One of the things I like about 2ha is that it explores POV bias/protagonist bias. Mo Ran is an incredibly biased protagonist, and this is especially the case for Taxian-Jun.

You can't read 2ha and accept what the characters say at face value. If you accepted what Chu Wanning said at face value, then you'd really think he's an emotionless, heartless person. But the novel delves into his mindset and interior world, so we see what he's really feeling.

Ironically, though, Mo Ran does accept what Chu Wanning says to him at face value, and Chu Wanning doesn't reconcile/restore with him when things go downhill, and so Mo Ran ends up mistakenly thinking of Chu Wanning in that way.

Chu Wanning also takes Mo Ran's roguish actions at face value (plucking the flower, visiting prostitutes and other debauchery, etc). So when he says that Mo Ran is "deficient by nature, beyond remedy", he doesn't consider that Mo Ran has a very real reason to fear rejection.

And that's because he's unaware of Mo Ran's traumatizing past and what Mo Ran survived prior to coming to Sisheng Peak. Mo Ran too is unaware of how Chu Wanning was raised by Master Huaizi and how that training contributed to Chu Wanning's temper and thin-faced expression.

If we take the flower plucking/whipping/wonton incident as a microcosmic example of all the things that went wrong with 0.5 ranwan and why their relationship was doomed, we see that both of them took the other's actions at face value, didn't communicate, and made assumptions.

Chu Wanning used a harsh and extremely disproportionate punishment (whipping) for Mo Ran plucking the flower because he didn't see it from Mo Ran's perspective (as an act of love), he saw it as a selfish moment of rule-breaking. And then, ashamed of his actions, Chu Wanning

didn't take the brave step to own up to his mistake and reconcile with him and take credit for the wontons he cooked. Mo Ran, on the other hand, had no idea that Chu Wanning was trained by Huaizi in a certain way and that was why he did what he did. Nor did he know who truly

cooked the wontons, and so after that incident, he actively refused to step into Chu Wanning's shoes and see things from his perspective. This initiated the domino effect that made their relationship deteriorate so spectacularly.

Both Mo Ran and Chu Wanning are biased protagonists who are biased about themselves and biased in the way they see each other. Meatbun takes a long, careful time unraveling those biases, which helps Ranwan 2.0 fall in love in a healthy, proper way.

Mo Ran 1.0, for example, reflects on Chu Wanning's actions. Where in the 0.5 lifetime he thought of Chu Wanning refusing to let his disciples enter a situation first was an act of arrogance, in the 1.0 lifetime he realized that it was Chu Wanning being selfless and protective.

In the 0.5 lifetime, he thought Chu Wanning made himself out to be a god above men. In the 1.0 lifetime, he realized that Chu Wanning is always alone because he's thin-faced and struggles to interact with others, making him pitifully lonely.

In the 0.5 lifetime, Mo Ran as a teenager was terrified (naturally) by Chu Wanning, because of the whipping incident, and thought of Chu Wanning as invincible and hard to defeat. In the 1.0 lifetime, Mo Ran realized that Chu Wanning is bad at taking care of himself.

And of course Mo Ran learning that his shizun sacrificed himself for him, and then learning the truth about the wontons, is like being slapped in the face with bias shattering twice. His shizun has always loved him, always, even when he didn't deserve it.

Chu Wanning learns that Mo Ran is not "deficient by nature, beyond remedy", but that Taxian-Jun became the way he was because of 1) poverty and trauma, 2) lack of communication, processing of trauma, and reconciliation, and 3) TXJ choosing to take on the fl*wer of h*tred.

He learns that Mo Ran's roguishness and debauchery is just a cover for his insecurities, his traumas, and his abject fear of rejection (from family, from the cultivation world, from Chu Wanning himself).

Chu Wanning 0.5 previously fought against TXJ and even fought to kill him. In the 2.0 lifetime, the reason Chu Wanning can say "two lifetimes belong to you" and that he submits to/loves/would die for both TXJ and Mo-Zongshi instead fo just Mo-Zongshi is that he learns why TXJ

is the way he is and why he does the things he does, he learns of TXJ's sacrifice, and he's able to contextualize allo of TXJ's actions once he learns the truth about Mo Ran's past as well as the curse and HBN's role in causing these problems.

