Jing Yuan knew in advance that Dan Heng would catch him in the battle with Phantylia?

Abstract: Half of the version 1.3 is almost over, but my emotions from the version 1.2 are still quite lingering. After a thousand times of reviewing and pondering the final segment of version 1.2, I decided to make an analysis of the context and relationship between Jing Yuan and Dan Heng. Please note that this is an analysis based on personal opinion and assessment. There is neither a reflection of the developer's true intentions nor an assertion of truth about the relationship between two of them. So if you read it, you should only read it for entertainment, don't take it too seriously.

About me personally: I haven’t shipped any couple for a very long time, at least since I stepped out of my teens. And at first, I also decided to play the game for fun and didn't want ship anyone. But their chronicled love story really touched me. The love story here, for me, is not necessarily about romantic love but includes all the beautiful, sacred relationships that are difficult to describe in words between people. Please excuse me if my limited vocabulary makes you uncomfortable.       

Although I ship Jingheng, I also respect the original stories. I respect all the subtleties that the developer has conveyed and try my best not to extrapolate them. I think Hoyoverse has been very successful in bringing players' emotions to a peak. I have never been so dedicated to anything other than studying and working.

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My argument about General Jing Yuan foreseeing the catch of Dan Heng.

As we know, after being controlled by Phantylia, General Jing Yuan and Dan Heng had a very good combination that led to her defeat. After that, Jing Yuan fell out of the air. And we got the classic scene of Dan Heng rushing in to catch Jing Yuan in time. Here we see that Jing Yuan had already lost consciousness in the air due to severe injuries, his eyes were closed, and he also seemed to have fainted. Surprisingly, the next scene was not the scene where he fell, but the scene where Dan Heng ran towards him.

This means that new players would not be able to predict the next scene in which Jing Yuan will fall, but would simply see Dan Heng deftly running to catch the General as if this had happened before. I had to say this because in a split second, when everyone (out of shock) didn't even have time to understand what was going on, Dan Heng was already running over and raising his hands as if he had already prepared for this. But from above, Jing Yuan fell into a state of diminished consciousness. We can see this from the symptom of extreme relaxation of the General's body: his limbs are relaxed and his arms are loosening up and following the wind towards the sky. At the moment it is difficult for me to say whether he is still alive or not.

BUT when he fell into Dan Heng's lap, his left hand was wrapped around Dan Heng's neck. This is an extremely confusing detail. Because, as I suspect, an unconscious person cannot know how he will react to the current situation. At that moment, the General's hand was very loose and had almost no strength left. When an unconscious one lands from the height, his hands tend to be put automatically on the belly or the side (that's my guess, because I've never seen anyone fall from a height), but this time the General deliberately wrapped his arms around Dan Heng's Neck. At first I thought it was Mihoyo cutting the scene. But that is absolutely not the case. Because Jing Yuan's hand was on Dan Heng's neck from the moment he caught him.

I tried a quick sketch to show a scene of a person with impaired consciousness being held by another person. When you have no strength, your hand naturally places itself on your belly (or on the side).

Now I have two hypotheses:

∙ One is that the General already knew that Dan Heng would catch him. So what he had to do was drop his heavy body. Heng will take care of it down there. 

∙ Secondly, this is just an unconditional reflex resulting from an absolute trust in someone. Something that's hard for me to explain, but I can understand it. Essentially, if you know someone for too long, you will unconsciously perform actions that your brain cannot control. For example, you stroke your lover's hair when you are near him or her, or drive home drunk, and the next day you can't remember how you got home (sorry for the two examples that are unrelated, but hey, I'm out of ideas. Can anyone help me?) But that's the gist. Can someone who studies psychology confirm this for me?

∙ Or all of these details are simply... production errors, which of course doesn't happen to the brilliant minds at Hoyoverse.

In any case, at this time, the General's hand was no longer loose, but had the strength to press on Dan Heng's shoulder. I'm still wondering why the developer let the two men hug like that while they could just let the General put his hands in front of his belly, so they would have saved themselves from having to draw so many elaborate details.

But what about Dan Heng's side? We all know that Dan Heng always denied his previous identity and wanted to give up everything related to it. Through his cold treatment to Jing Yuan, everyone knew that everything was involved including him. Otherwise, we would have had the greeting scene "How are you, how are you doing?" between two old friends.

