To preface: this is not an attempt to persuade others. Nor is it a diatribe on how you’ll come around to hating him once you see it my way. It is an attempt to understand why I seem to dislike him automatically.

            It has been a very long time since I hated a fictional character as strongly as I hate Lán Xīchén.

            However, I hate Lán Xīchén to the point where I judge how in-character people manage to write him by how strongly I want to see him die, slowly and painfully. If a story in which he features prominently does not trigger those impulses, he is perforce not in character, because in both book and animation, I wanted to see him dead. I hated him and was creeped out by him in equal measure. Not for anything he did that I could point to, not for any line or single action, and it predated any notable inaction on his part, so it was hardly for things he had not done.

             He disturbed me, viscerally. I worried at him like a splinter under a fingernail, always poking at him, always trying to work him out, and always irritated by him.

             Now, I don’t much care for Míngjué, who is more interesting as the murder victim than as a character. I'm bored of Jiang Wǎnyín’s narrative archetype.  I skip any scene with Jīn Guāngshàn. Xuē Yáng? He exists. Jīn Guāngyáo? A well written villain. Su She? Boring. But I strongly dislike Xīchén in a way I could not ignore.

            Herein I set out to examine what it is, what roused in me this level of violent dislike for a character so seemingly innocuous, who is both solid and well written, a well rounded secondary character.

Overview

            Just who is Lán Xīchén?

           Lán Xīchén is a man with three people in life he might be called close to; the other members of the Triad, and his brother. Interesting, then, that none of them seem to have any friends; and that when we see him interact, he doesn’t seem actually aware of anything important to them. He encourages his little brother to go talk to someone he (little brother) is looking at, having been absent on business and quite possibly unaware of any prior interaction between the two. 

             He wields one friend’s bruises as a weapon against the other, when they are in dispute, so he is on some level aware of their lives.

            On other occasions, he makes polite motions which accomplish nothing for the people the motions are directed towards: Jīn Guāngyáo and Niè Míngjué are given similar treatment in this regard; his two friends who have no friends. His two friends who are unfriends themselves, interacting only on his terms, his two friends who he treats with an odd distance, and at times something I can only call disdain.

            Things flow to him. Very little is reciprocated. Xīchén keeps secrets— the identity of his informant— until someone he cares about is directly threatened by someone else he cares about. His secrets may be kept by choice, or out of simple forgetfulness; they still exist.

            In the larger scheme of things, Xīchén seems to come out clean, uninvolved, absolved by ignorance, and by his willingness to take steps once the murder of Míngjué was brought to his attention. But his ignorance is presented to us as stemming from a desire not to look, because he knows he won’t like what he sees — and thereby encourages each sworn brother’s destructive choices, while offering polite kindness and little substance.

            Let us examine at his account of his mother's past. I do not know. I do not want to know why she did what she did. In my memory, she was always kind.

            Look at his response to accusations aimed at his friend: I know that people have misconceptions about him, but I only trust what my eyes have seen.  In my eyes, he has always been kind.

            Those lines are if not the heart of everything, at least a large part of it.

             There are six key events I will draw up on here, six sequences where Xīchén’s presence is inarguable, and his actions and words speak for him.

Niè Míngjué and the Murder Accusation

The Swords on the Stairs - Placation vs mediation

The Xuē Yáng Dispute

The Deflected Apology – Clan Head Zewu-Jun

The Red Herring of Loyalty and Knowledge

The temple soliloquy

Conclusion

Niè Míngjué and the Murder Accusation

            In the Empathy sequence where the reader witnesses Míngjué informing Lán Xīchén about Mèng Yáo's treachery, this is Xīchén’s response to the accusation: Is there some kind of misunderstanding?

            The event in question is a difficult one to misunderstand; Míngjué came upon the murder as Mèng Yáo pulled the blade out of his victim and let him fall. Yet Xīchén wants it to be a misunderstanding. If he didn’t see it, it doesn’t count. And if he doesn’t want to see it, he’ll go out of his way not to. He’ll become selectively deaf to incriminating statements, even when they come from people he trusts.

            There comes a time where you can no longer say ‘but I meant well’ and ‘I didn’t know’, and Xīchén has long passed that point.

            Xīchén has potentially passed that point when Míngjué recounted to him in exacting detail every scrap of information he had of the scene he had witnessed— the scene where Mèng Yáo murdered one of his father’s men, planned to the tenth degree with malice aforethought; the timing, location, the stance Meng Yao employed and even the weapon he used were all carefully chosen to write his victim off as a casualty of war.

