Happy (belated now) Easter!
In my slow return to blogging, here’s another old one from my Tumblr! As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, my brain has basically been consumed by Erha brain rot, so this is about that. Again. Listen, let me live, okay? Sometimes you just fall for a dumb husky and his white cat shizun and you can’t let it go ahaha. Especially when you think about how their ship name, Ranwan, a combination of Mo Ran and Chu Wanning, basically places “ignite” and “night” together, and you remember how Mo Ran once sent Chu Wanning a message using fireworks… So yeah, this blog entry will contain references to 18+ material from the novel, and will also contain spoilers, so proceed at your own risk!
But man. I just. Can’t. With Erha and Ranwan sometimes.
Like…they love each other so intensely. So ardently.
Mo Ran especially. And it’s to be expected, because he feels guilty over how he treated Chu Wanning before, but still…
It’s just so overwhelmingly soft (sprinkled with plenty of horny) and you know he practically worships Chu Wanning. Now that he finally sees Chu Wanning for who he truly is, he is horrified at his past behaviour but even more in love than ever, and he works so hard to show it while also trying just as hard to contain it.
And it’s just…so amazing??? Like, reading Mo Ran’s POV while he was wandering alone those 5 years is painful because you can sense his guilt in trying to piece himself into becoming Chu Wanning. Especially since Mo Ran had to come to the realization after two lifetimes that his two-lifetime’s worth of hatred for Chu Wanning is wrong.
That’s so hard to reconcile!
But to realize that is wrong and to realize that furthermore, the man you once hated saved you…
By now, Mo Ran feels as if he doesn’t deserve this second chance or to be in this world. But to have to couple that with the knowledge that in order for his life to still be here, Chu Wanning’s was the one that had to be sacrificed?
God.
Imagine the fucking remorse.
I’m just remembering Mo Ran standing in the rain, to the point of getting sick, hoping to be washed clean so he can see Chu Wanning without feeling like he’d stain him. Remembering Mo Ran doing good because it’s what Chu Wanning did.
And the fact he sees Chu Wanning in everything…from sunsets to sunrises, from flowers to snow…
It’s just. Such an intense form of love. Of missing someone. Of regret. Of longing.
And because of it when Chu Wanning finally comes back into his life—even before he realizes he loves the man—he tries so hard to care for him.
You can see it in the way he chants, “Respect him. Cherish him” over and over to himself. Mo Ran knows he’s fierce and capable of ruining Chu Wanning (although he’s arguably not as cruel as he believes himself to be), yet he restrains himself as much as he can around Chu Wanning. Because he loves him so much and he wants to do so much better and to be better so even when it’s hard for him to keep it in his pants, he’s still trying. It makes for some amusing scenes, but still…you can tell how scared he is of hurting Chu Wanning.
(Plus, he fears waking up to find that his entire second chance was nothing but a dream—as seen when he had that nightmare and needed so much of Jiang Xi’s medicine to dispel it—but even more than that, his worst nightmare is losing Chu Wanning again.)
Arghhh I have emotions. 🥲🥲🥲
His love is easily expressed in a more sexually violent manner, but he does try to be gentle. And in this life, he does try to be considerate, refusing to penetrate his shizun for some time (to the point of being mocked by Taxian-jun).
I mean, when they finally do get to have sex together in the inn, you can see it in the way that Mo Ran leans down and takes Chu Wanning into his mouth. Taxian-jun never did that.
But Mo Ran does it because he not only loves Chu Wanning (because Taxian-jun loved him too—just in an unfortunately twisted way), he worships Chu Wanning. When Chu Wanning anxiously cries that it’s dirty and tries to get him to let go, Mo Ran reassures him that every part of him is perfect and that everywhere he touches is the best.
And of course—even before the confession, Mo Ran’s intense love can be seen in the way he uses acts of service as a love language, making Chu Wanning food (including the tangyuan, which was made with his heart as well as his dick haha).
Chu Wanning muses when they first get together that despite them only just becoming a couple, it’s like Mo Ran has known everything about him for a long, long time.
And of course it’s true. He has. But it’s the fact he chooses to remember all of it, and despite it being hard work for him, he employs his knowledge. He was like that even before becoming Mo-zongshi, which is already a sign of his ardent longing and love.
He remembers how to give Chu Wanning medicine just right, and how he sleeps at night.
And later, he begins to express care by looking into how he eats and what he likes.
He does everything to make sure that Chu Wanning is happy and comfortable despite the latter’s difficulty in expressing when he is happy and comfortable.
When Mo Ran and Chu Wanning are longing for each other in the inn before they get together, Mo Ran laments that he feels like he’s doing a poor job because the cat he’s trying to pet sometimes hisses and swipes at him. But it’s actually because he’s doing too good of a job and Chu Wanning is falling even harder, so he lashes out to try and hide it. 🥲🥲🥲
Mo Ran, when set on loving someone, doing so much for that person despite assuming it’s hopeless (eg cooking breakfast for his shizun after longing for him in the inn), is just so sweet.
His love is already so ardent and full, but coupling that with his guilt…
After everything…he really does just want to hold that umbrella over Chu Wanning for the rest of their lives, in this lifetime. 🥺
Yeah.
The Ranwan feels are intense tonight. 😭😭😭😭
