so I can’t gif but I don’t think we talk enough about Wen Zhuliu, or this moment
the beginning of episode 19 is A Lot (the first time through, I literally went back to episode 18 like “wait did I miss something what’s going on,” but nope), and I know I personally got extremely distracted by the worldbuilding Wei Wuxian offers in his defiance to Wen Chao (i.e. becoming a terrifying ghost after death and haunting the hell out of the Wen Clan, which, well, he basically did anyway).
but we see Wei Wuxian get kicked through the doorway (whereupon he immediately does the Chest Grab of Pain, which becomes coded in the rest of the show as “his lack of a golden core is hurting him right now” but we don’t find out about this until episode 46), followed by Wen Zhuliu entering and looking at his hand
guys
Wen Zhuliu knows
Wen Zhuliu knows that Wei Wuxian has no golden core at this point, and he looks at his hand like that’s weird and I’m pretty sure I never touched this one and how can that be?
and while this is comedy gold for the rest of the episode (every time Wen Chao tries to intimidate Wei Wuxian with melting his golden core, Wei Wuxian is like “lol good luck with that” and Wen Zhuliu is like “…do I tell him now?”), I can’t help but wonder if Wen Zhuliu silently figured out the golden core transfer
Wei Wuxian is thrown, golden core-less, into the Burial Mounds for three months. meanwhile, Jiang Cheng – who Wen Zhuliu viscerally knows should be an average person by now – is leading part of the revolution against the Wen Clan. He might not know the specifics of experimental medical surgeries but Wen Zhuliu can do simple math, he may be the strong and silent type but that doesn’t mean he can’t count
I think this is why, in episode 20, Wen Zhuliu barely fights Wei Wuxian when he comes for Wen Chao, because internally he’s going “damn son you crawled out of hell without a golden core, you deserve to win this one”