            When caught in the act he declared himself the wronged party. When Niè Míngjué would have exposed him, Mèng Yáo stabbed himself to get Míngjué within range, incapacitated his former commander via another stabbing, this time of Míngjué, and disappeared.

            Lán Xīchén’s response to hearing this account? As quoted above, he expects some form of misunderstanding to be at fault.

            He relayed the incident where Mèng Yáo committed murder, framed another, feigned death, and fled in its entirety to Lán Xīchén, who was also stunned to hear it.

            The man has a pattern of selectively editing his version of events to fit with what makes him the most comfortable. Fair enough, the human mind is fallible. Nevertheless, the extent to which he does this: edits out who struck first, or completely ignores the reactions of others in their entirety— well, it’s extraordinary.

            “I caught him red-handed. What misunderstanding can there be?”

            I am aware that Mèng Yáo saved his life, and that he owes him a huge debt, and that his sheltering of Mèng Yáo and believing the best of him is half fondness and half about that debt— and that he goes to those lengths is admirable.

            Yet — it is only Míngjué’s corpse walking that convinces him to consider looking in the present day. Because he can’t un-see this one. He saw it before he had time to close his eyes. And in having seen it, he must now know it, at least for a little while. Moreover, in knowing, he is now forced to think. Unable to hide in blissful ignorance; he is forced to acknowledge the evidence his eyes have shown him; at least long enough to find a way that his dear friend can be plausibly blameless so Xīchén can have his comfort back.

            I know that people have misconceptions about him, but I only trust what my eyes have seen. Remember that line; for it is at the heart of this.

            If he hasn’t seen it, it doesn’t count. Whatever anyone tells him, as long as he hasn’t seen it himself, it doesn’t have to count.

            It doesn’t matter if Mèng Yáo believes Míngjué really will kill him soon. Xīchén hasn’t seen it. It doesn’t count. Mèng Yáo just needs some reassurance.

            If Míngjué just finished telling him about how Mèng Yáo stabbed him, but Xīchén hasn’t seen it? It does not seem to count. Furthermore, so long as it runs contrary to what Xīchén is willing to have seen, he will not acknowledge it.

             Moreover, Xīchén won’t go out of his way to see it either, because then he might have to do something.

            This man hears an eyewitness account from someone he trusts, someone he’s known for years and dismisses it under the guise of misunderstanding. Then rephrases it, when pinned down, to: “Going by what he said, the man he killed was indeed at fault, but he really should not have killed him. It is hard to judge what is correct in such desperate times. I wonder where he is now.”

            The same man states, years later: “I know that some people have misconceptions about him, but I trust only what my eyes have seen.”

                     How is eyewitness to murder a misconception?

The Swords on the Stairs - Placation vs mediation

             Lán Xīchén comes on a scene where one of his friends is halfway down the stairs, looking disheveled and the other is at the top, weapon drawn. He imposes himself between them, draws his own sword, and says ‘what happened between the two of you this time.’ Less than two months later, he is utterly dismissive of Jīn Guāngyáo’s concerns that his life is at stake, having apparently forgotten the drawn blades on the stairs. Lán Xīchén is also a man in a position of power. If he took those concerns seriously, he is fully capable of arranging for one of his own men to play for Míngjué while Míngjué calmed down about Jīn Guāngyáo and the Xue Yang Affair.

            Instead Jīn Guāngyáo arrives soon afterwards to play for Míngjué, indicating that either he volunteered to play despite his earlier concerns, or Lán Xīchén did not even think of assigning someone else to play in the interim.

            What we know based on this:

            We know that Lán Xīchén is a man who came on one of his two friends threatening the other man’s life, who immediately drew his own steel and stood between them. A few days later, he’s telling the one who was, from his perspective at the time he arrived, the victim: “he’s always treasured your talent and hoped you would walk the right path.”... “His disposition is not what it once was. It is for the best if you do not provoke him again.”

            His staunchest defenders claim that he is impartial, he doesn’t let his bias stop him from investigating, that once given a reason, he takes steps!

