" her (in Lin Qiushi's words).

Of course, the obvious reasons are as follows:

Ruan Nanzhu's "training" her (lol)

Motivating Li Dongyuan

Ruan Nanzhu's mocking her sajiao

Censorship-safe flirting with Lin Qiushi

But I headcannon another reason after rewatching it again and overthinking.

First off, a general timeline of events:

Lin Qiushi has been attacked by the door god('s sister. I think they are both door gods?) and comes out of the door with a concussion

Zhuang Rujiao joins Obsidian as a spy who failed her mission before she even joined.

Lin Qiushi unconscious. When he wakes up, he is visited by Ruan Nanzhu (who tells him he had plans) then Cheng Qianli (who tells him someone new joined while he was unconscious)

Zhuang Rujiao and Ruan Nanzhu go through many doors.

Ruan Nanzhu tells Lin Qiushi "7 days", which Chen Fei reiterates "6 days" the day after during the hospital visit.

Zhuang Rujiao ends up in the hospital after a door then leaves Obsidian with the fake box of clues after her release.

So, what happened while Lin Qiushi was unconscious?

The drama has condensed much of the passage of time compared to the drama. First off, Lin Qiushi was sent to the hospital for a month. Cheng Qianli doesn't speak of a new person joining, instead he says that White Deer has been investigating them. The new person only "joins" after Lin Qiushi has been discharged. Therefore, we will ignore the novel's timeframe.

Let's also assume there are no continuity errors that happened due to the adaptation condensing the above events.

This is what we know concerning new people and Zhuang Rujiao's circumstances:

You can't join Obsidian before your first door

Zhuang Rujiao must have either met Ruan Nanzhu while in the door or contacted him afterwards via the forum.

Ruan Nanzhu helped her with her 2nd door and then officially brought her to Obsidian

However, she was known to Cheng Qianli before she was officially a member. He even complains how Ruan Nanzhu has been only bringing her into doors on her first day in Obsidian

Therefore, Ruan Nanzhu must have learned about Zhuang Rujiao before Lin Qiushi was awake and put her on Obsidian's radar. Then, shortly after Lin Qiushi wakes up, Ruan Nanzhu completes the 2nd door with her. But Cheng Qianli implied that he brought her through more than one door.

So Ruan Nanzhu must have entered a door with Zhuang Rujiao before Lin Qiushi woke up.

This is my headcannon. Ruan Nanzhu, while worried sick over Lin Qiushi, learns that White Deer has been investigating them and is forced to leave his bedside to receive the spy.

It gets even better.

During the hospital visit, Chen Fei tells Lin Qiushi that he has to hide his medical abilities from outsiders, hence why they sent Zhuang Rujiao to the hospital but didn't send Ruan Nanzhu. In the drama, Lin Qiushi was also not sent to the hospital, which means that Chen Fei was the one to take care of him too. So perhaps…

Ruan Nanzhu purposefully falls for the White Deer spy so that they won't realize Chen Fei's abilities while Lin Qiushi is in his care. White Deer also has no idea that Lin Qiushi has been injured in the Human Skin Drum door.

So poor Zhuang Rujiao was stuck doing a task she didn't really want to do in the first place at the worst possible moment, making her the target of all of Ruan Nanzhu's ire and death glares. (He looked like he wanted to murder her with the apple in the hospital 😂)

Furthermore, since doors usually take several days to complete and Ruan Nanzhu most definitely planned for Lin Qiushi to go through some of them with him, Ruan Nanzhu was probably thinking/worrying over Lin Qiushi while on babysitting duty and just doing whatever he could to make her crack as fast as possible. 7 days was his deadline before he actually snapped. Good thing she escaped before then.