Perhaps many of us already know that Dan Heng's feelings for the General are not ordinary (don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say it's romantic feelings). Not to mention Dan Heng's indignant expression towards Phantylia, there is an extremely valuable detail that many people have certainly overlooked because it is extremely small. This happened at a moment when Dan Heng's right hand fingers went from a state of stiffness due to tension to a relaxed state and he placed his entire hand on Jing Yuan's shoulder. This, I surmise, is a sign of comfort and warmth for someone, especially after realizing that things are getting better (still the same, anyone who studies psychology can consider it for me? I can only judge from my own psychological analysis). I wonder why the developer included this little detail while they could have left it out to save time in editing. Even if they omitted it, no one would complain. Maybe they wanted to make it more realistic? In my opinion, this detail is small, but very effective, enough to drive me crazy.

The next scene is Dan Heng grabbing the General to help him get up. For me there's nothing worth mentioning because it's pretty obvious. Afterwards, Dan Heng put out his hand to offer the General to take them to make it easier, but then he put it away because he realized that Jing Yuan... didn't need it (or maybe he paid attention not to that. I think if he had seen it, he could haven't rejected the beauty). Although this detail is quite small and brief, it also shows some of Dan Heng's thoughtfulness and exquisiteness. Furthermore, the fact that Dan Heng proactively offered Jing Yuan his help all the time while the others simply stood back and kept a certain distance from the General also shows how familiar Jing Yuan is to him. I don't mean that the others didn't want to help him. They were just a little too cautious since they didn't know Jing Yuan that well. But Dan Heng seemed to know exactly what Jing Yuan needs and how to behave towards him.

This is the part worth mentioning. At this moment, Phantylia was speaking up some final nonsense, and everyone turned their eyes to her. BUT, Dan Heng focused all his attention on Jing Yuan's face. Normally if someone speaks, you will be startled and turn your eyes to that person, if you are not doing something more important. And accordingly, Dan Heng should have looked at Phantylia when she talked like everyone else. Instead, he stared at Jing Yuan for a few seconds, blinked twice, changing from a state of shock to scrutiny, then he remembered, "I forgot I still have to listen to her talk". This is a detail that, in my opinion, is extremely valuable, proving his boundless concern for Jing Yuan.

I didn't even have to edit this section in slow-motion, because it's ... long enough lol

In the next scene, everything gradually stabilizes. Dan Heng stood up first and held out his hands to prevent Jing Yuan from falling. But he didn’t hold him anymore. I see that this action of his is also seen as showing respect for Jing Yuan. After Jing Yuan stood up, Dan Heng looked at him for a few more seconds to make sure he was really okay.

Afterwards, the General reacts to Phantylia with harsh words. Dan Heng also changed his position to stand alongside to him.

There is nothing worth mentioning in the next part except Dan Heng's extremely "long" dialogues, which made him known as a tsundere until his death. Just kidding, I checked on Twitter, and a lot of people said the English version mistranslated the General's meaning. If translated from the Chinese version, it roughly means "it seems as if our tacit understanding (of each other) from the past has not yet disappeared." The Vietnamese translation is also pretty accurate. According to some Chinese fans, the ENG version is quite confusing, since Jing Yuan's sentence is spoken too normally, but Dan Heng reacts very... (no comment)

By the way, I also want to briefly discuss the relationship between Jing Yuan and Dan Heng in some paragraphs.

Up to now, the plot of Xianzhou Luofu has not been completed and the documents are still lacking, everything is still quite vague. But according to what the game has hinted so far, everyone knows that Jing Yuan was the one who arbitrarily issued an expulsion against Dan Heng despite the strong objections from the Six Charioteers, causing outrage for countless people. This decision is said to be "emotional", quite different from the demeanor of a general. The reason is said to be because of the old friendship with Dan Feng.

But this reason seems to be a bit... (hard to say). I think if I had such a bad friend like this and he had to go to jail, I would probably ignore him (oh I'm sorry General, I'm just an ordinary mortal, how dare I compare myself to a virtuous and honorable General like you). It is currently unclear what crime Dan Feng committed, but it has been confirmed to have very serious consequences (1,285 people died and more than 3,000 people are missing). But the General gave Dan Heng (now Dan Feng reincarnated) a sentence of exile, which according to Dan Heng was no different than a gift for bringing him freedom.

Wow from this perspective we can see that the grace that the General gave to Dan Heng was not small. I don't really believe that an intelligent person like the General would decide this based solely on personal feelings. He probably has other thoughts, but from here I venture to speculate a little about that feeling.