            … but that’s not what impartiality means. Impartiality; acting without bias or special favor. Impartiality here might mean honoring his debt to Mèng Yáo, and actively stating that because of that debt he cannot take Míngjué’s part here, or mediate between them. He is not equitable here as the word is most often used: that would be to treat both sides exactly the same. Which, in a way, he does, though I doubt anyone he does it to recognizes it. He is certainly not objective; see above quotes. Most of all, he displays connivance.

Connivance: noun. : Willingness to secretly allow or be involved in wrongdoing, esp. an immoral or illegal act: this infringement of the law had taken place with the connivance of officials.  late 16th cent. (also in the Latin sense 'winking'): from French connivence or Latin conniventia, from connivere 'shut the eyes (to)' (see CONNIVE)

Connive:

1. : the act of conniving : intentional failure to notice or discover a wrongdoing : passive consent or cooperation
2. : corrupt or guilty assent to wrongdoing that involves knowledge of and failure to prevent or oppose it but no actual participation in it — compare ACCOMPLICE

Conniving: intransitive verb  

1. : to pretend ignorance or unawareness of something one ought morally or officially or legally to oppose : fail to take action against a known wrongdoing or misbehavior — usually used with at <~ at the violation of a law>
2. 2 a : to be indulgent, tolerant, or secretly in favor or sympathy

            Lán Xīchén has two friends, both estranged from one another. Xīchén wants them to all be friends again. He convinces them to swear brotherhood; to which they agree— and then he seems to assume that by putting them in the same room, having sworn a mutual brotherhood with him, they will get along again without any addressing of the grievances between them.

            This is not a mediator. He does not mediate. He does not diplomatically smooth affairs out between them. He does not negotiate. He does not counsel them through it, and help them find common ground. In the case of his two estranged friends, he effectively puts them in a room together and dusts his hands off.

            I suppose the idea that he is a mediator might have come from the passage where he tells Míngjué the news that a certain territory is no longer in enemy hands, and also his brother —his heir — has been having some dispute with the man who is the reason for that. His phrasing conveyed the put-upon manner of an aggrieved babysitter, declaring he has to go deal with this.

            I am left to wonder how exactly he dealt with it, given the example of his behavior regarding his two dear friends. His reputation would indicate certain things, yet we never witness them carried out on the page. He certainly doesn’t support one of his friends against anyone else— or mediate between them, for that matter— on the dispute over the notorious clan-massacring murderous guest disciple of Lanling: Xuē Yáng.

The Xuē Yáng Dispute

            Take note, that to support Míngjué in the dispute of Xuē Yáng, he would not have been acting against his dear friend, Jīn Guāngyáo— no, he would be supporting Niè Míngjué against Jīn Guāngshàn; who is not his friend. He is instead, remarkably absent from that entire affair. He is, in fact, so absent I thought for a time he must not have been there, that, like Chifeng-zun, he only attended for a brief while, or didn’t hear about the fuss in time to return and de-escalate it.

            However, he was present. This was a “Discussion Conference, where all the major sects were meeting to discuss cultivation and governance.” At this conference, partway through the Xuē Yáng dispute, Jīn Guāngyáo is noted to have hidden behind Lán Xīchén when his attempt to calm things down was rebuffed harshly by their other sworn brother. Lastly, we hear about the whole sorry affair from Wàngjī, who appears to have heard a firsthand account of it.

            Therefore, Xīchén was there, and we must we presume he is the one who told his little brother about it. Yet, despite being there, with no excuse to keep him out of the loop and no accusations of favoring one dear friend over another, Xīchén still is absent in any reference to the dispute itself.

            Niè Míngjué was the only voice demanding Xuē Yáng’s execution.

             The account is likewise clear that Jīn Guāngshàn stood alone, refusing to budge when it came to sentencing the mass murderer he had harbored; therefore, Xīchén did not support this man for the sake of Jīn Guāngyáo, his friend.

            The only reason I believe he was present, given the textual vacancy of him from the account, is that he is said to have stood as a physical buffer between his two friends when one’s attempt to calm the other went badly.

            At this time, backing Míngjué would not have put him into conflict with Jīn Guāngyáo, whom he seems to favor in the present; therefore, his absence from the narrative of the dispute is rather striking.

            From the gap his presence leaves, I can only infer that he did not speak.

