And Xiao-Guo's overt fear is also very reminiscent of those early episodes. He hasn't been afraid of Lao-Chu in forever!
At the risk of being super nit-picky (lol, that ship has long since sailed), I'm not sure he was ever afraid of Chu Shuzhi? The first time they met was when Chu Shuzhi rescued Li Yufen and Guo Changcheng from the Shadow Man, whereupon Guo Changcheng imprinted on Chu Shuzhi as a hero (and the one person in the SID who hadn't hazed him) and followed him around like a duckling, clinging to his coat-tails. But he was similarly scared of a lot of other things back then, yeah.
but I don't think I quite realised before that of course a big part of it all is that after the bait the Regent dangled in front of him in Ye Zun's name, he's planning to go straight after Ye Zun, so of course he's trying to stop Xiao-Guo from following him there! He's all out of common sense in a lot of respects right now, but not so much that he'd voluntarily drag Xiao-Guo into that.
Oh, yes, excellent point! It's not just generalised "get away from me!" at all.
Also, it just struck me that after Zhao Yunlan last episode trying to push Zhu Hong away, here we have Chu Shuzhi trying to push Guo Changcheng away. And despite both relationships being nothing like each other, neither attempt works.
Ooooh, awesome parallel-spotting! (I think there are a lot of similarities in those relationships, actually, though also a lot of points of difference.)
And the whole "kill Guo Changcheng and I'll give Nianzhi back to you" is so evil! But Chu Shuzhi won't take that deal, no matter how out of his mind he is, so Ye Zun has to (fake-)kill him himself.
It's unclear to me how sincerely Ye Zun tried to kill Changcheng, because of [next episode stuff]. He hasn't turned him into a sleeper agent yet, so it might actually be genuine attempted murder.
Also, OMG, Ye Zun must have so many feelings pretending to be someone else's twin didi! Torturing Chu Shuzhi in his own gege's place! And I wonder if he holds Chu Shuzhi's unwillingness to sacrifice Guo Changcheng for his "brother" against him as a betrayal ...
Ohh. *shivers* Such a good point!
So it makes the most sense to me if this scene is real, and the startling awake a red herring.
Agreed.
Yeah, this is way more targeted than Zhu Hong's dream was, where she was really doing most of the work of not wanting to wake up herself! Here, dream!Changcheng is actively trying to wipe away Chu Shuzhi's doubts and convincing him this is real, pulling out all the stops. So the Nightmare Master's power is quite variable!
Given the Nightmare Guy's goal is to shut down the security barrier, I wonder how much Zhao Yunlan's presence in the dream interfered with whatever direction he was going to take it in. The fact that ZYL jumped into the middle of it did, inevitably, make it all about Zhu Hong's feelings for him, rather than anything more easily manipulatable.
I think he'd be angrier at Chu Shuzhi if he wasn't so clearly not doing well - and if Zhao Yunlan didn't also blame himself for sending Xiao-Guo after Chu Shuzhi
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At the risk of being super nit-picky (lol, that ship has long since sailed), I'm not sure he was ever afraid of Chu Shuzhi? The first time they met was when Chu Shuzhi rescued Li Yufen and Guo Changcheng from the Shadow Man, whereupon Guo Changcheng imprinted on Chu Shuzhi as a hero (and the one person in the SID who hadn't hazed him) and followed him around like a duckling, clinging to his coat-tails. But he was similarly scared of a lot of other things back then, yeah.
but I don't think I quite realised before that of course a big part of it all is that after the bait the Regent dangled in front of him in Ye Zun's name, he's planning to go straight after Ye Zun, so of course he's trying to stop Xiao-Guo from following him there! He's all out of common sense in a lot of respects right now, but not so much that he'd voluntarily drag Xiao-Guo into that.
Oh, yes, excellent point! It's not just generalised "get away from me!" at all.
Also, it just struck me that after Zhao Yunlan last episode trying to push Zhu Hong away, here we have Chu Shuzhi trying to push Guo Changcheng away. And despite both relationships being nothing like each other, neither attempt works.
Ooooh, awesome parallel-spotting! (I think there are a lot of similarities in those relationships, actually, though also a lot of points of difference.)
And the whole "kill Guo Changcheng and I'll give Nianzhi back to you" is so evil! But Chu Shuzhi won't take that deal, no matter how out of his mind he is, so Ye Zun has to (fake-)kill him himself.
It's unclear to me how sincerely Ye Zun tried to kill Changcheng, because of [next episode stuff]. He hasn't turned him into a sleeper agent yet, so it might actually be genuine attempted murder.
Also, OMG, Ye Zun must have so many feelings pretending to be someone else's twin didi! Torturing Chu Shuzhi in his own gege's place! And I wonder if he holds Chu Shuzhi's unwillingness to sacrifice Guo Changcheng for his "brother" against him as a betrayal ...
Ohh. *shivers* Such a good point!
So it makes the most sense to me if this scene is real, and the startling awake a red herring.
Agreed.
Yeah, this is way more targeted than Zhu Hong's dream was, where she was really doing most of the work of not wanting to wake up herself! Here, dream!Changcheng is actively trying to wipe away Chu Shuzhi's doubts and convincing him this is real, pulling out all the stops. So the Nightmare Master's power is quite variable!
Given the Nightmare Guy's goal is to shut down the security barrier, I wonder how much Zhao Yunlan's presence in the dream interfered with whatever direction he was going to take it in. The fact that ZYL jumped into the middle of it did, inevitably, make it all about Zhu Hong's feelings for him, rather than anything more easily manipulatable.
I think he'd be angrier at Chu Shuzhi if he wasn't so clearly not doing well - and if Zhao Yunlan didn't also blame himself for sending Xiao-Guo after Chu Shuzhi
*nodnod* Agreed on both counts.
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