can't stop thinking about how feng xin did not at all have the knowledge the reader did that xie lian only pushed him away in book 4 due to abandonment fears. from fx's perspective, their friendship was already deteriorating in bk 4, then xl finally told him to stop following and slammed the door in his face. he must have really thought xl wanted him to leave, wanted him gone. he didn't know xl actually wanted him to stay. he must have thought his best friend and prince, the person who fx spent so many years orbiting around like xl was his whole world, didn't want him around anymore.

(and ofc it's so much worse in the revised version with the line "i don't need you anymore" but i don't want to think about that rn)

and i think there's a real possibility that fx just assumed xl wouldn't want to see him again at the start of bk 1, bc he disguised himself as nan feng to help xl rather than show up as himself, and he waived away xl's debt but specifically instructed ling wen not to tell xl that it was fx who did that. he deliberately didn't want xl to find out. what if fx thought xl wouldn’t want to ever see him again bc xl told him to stop following 800 years ago?