The Deflected Apology – Clan Head Zewu-Jun

            Xīchén’s default interaction, as far as I can discern?  Smiling, kind words of placation which may calm matters temporarily, but never, ever address the topic under discussion. Not once. Not when people spell things out in detail for him. Never. Not when Míngjué tells him about the stabbing and treason. Not when Jīn Guāngyáo is trying to play him for sympathy against Míngjué either. Implicit by his absence from the summary of the Xuē Yáng case. Reflected in the Jīn Zixun and the wine sequence.

            Also reflected by his actions in the animated series when Mian Mian has walked out of the conference in protest to their behavior; he says essentially, ‘she’s gone. Settle down.’ Now having redirected them back to business— i.e., cursing the necromancer, he shuts up.

            Xīchén, in every scene that we know he participated in, manages to either utterly misjudge the topic at hand, or deliberately misinterpret it, never mind investigating anything. Either the man is an imbecile who doesn’t understand people in the slightest, or he’s shrewd enough to make sure people can’t figure out that he’s dodging their concerns when he has these conversations. Or he has a remarkable talent for knowing and not-knowing a thing simultaneously, until he is forced to pick one or the other, and dodges all concerns as a subconscious action learned in his youth, understanding people only so far as to know a rote pattern of interaction will garner certain responses. This is also possible.

            Earlier in the conference responding to the necromancer absconding with prisoners, (as seen in the animated series as I write this) he and his dear friends display about as much regard for a formal apology from Sect Leader Jiang as a gardener shows for the shrub he’s pruning; i.e. none at all. First Míngjué (the man supposedly fair, just, respected,  Xīchén's friend) jumps on Jiang Wǎnyín’s apology, squashing it, than Xīchén deflects him onto a tangent; a tangent which re-affirms the anti-Wen survivor narrative while showing zero regard for the young man in the same position both men were in not too long ago.

            I find this particular incident fascinating as a rare moment where we see him on the job, in public, as the face of his Clan. And for what it shows about him as a friend.

            In this scene, he watches Jīn Guāngyáo spin the scene the mood of the crowd to destroy a man’s life. He ensures that Niè Míngjué (A man who views any relative of his enemies as guilty to the extent that his rampaging revenant considers every living Jīn guilty of murdering him — Xīchén, his best friend, is unlikely to be ignorant of this) will shout down anyone who might even think of defending the hated Wen. Now, this might be read as an accident, and I am aware some consider it to be Xīchén trying to find out what the Wen siblings might have done to be worth helping.

            However, there is a problem with this assumption. We are informed in the ‘empathy with a severed head sequence’: that Lán Xīchén knows exactly what to say to get Míngjué to back off at any given time, and how his mind works. Lán Xīchén invokes Míngjué’s respect of debts to turn his anger aside from dear Jīn Guāngyáo. If he knows the man well enough to do this as a matter of course, which is how it is presented; then he also knew what saying ‘I’ve never heard of her causing any harm’ would evoke from Míngjué— instant condemnation that the rest of the crowd would happily agree with.

            And from this sole scene of him ‘on the job’ as it were, we learn these things:

• He’s skilled enough to deflect a scene before it can grow – or incredibly lucky
• He's capable enough at reading the mood of the crowd to shut down a topic that might lead to something uncomfortable happening
• He has zero respect for anyone else in a position of power,
• He values the comfort of his sworn brothers not only above the famously honest Wàngjī’s integrity—
• —but over the evidence of his own evidence of his own eyes and ears.

             Lán Xīchén was present for the scene during which Jīn Guāngshàn and Jīn Guāngyáo claim that Wei Wúxiàn announced he had no respect for Jiang Wǎnyín.

            Jiang Wǎnyín was not present.

            Lán Wàngjī, who was present for the conversation they are lying about, declares Wei Wúxiàn said none of those things. The crowd of people who were likewise present for that scene says nothing, waiting to see which party they should take the side of today. Jīn Guāngyáo twists his previous words to declare that the necromancer implied the things, rather than stated them, and it was all very confusing.

            And Xīchén, who was, himself, witness to the scene in question? He simply sits there smiling, saying nothing.

            Not in support of his family member.

            Not in support of his friend.

            Not to add his own honest testimony.

            He says nothing.

            Nothing at all.

            This does not require any kind of malice. This does, however, indicate a lack of investment or concern.

            Later, he praises Jīn Guāngyáo’s hard work in the aforementioned scene. Niè Míngjué scowls, denouncing the work for the trickery involved in it. Xīchén responds to this criticism of his friend, the man I see it claimed he is partial to, biased towards, favors, etc… by, once again, saying nothing.

