Zhao Yunlan hallow contact counter

[autodach]

I’ve collected data of all the times Zhao Yunlan touches the hallows.
My criteria were: Zhao Yunlan has to make skin contact with any of the four hallows, on screen. Holding them in a bag does not count.

The columns are:
Episode & timestamp: Self-explanatory
Hallow: The hallow being touched
Description: A short summary of what he is doing with the hallow
Health consequences: How touching the hallow impacts his health
Benefits: What benefit came of touching the hallow, if any

Using the last two columns, we can easily judge whether fondling the hallows was worth it for Zhao Yunlan in any given instance.
I am pasting in the entire table, set to scroll:

Episode	Timestamp	Hallow	Description	Health consequences	Benefits
1	16:39	Sundial	He finds Li Qian's necklace on the rooftop and picks it up, handing it to her shortly after.
2	28:50	Sundial	The sundial is in his hand while he is driving, presumably after Li Qian handed it over. He holds on to it through Li Yufen's ghostly appearance and takes it to the SID.
2	36:05	Sundial	He's playing with the sundial while talking to Heipaoshi in his office, and still has it in hand when he shows his visitor out.
2	41:50	Sundial	Lin Jing is despairing over the sundial when Zhao Yunlan joins him in the lab. When he grabs the hallow, it glows and grows in size
3	06:05	Sundial	Sitting on the couch at the SID, he plays with the now enlarged sundial.
5	31:34	Sundial	Guo Changcheng hands him the sundial to try and save Wu Tian'en. It starts to glow, but Heipaoshi interrupts before any more can happen. Later in the lab, the sundial glows again and shows a projection of the mountain-river awl to Zhao Yunlan (as he is not touching the hallow then, I am not counting these separately).		A hint to the next hallow
10	24:57	Sundial	Surprise! Zhao Yunlan brought the sundial on the excursion. He uses it to search for the awl despite Heipaoshi's warning.		They find Wang Zheng
12	09:29	Awl	He catches the Awl in the scuffle when Tan Xiao tries to steal it, immediately has confusing visions, and loses consciousness.	Fainting	...into Shen Wei's arms
14	02:50	Awl	He picks up the awl off the floor after Zhu Jiu fled the scene at the SID. It starts to glow and he has visions of his mother before fainting.	Fainting
19	09:41	Awl	He takes the awl out of its little dome in the SID lab and falls to the floor, unconscious. He has visions of Chu Shuzhi, Guo Changcheng, and Ye Huo in the absolute-zero lab.	Fainting, nosebleed	A hint to the sub-zero lab
20	33:02	Sundial	Zhu Hong brings him the hallows to keep them save from Zhu Jiu. He takes the sundial out of the bag briefly.
20	37:35	Sundial	During the confrontation with Ye Zun, he uses the sundial to defend himself.	Blindness	Protection from Ye Zun
22	32:36	Sundial	Shen Wei heals him using the sundial.	Cure from blindness	Cure from blindness
28	31:47	Sundial	He takes the sundial from its socket in the SID lab. It glows brightly and he collapses.	Fainting
29	31:19	Brush	Wang Xiangyang hands him the brush before dissolving.
34	21:04	Sundial	He takes the sundial from its socket in the SID lab once again, and doubles over in apparent pain. As he sinks to his knees, he is interrupted by a man who is totally Shen Wei, and struggles to put the sundial back into place.	Pain
35	14:17	All four	YOHE. He takes the hallows out of the box retrieved from the rebels and tries to activate them, to no avail.
37	08:30	Lantern	They find the lantern stored at the SID. Zhao Yunlan inspects it and finds it has no wick. Afterwards he places the hallows into their metal suitcase (we only see him touch the lantern).
38	04:49	All four	He places the hallows on the sockets in the Yashou cave.		Skype call to YOHE
39	34:08	Lantern	In a flashback, he places a bullet inside the lantern.		Nice surprise for Ye Zun
40	07:55	Awl	Da Qing throws him the awl, already glowing, to use on Ye Zun during the final battle.		He extracts Lin Jing, An Bai, and the Regent
40	17:14	Lantern	He lights the lantern with his life.	Death	Light for Dixing

Have I missed something? Let me know if so!

