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%!
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