The Red Herring of Loyalties and Knowledge

           I have seen the claim that Xīchén trusts Mèng Yáo as his brother trusts Wei Wúxiàn, and that, like his brother, he stands by his friend. Certainly, Xīchén himself equates the two.

           However, there is an issue with that— Xīchén trusts what he has seen Mèng Yáo do for him. This is a mild bias, based in personal benefit, and a very human error. Lán Wàngjī trusts what he has seen Wei Wúxiàn do for various third parties. This is also a bias, but one based less in personal benefit. It is not so easy to make.

           There are a few occasions where Lan Xīchén is called upon to demonstrate his trust in Jīn Guāngyáo on the page in before us. I shall examine them.

           First, the Sunshot Spy.

          I don’t know if he knew the man was a spy. The timeline of when and how he learned this is too unclear for me to place faith in. I have seen it claimed he knew the identity of his spy from day one. I have also read the book myself, and am left with ambiguity. His lines, as follows:

“Do you know who slipped us the Wen’s tactical maps in the last few engagements?’

“You” Niè Míngjué answered.

“I was merely passing them on,“ Lan Xīchén replied. “Do you know who the real source of that information was, all this time?’

           Two points of interest in this passage. First, Míngjué believed Xīchén responsible for the information — which implies that either Xīchén’s regular escort trips were, in fact, gathering intelligence himself and he was in charge of espionage — or that Mèng Yao sent to Xīchén, who passed it on to others, and allowed them to believe that he was the only party responsible for obtaining it,  thereby the one who should be credited for it.

           This might arise out of callousness, carelessness, or deliberate action — I have no way to know. Although, if I have to hazard a guess, Meng Yao, who once murdered a man for repeatedly taking his credit — among other things— probably doesn't know that Xīchén was given the credit for Meng Yao's work. This must remain in the realm of guesswork, both at motivation and knowledge.

           Nevertheless, I do find it interesting that Míngjué assigned Xīchén the credit for Mèng Yao’s information; and Xīchén only corrected him when it could save Mèng Yao’s life. I find it more interesting that Míngjué, his friend, does not seem to have known that Xīchén had a source.

           Second, the ambiguity of time. The above exchange could imply that Xīchén has known his spy’s identity for some time now, and kept it quiet to reduce risk to the man from enemy interception; or it could imply that he has only received anonymous messages for a while — and this morning’s missive read, in effect: ‘Clan Leader Wen dead. Chifeng-Zun unconscious and probably furious. Zewu-Jun, please retrieve him, Signed, Mèng Yao, your once-benefactor and anonymous informant.’

           Preceding the spy, his trust in Mèng Yao’s motive for murder was ‘misunderstanding’, not ‘if he killed the fellow, the victim deserved it because I know what motives Meng Yao to kill.’

           There is only one instance I can be certain he trusted Jīn Guāngyáo on the page, and it regards the one thing where Jīn Guāngyáo being ‘untrustworthy’ would— insofar as Xīchén knew— not carry any risk to anyone.

           If Jīn Guāngyáo were less than honest when playing healing music for Míngjué, then the only thing that could go wrong would be that he sabotaged the songs so they did less good. To interweave a tune that would deal out harm required knowing such a harmful tune; the text is quite clear that simply playing it wrong would not cause harm.

           Then, while Jīn Guāngyáo did in fact use it for harm, his methods employed a means Xīchén didn’t know he had.

           How much a demonstration of trust is it to hand a man something where mere incompetence or casual malice are both meaningless?

           There are a few more times he is called upon to prove his trust in Jīn Guāngyáo on the page. At The Swords on the Stairs, Jīn Guāngyáo makes himself plain that in his perception, Míngjué will kill him, should Míngjué snap again. Xīchén — as I observed in the relevant segment of this essay — remarks that without provocation, Míngjué is harmless.

           He therefore, demonstrably, does not trust Jīn Guāngyáo’s ability to assess a threat.

           He claims to trust Jīn Guāngyáo as his brother trusts ‘Master Wei.’ This is presented in the context of taking the words of their respective friends for truth, on nothing more than faith in the men’s character.  

           And I have yet to see him actually take anything important Jīn Guāngyáo says for truth.

           ‘But he helped Wàngjī hide Wei Wúxiàn at home, after the disaster at Jinlintai,’ is often the next argument. ‘Doesn’t that prove he’s willing to hear out all sides? Doesn't it prove he's loyal to his family?’