And now some stats. Note that the percentages don’t necessarily add up to 100%, because he touches multiple hallows at once sometimes.

Zhao Yunlan touches the hallows a total of 22 times in 18 different episodes. This is 45% of episodes.
An honourable mention goes to episode 15, where Zhao Yunlan tries to touch a hallow and gets as far as lifting its dome, but is physically stopped by Shen Wei.

He makes contact with
The sundial 14 times (64%)
The awl 6 times (27%)
The brush 3 times (14%)
The lantern 5 times (23%)

His health is impacted
Negatively 7 times (32%)
Positively 1 time (5%)
Not at all 10 times (45%)

Touching the hallow is
Beneficial 10 times (45%)
Detrimental 7 times (32%)

I was surprised how dominant the sundial was compared to the other three. Also, he touched them in less than half of all episodes, when it feels like he is constantly fondling them. The power of statistics!


EDIT: I had missed a benefit! The percentage of beneficial outcomes has now risen to 45%!

Comments

[facethestrange]

Oh yay, I was looking forward to this. :D So cool and neat, and it sounds like a lot of work! Thank you for compiling it! ♡

Fainting into Shen Wei's arms is a benefit, asdfghfdjsk. :D ♡♡♡ That's my favorite part, but also I'm giggling at "Skype call to YOHE" and "Nice surprise for Ye Zun". xD

And funnily enough I went 'woah, 45% is A LOT' when I saw it - I didn't expect that he does it in nearly every other episode, that's some impressive dedication. :P

[autodach]

Glad you enjoy ❤❤❤
Yes I decided to be a little generous when counting the benefits – Zhao Yunlan deserves it :D

He rakes up more than I expected in the early episodes by casually playing with the sundial. Three times in episode 2 alone!

[china_shop]

He rakes up more than I expected in the early episodes by casually playing with the sundial.

With no ill-effects! See? They're totally safe. ;-p

[china_shop]

And funnily enough I went 'woah, 45% is A LOT' when I saw it - I didn't expect that he does it in nearly every other episode, that's some impressive dedication. :P

Ha, right? No wonder Shen Wei gets so exasperated!! (There needs to be a Hallows patch, like a nicotine patch, to help ZYL keep his hands to himself. ;-)

[autodach]

Hahaha a hallows patch! Great idea :D

[facethestrange]

"There needs to be a Hallows patch, like a nicotine patch, to help ZYL keep his hands to himself. ;-)"

Lolol, but if it comes without recklessly endangering himself, he's not gonna like it. xD xD

[donutsweeper]

Ooooh this is so great, what a wonderful and informative table! Thanks for collecting it! *snickers at the skype call*

[autodach]

Glad you like it :D

[china_shop]

OMG, this is amazing! Thank you so much for this, heeee! :D :D :D :D :D *pores over your data and statistics in delight*

I wonder if the problem is that the first seven times there were no adverse consequences, so of course he got complacent -- despite the Envoy's ominous warnings. What's more, pretty early on, ZYL sees the Hallows be beneficial (I'm thinking specifically of Li Qian's nainai coming out of the Dial to protect her from the hospital attacker; do you not count that as a benefit? or do benefits have to be to ZYL personally?). AND the Hallows generally react to him, so he has some reason to think he can use them for good. Plus it probably makes him feel special that they grow for him, call to him, etc, lol.

He mostly sticks to the Dial at first when it comes to deliberate fondling, and that totally pays off. But in episode 19, he's standing next to the Hallows cases, contemplating his options, and the Awl begins to spontaneous activate. Totally tempting him! Bad Hallow! (ETA: I wonder if it's jealous of the Dial, hee!)

...into Shen Wei's arms

Hee!

I'd argue he gets benefit in episode 20, in that the Dial does form a shield to protect him from Ye Zun's attack until Shen Wei arrives.