Not to mention the General's somewhat... excessive concern for Dan Heng in his companion mission. Even though he was recuperating from the injury, he knew everything that happened to Dan Heng along the way, as well as knowing what other people's intentions regarding the position of High Elder (oh my dear General, I already know your IQ is 200, no need to brag). After that mission, Jing Yuan proposed to invite Dan Heng to stay in Luofu and no matter which option we chose, Dan Heng refused and the General said "it's a pity". From this detail, I think that the General's feeling towards Dan Heng and previously Dan Feng is more like a trusting nature. Because in the end, even though Jing Yuan has many courtiers by his side, he is a very lonely person, and no one understands him. These words were spoken by the guardian guy Yutie in the Seat of Divine Foresight. Through this, we can also feel that Jing Yuan is essentially a person who always acts alone and often makes decisions that “few people understand.”

Although he hated the position of general, he could not trust anyone to whom he could entrust that position. However, in the battle with Phantylia, he proactively gave all decision-making authority, including his own life, to Dan Heng. Completely different from when he had to passively hand over work to Fu Xuan or assign tasks to Yanqing. And also from the conversation with that guard Yutie, we can also see that Jing Yuan is a very noble and charitable person as he made the noble gesture of not letting Yutie go to the battlefield because he knew this guard was weak and had a high chance to die.

I can only speculate that the General Jing Yuan considers Dan Feng/Dan Heng as his soulmate - the only person in the world who understands him. He also felt a certain admiration for this person. Perhaps Dan Feng did something that he couldn't (or didn't dare to). And Dan Heng is definitely doing what he can't do, which is putting aside his public duties and traveling across the galaxy.

In contrast to Jing Yuan, Dan Heng seems to be taciturn, quiet and somewhat introverted. But he actually has a few people surrounding him and protecting him - members of the Astral Express. This is quite an interesting contrast between two personalities and two situations coming from two persons with completely opposite positions. I was talking about Jing Yuan a lot. So what about Dan Heng's feelings towards Jing Yuan?

It's definitely not love (wake up, Jingheng fans, this is a fighting game). I really don't expect Hoyoverse to let them fall in love. Because that would be so boring. Besides, I'm the person who always puts pair love at the lowest level of all types of love, so if they really love each other, I'll probably quit shipping them. I surmise that the sentiment that Dan Heng has for Jing Yuan is at least no different from gratitude, because in Dan Heng IL's "Chat: Banishment" voice line, it is said that the eternal exile decree seems to be more like an amnesty for him. Although it was not specifically stated, everyone knows who issued the exile decree. Besides, I don't dare to place any thought because up to now, Dan Heng's emotions are still quite closed. I'll pretend I didn't see his worried gestures towards Jing Yuan at the end of the fight with Phantylia *facepalm*

Bonus: Analysis of the meaning in Dan Heng's answer when refusing to stay in Luofu "As an Nameless, the Express still needs me/waits for me" (the translation from the ENG version is slightly different from the CN version). This can be considered... not a refusal at all. Because up to this point, Dan Heng is still known to be very attached to his hometown through some conversations with Himeko, Welt, Sushang, Loucha (who else I don't know) and through the fact that he well knows about the Luofu's terrain as well as how it operates. And not directly refusing also somewhat implicitly confirmed Dan Heng's attachment to Luofu. He basically didn't refuse to stay in Luofu, because if yes, he could have said something like "Astral Express is home to me", or "thank you General, I'm used to traveling through the galaxy", etc. But instead of saying it so bluntly, he just said "the Express still needs me/waits for me". If we analyze that statement in reverse, it can also be understood as „if one day the Astral Express no longer needs me (or waits for me), I may return to Luofu“. But I don't assume this has anything to do with General Jing Yuan (and don't believe it either).

Personal connection: As mentioned above, I'm not the type of person who likes to ship couples very much. I also don't like arguing about which CP is canon or not. I just like to look for hints, analyze situations and character psychology, as well as pay attention to small details that the developers put in. But I really admire this deep, delicate, and brain-hacking love story of Jing Yuan and Dan Heng, a soulful love story that is hard to find in the human world. At the same time, I also partly understand the General's thoughts. I lived for a long time without trusting anyone, and I didn't know what that felt like. But if I meet someone who makes me let down my guard and put my trust in that person, it may be difficult for me to let that person go either. 

Conclusion: At this point, the analysis is already quite long. I was also tired after a few hours of sitting and squeezing every drop of gray matter. I must say I really admire the developer's brain. How hard did they have to work to create two such outstanding characters? Currently, I'm also very curious about the time after Dan Feng's reincarnation, to see how much of my guess is correct.

Thank you to everyone who has read this so far. I hope you understand if the sentences contain some grammatical mistakes because my English is not that good. I had to translate some words from German because I couldn't find the right words in English. I hope my true intentions were not misinterpreted.