            Yes, he did. He helps to hide him, when Wàngjī is present, physically involved, and not likely to be argued with. He did not, so far as we know, volunteer to hide him, unasked. I may revise if I should acquire information from the pages of the book to the contrary.

            He did not care enough — or is not forward thinking enough — to volunteer shelter for his brother's companion in advance of their attending the conference. Lán Wàngjī and Wei Wúxiàn left Jinlintai before Lán Xīchén did; and after the affairs of that night, it is highly unlikely that Xīchén would have been able to leave immediately without arousing suspicion. He did not care enough to expose what his brother brought home either. Would selling out that The Second Jade brought The Necromancer home make Gusu Lán look bad? Does he care more about that than anything personal? I honestly can't tell; and we have no way to find out.

            It doesn’t matter if his little brother tells him the sentient revenant is harmless, Xīchén hasn’t seen it, it doesn’t count. Yet, from the timeframe, Xīchén still must have been the one to spread it — Less than three days after Wangji visited Yiling, the word is out and flying fast that Wei Wúxiàn raised a walking, talking dead man, and people are clamoring to serve him.

            The only possible source for this information to have traveled so far is Wangi. The only way it could have spread like this is if he told it to someone who likes to talk to others. And the only person he talks to who might spread it is Xīchén.

            Therefore, Xīchén, we may infer, spread the word, out of malice or ignorance, and treated his blood brother’s concerns the same way he treats those of his sworn brothers. I admit this one consists of more extrapolation than other entries, but it fits within his established behavior to date, and as I have very little to draw on featuring both brothers Lán in the same scene, even less of one turning to the other for any kind of advice or support, I am reduced to guessing.

            Now, let us forget the Wen Remnants.

            Forget that on a surface level he seems to consider Míngjué’s feelings more important than the question of lives; unless the life in question is that of Mèng Yáo.

            Forget the ongoing dispute among his defenders and detractors alike about how much he knew about the farmers sheltered on corpse hill.

            Forget that his little brother thought this man and the people he sheltered were worth committing treason for, to which Xīchén’s response is to approve his whipping for treason and authorize Lán attendance in the massacre of them all.

            Forget that he considers Wei Wúxiàn —who hardly asked Lán Wàngjī for help; a fact which Xīchén was witness to no less— to be the only person to blame in the treason scenario, and in fact reduces ‘Wei Wúxiàn fighting for his life against an army that included Xīchén’ down to ‘after you were done with the killing, you were all but spent.’

            Forget all that, because his action or inaction on the Wen and the necromancer is a red herring.

            Let us look at something that is not the Wen Remnants, something not connected to his little brother, something which is not the living reminder of the force everyone else waged a brutal, losing war against for a good few years. Forget that Xīchén actively hands his dear foe all the necessary ammunition to render his little brother helpless and impotent in the Guanyin Temple confrontation with that speech of his. Ignore the oft quibbled over ‘mistake’ or ‘transgression’ line.

            Forget all the usual points brought up by his detractors, and defended by his partisans.

            Let us examine what happened to the people who ostensibly murdered Jīn Rusong.

            Whether they were framed, if Jīn Guāngyáo killed his own son, or if he really was opposed by these people and they murdered his son — such a murder plot would have been the actions of a few.

            Yet, openly, in public knowledge such that Lán Wàngjī – who was not active at the time— can tell us later, that clan was exterminated. There are none left alive.

            Xīchén was not ignorant this time.

            Xīchén was aware of it. This one is public knowledge. There is no excuse of a long, bitter war. There is no argument to be made here that everyone who knew about the plot and did not oppose it is guilty by inaction, as Míngjué once claimed.

            There are no mitigating factors this time, nothing anyone could be hiding from him. And what we know of it is that Xīchén doesn’t seem at all rattled by being part of this. If he was part of this. Assuming, as the sworn brother and thereby the murdered child’s uncle, that he was part of this.

             If he was part of it, he looks ethically dubious. If he wasn’t part of it, he looks like a terrible friend.

            It is easy to assume he had no part in it. He rarely seems to have a part in anything at all, even when it has to do with his friends— or his family. If part of it, he too is complicit. And if not, unsupportive.

            In the end, it seems he is equitable and impartial. Even his closest friends cannot actually count on him for any meaningful support, only for platitudes that reveal he is not actually interested in hearing out their concerns.