Also, ahhhh, this all makes his groping the Dial in ep 28 make so much more sense! Until then, he and the Dial have got along just fine (barring the blindness, which we can blame on Ye Zun) -- it's only the Awl that's made him collapse. I hadn't realised that before! So, sure, the Awl is the one with the handy visions, but the Dial helped him find Wang Zheng in the caves -- maybe it'll help him find his kidnapped father, too! He has to do something.

As he sinks to his knees, he is interrupted by a man who is totally Shen Wei, and struggles to put the sundial back into place.

LOLOL! (Interesting that he didn't immediately collapse that time...)

Also interesting that he seems to be able to handle the Lantern with no repercussions (until he chooses repercussions That Last Time). I wonder if it was always in Zhao Xinci's possession, and he grew up with it...

Zhao Yunlan touches the hallows a total of 22 times in 18 different episodes. This is 45% of episodes.

LOLOL!

An honourable mention goes to episode 15, where Zhao Yunlan tries to touch a hallow and gets as far as lifting its dome, but is physically stopped by Shen Wei.

*hearts that scene forever* I love that he admits there that fondling the Hallows is a terrible strategy, it's just the best he has.

This was all so great. Thanks again for posting it! :DDDD

[autodach]

wonder if the problem is that the first seven times there were no adverse consequences, so of course he got complacent

Yes, that makes sense. He was lulled into false security, and then, BAM, suddenly there's consequences.


Li Qian's nainai coming out of the Dial to protect her from the hospital attacker; do you not count that as a benefit?

It's more that I would consider that a consequence of Li Qian and Li Yufen using the hallow rather than Zhao Yunlan. He just happens to be holding it at the time, but it isn't really his doing, you know?
Of course that's a bit of an arbitrary distinction we don't have to make.


I'd argue he gets benefit in episode 20

You're right, and I somehow totally forgot to put that in the benefits column, even thought I had it in the description! Shame on me! I'll edit it in when I'm on desktop later.
Update: Got impatient and edited it right away. Thanks for catching this!

[china_shop]

It's more that I would consider that a consequence of Li Qian and Li Yufen using the hallow rather than Zhao Yunlan.

Ah right, that makes total sense. You have to draw a line somewhere. :-)

The percentage of beneficial outcomes has now risen to 45%!

\o/ \o/ \o/ Those are really not bad odds (unless you have any sense of self-preservation, of course). :D

[trobadora]

What's more, pretty early on, ZYL sees the Hallows be beneficial (I'm thinking specifically of Li Qian's nainai coming out of the Dial to protect her from the hospital attacker

Yeah, that's a really good point!

[facethestrange]

"I wonder if the problem is that the first seven times there were no adverse consequences, so of course he got complacent -- despite the Envoy's ominous warnings. What's more, pretty early on, ZYL sees the Hallows be beneficial"

Oh, yep - it's all just theory for him, nothing bad actually happened! (Until it did.) You don't even have to be Zhao Yunlan to just go with your own experience here. xD

"Plus it probably makes him feel special that they grow for him, call to him, etc, lol."

He says it at some point, doesn't he? :D That he actually gets something tangible out of being the chief after all?

"But in episode 19, he's standing next to the Hallows cases, contemplating his options, and the Awl begins to spontaneous activate. Totally tempting him! Bad Hallow! (ETA: I wonder if it's jealous of the Dial, hee!)"

Lolololol, can you blame it? :D :D Who wouldn't want to be fondled by Zhao Yunlan? :D :D :D

"Also, ahhhh, this all makes his groping the Dial in ep 28 make so much more sense! Until then, he and the Dial have got along just fine (barring the blindness, which we can blame on Ye Zun) -- it's only the Awl that's made him collapse. I hadn't realised that before! So, sure, the Awl is the one with the handy visions, but the Dial helped him find Wang Zheng in the caves -- maybe it'll help him find his kidnapped father, too!"

Ohhh, that's a fantastic point, and also wow, it took a LONG time for the Dial to turn on him too!

"Also interesting that he seems to be able to handle the Lantern with no repercussions (until he chooses repercussions That Last Time). I wonder if it was always in Zhao Xinci's possession, and he grew up with it..."

