#and wkx basically doing his best to demonstrate I AM TRUSTWORTHY and projecting that as hard as possible at axu

[seffjatur]

rewatching shl and thinking about that riverside scene in ep 6 right now, spoilers in the paragraphs head so slide on by idk how to read more on mobile

first of all, bc of the way they paralleled the fight scene in the bonus episode, im assuming this is narratively the moment when a-xu and wkx go from acquaintances to actually people in some form of relationship (friends, for a-xu, and man and person he's pining for in wkx's case)

so: i read somewhere that someone felt disappointed that the face reveal was unintended on a-xu's part, but i beg to differ. with the way he fell into the water, and we literally get a shot of wkx checking the faraway bank to see if a-xu surfaces there to make a quick getaway, i'd argue that a-xu deliberately made the choice to fall into the water

with his skills at qinggong, i doubt he didn't have a way to avoid falling in, if he wanted to, and even if it was unavoidable, we see that even wkx thought of the alternative which is to swim away and escape. with tian chuang's be unseen, be unnoticed motto, i doubt the ex-leader would've conveniently forgotten that this was an option, if he really didnt want wkx to see his true appearance

i present my theory of what a-xu intended. we know four seasons manor had the best techniques for disguise, wkx says he can't see any gaps in a-xu's disguise and beauty ghost liu qianqiao who is infamous for her disguises learnt from four seasons manor. so if the four seasons manor technique still doesn't hold up to water, i doubt any other technique could.

why did a-xu linger in the water if he wasn't trying to swim to the shore and escape unseen? he wanted to see if wkx would 1) panic, 2) dive in after him, and 3) it would wash away any disguise that wkx has. till now, and even afterwards, a-xu hasn't puzzled out wkx's "true identity" and he assumes that wkx is also disguising himself (from his dialogue and also his internal monologues).

literally the ep 6 river scene was a-xu's version of a trust fall. he set up a whole ass scenario to lure wkx into diving into the water after him, presumably risking his own true appearance to check on wkx's true appearance. once wkx is willing to dive in, it cements a-xu's tentative trust in him. his character is much more open and willing to play along with wkx now that he knows they're both not hiding their true appearances, at least.

this, coupled with the conversation they had on the shore before the river fight, where wkx insists that he's not lying about his true face, demonstrated to a-xu that this man can be trusted with his words. and tbh it's not like a 100% trust sort of thing, a-xu continues to be a little guarded for a while more, but this was a huge transition in their rls with each other.

and i really love it.

#b roll #shl lb #i think the first significant turnpoint for me was outside the inn vs the beggars gang #when axu chooses to entrust chengling to wkx while he fights off the beggars #its a relatively low stakes act of trust and it was probably begrudging but it was still also an act of trust #and then from that moment on i think basically all their interactions are of axu tentatively testing wkx out #and wkx basically doing his best to demonstrate I AM TRUSTWORTHY and projecting that as hard as possible at axu #frick i love this scriptwriter #kowalski analysis