            Connivance: to close one’s eyes, to feign ignorance, to allow or be involved in wrongdoing that one ought morally or legally to oppose. That is Lán Xīchén, by his own testimony, seeking his own easy comfort by deciding his friend has a good reason, over his own integrity and that of his familial values.

            I have seen a claim that he is a social person who has been fed a diet of poison by contact with Mèng Yáo, slowly isolated. I argue otherwise. If he has been poisoned by Mèng Yáo, he has also poisoned Jīn Guāngyáo, Lán Zhàn, and Niè Míngjué in their own turn, subtly driving away their connections and leaving them dependent on him, by his own terms, while he dismisses every concern they have.

            I am sure he does not think of it that way.

            I doubt he means to do it.

            He would still appear to be doing it.

The Temple Soliloquy

            Now let us at last examine his famous speech in Guanyin Temple— the one some refer to as encouraging Wéi Wúxiàn to confess his undying love.

            Other people provide Lán Xīchén with incentive to speak, either by prodding and dropping hints, or by asking direct questions. Nevertheless, Xīchén chooses his own words. I draw here on two or three parallel translations and fragments of translations, and in the interests of brevity, I shall refrain from giving the whole of it.

             During the Nightless Day, do you know many men you were against? Over three thousand men! Even if you were a miracle talent, how could you even hope to retreat full-bodied under those circumstances … went mad with bloodlust and rampaged, you were more dead than alive. Wàngjī was seriously injured during your madness, hardly better than you, leaning on Bichen to barely support himself... Yet despite this, upon seeing you limp away, swaying, he immediately followed suit. … I could only watch helplessly as Wàngjī, whose own spiritual energy was almost dried up, desperately limped after you and fly away on Bichen with you in tow."

            Let’s break that down, shall we?

1. We have an accusation.
   
   
2. We have a lie regarding the numbers present that day, (textually noted more than once to be less than three thousand).
   
   
3. We have a demeaning reduction of a battle for a man’s life to unprovoked slaughter.
   
   
4. We have evasion of the detail that he was witness to this because he was in the crowd that launched the attack, approving it, and the man he is addressing knows this.
   
   
5. An implication of his own blamelessness.
   
   
6. A statement that the third party; who is under discussion, was in terrible, pitiful shape at the hands of the accused.
   
   
7. An affirmation of witness (I watched helplessly).
   
   
8. A reiteration of how pitiful and crippled the third party was when he chose to act.
   
   
9. A reduction of the addressee to a meagre artifact, the cause of better men’s suffering.
   
   
10. A reminder of the third party’s pitiful state, while recounting how said third party did the addressee a favor, which he (the speaker) is somehow aware has not been paid back.

            Accusing, demeaning, blame-casting, shirking all acknowledgement that he was in any way culpable in the affair himself, and implying that Wei Wuxian owes ‘poor Wàngjī’ for hurting him, in a few sentences. Those sentences cover ten points of impressively slippery behavior. They also have a great deal in common with the way he once spoke about Jīn Guāngyáo to Nie Míngjué; emphasizing the debt of the other man’s pain and the effort he goes to regardless of pain for the sake of the addressee.

            There are two more passages of import. I give them below:

            All his life, Wàngjī had never gone against Uncle

.……………….

            Even so, upon hearing the news that you had died, he still dragged himself in that state, no matter what, to go to the charnel pits to see it for himself

 

11. Unless Xīchén only defines going against Uncle as active verbal defiance to the man’s face, this is another lie. Lán Xīchén claims this. Lán Xīchén, who speaks of how his younger brother never left their mother’s door. The same Lán Xīchén who Wàngjī recalls in a dream, saying: you should never tell uncle who gifted these to you to raise. Otherwise, he will flip and make you send them away no matter what. Perhaps his definition is limited to active verbal defiance to the man's face. I cannot say. Perhaps he has told himself this version long enough that he balives it.
    
12. Hearing the news that you had died is a passive statement. Not ‘that you were killed.’ Not ‘of the siege that killed you’. When he heard that you had died. This is not exactly a lie, insomuch as it is a passive erasing of himself from any sense of events. The only reason I remark on this one is that every translation I have had access to has been very consistent— Xīchén states ‘you had died’ or ‘your passing’ as if he’s talking about the turn of the season. Not at all like a man referring to anything human hands have any say in.
    But human hands did kill Wei Wúxiàn. And Xīchén, the sect leader, had the final say in Gusu Lán’s attendance. Yes, they did not do much, if we can believe the gossip of the first chapter, but they went. And here, in this man’s voice, it has become a passive statement. The active verbiage is reserved for aggressive reminders on the third party’s pitiful state of being.

