lan xichen and jin guangyao's friendship was born of war, but they sustained it with gossip. their late-night discussions were a pressure valve, a chance for jgy to be briefly, limitedly honest, a chance for lxc to step out of being sect leader lan for a few hours.

lxc rarely gets to be mean! day and night, he has to be serious, restrained, limited, dignified. it's a measure of how much he trusts jgy that he's willing to complain to him, willing to trust him with all the uncharitable comments he usually keeps to himself.

it's the closest he comes to being cruel & jgy thinks it's charming. lxc treats cracking a mean joke like a guilty indulgence, one he can't get enough of. late at night, when the servants are out of hearing range, he's said some things that made jgy burst into shocked laughter.

after jgy dies, lxc still has those bitter thoughts, those observations, those feelings, but now there's no one to share them with. they pile up inside of him with all the other grievances. eventually, they start to leak out.

it turns out, it's so easy to unsettle people. no one knows what to say to lxc, how to interface with the crushing grief that haunts his every step. that's fine. he doesn't want to make it easier for them to speak with him. he wants to be left alone.

post-canon lan xichen is a man whose only amusement is in bitter jokes, jokes for himself and the ghost over his shoulder, comments that hide the larger, more bitter words he'll never share.

and then jgy comes back. #xiyao