Jin Zixuan Meta

 CW: mention of shit Jin Guangshan gets up to.

MDZS says Jin Zixuan had the hardest time at Wen indoctrination of all the young people, because he'd been so coddled by his parents. Translation renders that statement’s meaning somewhat ambiguous: was Zixuan personally indulged, or simply rich? I don’t know that CQL’s Jin Zixuan comes off as coddled, per se. Arguably, he was sheltered (but only arguably). Zixuan’s mother is interested in his well-being as a person, at least where Yanli is concerned, and she seems to mourn him deeply. But is his father particularly interested in Zixuan, other than as an heir? Even directly after Jin Zixuan’s death, we don’t see Jin Guangshan personally discomfited. 

Snooty and awkward, CQL Jin Zixuan’s only actual friend seems to be Mianmian. Does he perhaps think everyone else around him is ‘fake’, a la Holden Caulfield, and only interested in his influence and money? Perhaps the is a reasonable conclusion for someone raised in Koi Tower to come to. When Jiang Yanli makes him soup, Zixuan immediately concludes that the whole thing is a ploy. Someone with a drop of real self-esteem might arrive at the simpler and more flattering notion that a girl likes him. Zixuan’s suspicion is especially odd because while Jiang is discomfited when the event happens, Yanli is the sole daughter of another great sect. She has no real reason to aspire to Jin Zixuan’s station. Additionally, Yanli is not especially personally ambitious: the material advantages that have rendered Jin Zixuan officially more eligible even than her brothers are of limited interest to her. 

Jin Zixuan disdains Jiang Yanli for being relatively plain, and not a particularly strong cultivator. But what would he even do with a strong cultivator? If he’s concerned about his potential heirs being talented enough to hold Jin, Yanli comes of excellent stock. If Jin Zixuan is simply looking for a girl who can keep up with him on night-hunts, that seems uncharacteristic of his parents’ marriage. His father seems disinterested in active, interventionist cultivation. Zixuan doesn’t seem particularly driven in that capacity himself. (He’s hardly Wei Wuxian, whose Tindr profile is actually just for night hunting buddies. You swipe right on Wei Wuxian thinking you're going to cottage, but the cottage is haunted. You meet him in the moonlit woods and he’s like, “YEAH BOIII, I HOPE YOU BROUGHT UR SWORDDDD!!”. He is just fucking lucky Lan Wangji understood the assignment.) 

I wonder whether, when they’re in the same room at the Cloud Recesses for the presentation of the sects’ gifts, Jin Zixuan even knows who Meng Yao is? Other disciples gossip about Meng Yao parentage, but does Jin, given that it’s their own scandal (however accustomed to such things Jin Guangshan has rendered them)? Further, does Zixuan have any idea about Qin Su or Mo Xuanyu? Having lived in Koi Tower during the relevant period, he’s in a better position to have seen or heard about his father’s affairs than most. Mo Xuanyu’s conception must have occurred roughly when Jin Zixuan was getting married and his wife was having a baby. I believe Xuanyu is older than sixteen when he offers Wei Wuxian his body. He was youngish when expelled from Koi Tower, but didn’t immediately turn to demonic cultivation: he was abused for a few years in Mo Manor before making that choice.

 

If I follow up Praying for Cleverness, I want Zixuan to know about Qin Su. The rape that occasioned her conception happened after a public banquet young Zixuan may well have been at, and he can hear, see and count. His knowing something of that nature is honestly as likely as not. The reveal scene makes it seem as though no one was previously aware of Qin Su’s real parentage. Perhaps no one has put it all together, but servants exist, see things, and manage the clean-up for messes like these. Some of them were probably also subjected to Jin Guangshan’s advances, and some of them may well also be his bastards, born into service. 

 

Jin Guangshan’s macho image is undercut by his evident failure to make any significant male friends. Despite all his wealth, power, and the toadying he seems to encourage in and expect from, for example, Guangyao, Guangshan has so few friends that we see him bragging to random sex workers about how he was terrible to Guangyao’s mother, a woman in their own position. That is not a conversational topic to pursue with these sex workers? Guangshan really should be able to muster up some form of male stooge to complain about bitches with. Perhaps he is where Zixuan gets his much more benign form of awkwardness from. Zixuan’s mother is chiefly characterised by her affection for Zixuan, for Yanli, and her deep, decades-long friendship with Yu Ziyuan.