            This is the soliloquy; the longest we have ever seen the man speak, the scene no one can forget he’s in. This is the moment when everything about him as a character has to hang together or fall apart. Now, the author is very consistent with her characters, and everything he does in it reflects every scene he’s had any meaningful role in to date.

            And in this speech, Lán Xīchén lies twice; pity-mongers for his brother in the manner he is accustomed to doing for his friend; appears to lose contact with the events everyone else is inhabiting; ignores that he’s a hostage; creatively edits an event he was present for to denounce the evidence of his own eyes and ears much the same as he has forfeited them in support of lies at the Deflected Apology; and erases his own hand in events for the third time.

            This is not the place for pity mongering, which would seem to be his priority. Has the man forgotten he’s a hostage?

            I think he has.

            He is not tied up; he has his weapons on him , and he is free to move around. He’s only outnumbered and powerless, which doesn’t really matter— it will wear off. He was even getting some air in the courtyard when people began to arrive.

            At the beginning of this scene, he was concerned for the nephew, and believed he must work to ensure his friend would spare the boy. Now he appears to have forgotten the boy's presence.

           Once again, it would seem, Xīchén has decided what is happening in the scene, and once again, the version he inhabits is completely divorced from the scene everyone else inhabits.

            This follows from earlier dialogues, every one of them encouraging on the surface, but filled with insinuations, odd dissonances and things that make the gaps between him and other people wider instead of narrower. All spoken innocently; each innocuous enough that no one can call him out for what he is doing. In fact, it has taken several revisits to the source material to be able to spot the details, rather than the general off-putting nature of it.

            Once, in the The Swords on the Stairs, his response to a friend of his being concerned about potential death consisted of: ‘You shouldn’t provoke him, his temper is bad.’ Now, in the hostage soliloquy, the only thing that appears to matter to him is where his brother was sleeping, and that the man he committed treason for receive the guilt he —the apparent culprit in Xīchén’s narrative behind the treason a decade past— is due.

            No wonder it’s so easy to assume he wasn’t in attendance for anything, despite the text saying he was present. When he talks, he actively erases himself from every event he was present for, and passively removes himself from the universe other people live in.

            Now where have we seen that kind of thing before? Well, we’ve seen some form or another of it in every scene containing him in any length.

            How ignorant is this man, really? And how much is he an active accomplice in the destruction of others?

            I don't think we can really answer that question. At the least, he’s a highly effective red-herring.

  Conclusion

            Who is this enigma of a smile, and what goes on inside his mind?

            What does he do? Who is he most like?

            I still don’t know. What I do know is that I’d hate to be his friend.

            I would not want a ‘best friend’ who tells me I should just tolerate the abuse his other friend pays to me, because; ‘I’m annoying, I should stop being provoking, then it’ll work out fine.’

           Nor would I consider anyone to be my best friend after they tried to ignore my eyewitness testimony of murder and betrayal, and then apparently forgot about the same conversation afterwards.

            Yes, I’m sure he means well — by some definition of well — and I think he is the book’s real master at tangling real feelings with false intentions.

            Did he deserve what he got? What are the consequences for the blameless, who aided by their inaction?

            And is Xīchén blameless, or culpable in multiple massacres and campaigns of genocide?

            He is not a good friend.

            He is not a loving family member.

            He may feel love for the versions of them that he believes he knows, but he does not show it to the people who actually look to him for support.

           Yes, I am aware of the small supportive act with Mèng Yáo and the tea, where he uses social pressure to shame other people in the room by his silent willingness to drink aforementioned tea.

            However, when it is set beside his absolute refusal to consider testimony at Míngjué and the Murder Accusation; his passivity regarding The Swords on the Stairs,; his silence during the Dispute of Xuē Yáng, and his habit of countering worries of immanent death with ‘don’t be provoking’, or ‘misunderstanding’, etc…

            Beside those, the maneuver of the tea —an action that required minimal effort— does not amount to much.

            In conclusion, I really don’t like the person named Lán Xīchén. Now I have a much better idea why.