Let's just get this out of the way. You have no business questioning my intent or integrity. If you had concerns about my posting habits, you had more appropriate ways to address them than muddying the waters in a way your own post appears to admit. This was flatly disappointing, please don't do it again.
Moving on, I agree with you that narrative space is limited- it's kind of central to my argument. Because of this, your argument isn't logically consistent as a rebuttal to my position. Limited space making it a zero sum game, it can't then also be argued that the vote isn't about Zhengui. It necessarily is as a matter of narrative conservation. The only difference in "framing" is what character is immediately staring us in the face- the consequences and trade-offs are not particularly difficult to work out for all the characters involved. There's honestly also the fact Ling Qi has repeatedly demonstrated a blind spot a mile wide when it comes to Zhengui's own emotional priorities; it shouldn't be at all surprising that vote options tend to elide them from consideration, as phrased.
My argument is the actual event in question, Zhengui's awakening, should by default belong to him as the object of emphasis, and diversion from that should only be under the strongest of motivations. Cai Renxiang's situation does not, now, meet that standard for me. Before you go off about my opinion of her, that actually tells you jack squat about it, except that I don't think getting closer to her overrides the issues with Zhengui right this moment. And his situation's pretty well just as "exceedingly rare" as her's is; he is just waking up after an exhaustion and trauma induced sleep that followed immediately seeing the person he loves most in the world almost die, having forcibly broken through to heroically and triumphantly defend the village in part to make her proud, and then failed (again!) to protect her.
They're both in vulnerable states, and I have no interest in denying that about Cai Renxiang. My position remains that we have an existing obligation to Zhengui that we would be neglecting with the effort to rope Cai Renxiang into the mess. My justification is in no way flimsy, you simply don't recognize me looking past two feet in front of us. This was a gap of perspective that could have been approached with questions rather than accusations.
@yrsillar now that it's not just a dozen odd people expressing confusion at the point of this vote, but apparently the inherent legitimacy of my presence in the thread getting called into question, would you mind elaborating on what we're doing here? What are Ling Qi's priorities in either case? What's she thinking? Frankly, what are we trading away to court Cai Renxiang at the moment? My guess is you intended Family to carry weight with the players and naturally get unpacked out to mean "Zhengui is a very good boy and precious to me, protecc him forever", but in practice it's treated like a four-letter word by voters whenever it seems "too selfish".
There's some interesting things to ponder here, actually. Back during the Inner Sect advancement tournament, Cai Renxiang believes the structure of the preliminary round she found herself in was meant to be a lesson to her on the merit of sheer dominating might, specifically in the context of offensive capability. Let's assume this is true. A handful of months after Cai Shenhua was on hand for an in person evaluation of her daughter, Cai Renxiang is given the saber Cifeng. We now see Cifeng used as something of a safety blanket, a crutch, against the more uncomfortable aspects of Liming's wearing. An instrument of aggression and violence is now something she relies on for comfort in circumstances she cannot, as a matter of her family and station, escape.
In a purely literal sense, it's just a saber spirit being convenient at smacking her overly gripping dress spirit. In a broader sense, it's easy to see how Cai Shenhua intended to influence what of her toolset Cai Renxiang is inclined to reach for without hesitation.
Edit: re-added a sentence I edited out off the end of the second paragraph by accident
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