Does it work at all without the wick?

[abyss_valkyrie]

WOW!The amount of scrutiny we as a fandom do?! We should all just become detectives lmao! Love the timestamp,so helpful!

[autodach]

❤

[facethestrange]

*points at the comm name* A bunch of detectives already, I'd say. :D :D :D Damn good ones too! ♡

[trobadora]

This is amazing, thank you so much for collecting all of this data! ♥

I always assumed Zhao Yunlan's cold in episode 3 is a side effect of Hallows-fondling. But I'm pretty sure Zhao Yunlan himself didn't make that connection, so it wouldn't have affected his risk calculus.

Personally I wouldn't count the Sundial glowing in episode 5 as a consequence of Zhao Yunlan touching it; there's no direct connection between the two effect, so IMO it's not strictly speaking a benefit.

Surprise! Zhao Yunlan brought the sundial on the excursion.

From which I think we can conclude he's been carrying the Sundial around the entire time, so the entire Hanga arc is one big Hallows contact episode. And I always assumed that Zhao Yunlan's cold is a negative side effect he suffers from this, so to my mind it counts even though there's no skin contact. *g* (And same as above for Zhao Yunlan's POV.)

...into Shen Wei's arms

LOL! Definitely an excellent benefit for the viewer. :D

And LOL as well that you counted Cure from blindness as both beneficial and detrimental! Hee!

An honourable mention goes to episode 15, where Zhao Yunlan tries to touch a hallow and gets as far as lifting its dome, but is physically stopped by Shen Wei.

:D :D :D

I was surprised how dominant the sundial was compared to the other three.

Yeah - I thought there would be more of the Awl! But the Brush especially is so underused ...

Also, he touched them in less than half of all episodes, when it feels like he is constantly fondling them.

Ha, my reaction was the opposite: what, so this happens basically every other episode? That's even more than I thought! *g*

Seriously, this is delightful. :D :D :D

[china_shop]

And I always assumed that Zhao Yunlan's cold is a negative side effect he suffers from this, so to my mind it counts even though there's no skin contact.

Do you just mean his sneezing on the roadtrip, or do you mean his cold in episode 3 as well? :-)

[grayswandir]

Hah, I too have always thought of Zhao Yunlan's repeatedly catching cold as a consequence of his constantly handling the Sundial, but since the show never confirms that, I wondered if that was just my own private headcanon. I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees a connection there!

[autodach]

Glad you enjoy!❤

Personally I wouldn't count the Sundial glowing in episode 5 as a consequence of Zhao Yunlan touching it;

That’s fair, I can see how these events are not as strongly connected as the other effects.

Definitely an excellent benefit for the viewer. :D

:D

Ha, my reaction was the opposite

You’re not alone! So far I was the only one who over- rather than underestimated XD

[facethestrange]

> ...into Shen Wei's arms

"LOL! Definitely an excellent benefit for the viewer. :D"

A benefit for Zhao Yunlan too. :D :D (There's a novel scene where he 'faints' into Shen Wei's arms on purpose. :D)

"And LOL as well that you counted Cure from blindness as both beneficial and detrimental! Hee!"

Lolol. :D I read this as health consequence (for once a GOOD health consequence) and benefit. :)

[grayswandir]

Love the chart! And like some others have said, I'm surprised to hear that Zhao Yunlan touches the hallows in nearly half the episodes. XD I didn't realize it was quite that often!

Also interesting to see that even despite the health consequences, touching the Hallows is overall beneficial more often than detrimental. So I guess the statistics sort of justify his choice to ignore the warnings and keep touching them...

[autodach]

Thank you!
Yes, Zhao Yunlan really isn't so stupid as to keep touching the hallows for no reason apparently XD
Especially because he suffers no ill effects early on - it would be hard to heed Heipaoshi's warnings when his own experience doesn't match up.

[trobadora]

Yeah, turns out his risk-taking with the Hallows isn't quite as reckless as it might have been! *g*

[facethestrange]

I really love that Zhao Yunlan is proven (by hard numbers!) to be pretty damn smart and reasonable after all. :D