Okay, so we get it: we've established that our protagonists have very biased viewpoints, and that we can't take what they say at face value, that Meatbun expands on their feelings, thoughts, and actions to show us that we have to take their words with a grain of salt. So what?

The "so what" is that I want people to understand that even though TXJ and 1.0 said horrible and awful things to and about CWN that they don't actually hate CWN. In fact, they said those things because of their twisted love for CWN.

TXJ saying "I hate you, CWN, I will destroy you, you are nothing to me" doesn't mean that TXJ actually hates him. TXJ is the one character you can never take at face value because he's always lying to himself and can't own up to his own feelings.

We see that comically in Mo Ran 1.0's actions at Jin Cheng Lake, when he's trying to open the chest that contains jiangui and he's told that only the love of his life can open it. CWN, the love of his life, does open it, but Mo Ran denies the significance of that act vehemently.

And it's not just because TXJ is dumb, it's that he's so, so, so good at deluding himself and at being in denial. He's convinced himself that he hates CWN/loves Shi Mei/that CWN is responsible for everything that went wrong in his life (and the curse exacerbated this)

but just because HE has convinced himself (and CWN) these things doesn't mean that we the READER should be convinced. TXJ says one thing but means another. He says that he hates CWN.... and yet all signs indicate otherwise.

If he hates CWN, why does his voice become softer, intimate, more gentle and full of yearning when he addresses him? Why does he call him Wanning? Why does he have him chained and trapped by his side? Why does he force CWN to become his husband and concubine?

Why does he feel so hurt that CWN was willing to protect Xue Meng in spite of Xue Meng and Mei Hanxue attempting to assassinate him? Why does he painstakingly take care of CWN when he gets sick or injured? Why does he have the SQT's servant and later SQT herself executed

for hurting/torturing/maiming CWN? Why does he bury his face in CWN's neck to calm himself after a day of bloodshed and rage? Why is CWN's scent the only thing that can keep him sane at the end of his life? Why does he refuse to allow CWN to die?

Why does he get so angry when CWN tells him to forgive himself and when CWN blames himself for what happens to him? Why does he refuse to accept CWN's death and keeps his body preserved in Red Lotus Pavilion? Why does he commit suicide soon after CWN's death?

Why does he think his life is over, meaningless, once CWN dies, that he's "lost the last flame of his life"? Why is he so obsessed with CWN, to the point of wanting to possess him, etch himself permanently into CWN's bones, mark him with the cinnabar earring?

Why did he take upon the curse of the flower in his place? Why, when he comes back as a fierce corpse, does he protect CWN from HBN's attempted rape? Why does he tell HBN "that person in the bed is mine"?

He's always loved Chu Wanning. Chu Wanning is the love of Taxian-Jun's life, the one person who loved him unconditionally even after he became evil, the person who gave his life meaning, purpose, clarity, joy, vivacity, a reason to keep going.

You can't read TXJ's words and take them as a stated fact of intent, emotion, or motivation. TXJ is always, always lying to himself and to others, and Meatbun repeatedly shows us that through his actions and his feelings.

And so I started this thread by pointing out that our protagonists have biased viewpoints because one of the main reasons their relationship deteriorated in the first lifetime was lack of mutual understanding and communication. So they have to do a lot of work to understand

both themselves and each other, in order to move past the first lifetime. The main point I'm making is that even if you're shocked and horrified by TXJ's actions, "did TXJ ever really love CWN" isn't a question you should be asking: he did, he does, and will always love him.

What's tragic about 0.5 ranwan is that 0.5 TXJ raped, abused, forcefully married, tortured, and hurt CWN not because he hates him but because he loves him. Sometimes, people who love you can hurt you in the most brutal ways because they have the power to do so.

That's the tragedy of 0.5 ranwan, which is addressed in the 1.0 and 2.0 lifetimes, as we see, and it's the job of the author to provide that gradual re-learning and reconciliation and the job of the reader to sort through the POV bias and strike the truth hidden inside.