dmbj_tombraiders | Sha Hai Xiazi meta

i'm not done thinking about hei xiazi in sha hai, and how as the narrative progresses it gradually strips back all his layers and brings out that bright streak of humanity he's got running through him that he's wrapped himself around at heart.
we're first introduced to him through li cu's perspective. this kid knows nothing about hei xiazi, and so he's unsettling, half-unreadable, a reason to be cautious. both of them are tired and someone like hei xiazi who made it through the desert this far while following them has to be dangerous; one of the first shots they cut to once he's taken off his disguise is his blade, after all. and hei xiazi does spend the conversation calculating out loud what it is to him to save li cu's life over prioritizing wu xie's, too casually, like he doesn't care. but at the same time their first interactions as a whole are just hei xiazi sitting down, explaining everything at once, and then letting li cu eat his fried rice.
and then later, in the abandoned base, is where he gets more interesting. hei xiazi isn't nice to li cu by any stretch (honestly their whole dynamic is mostly just them comfortably being bastards to one another) but they fall into a partnership, and even though their whole mission is urgent he still drops it all to do something like give li cu a shoulder massage. sure he's still an enigma who holds a gun to people's heads without hesitation, but when hei xiazi could have used that same gun on the mutant stalking/attacking them, he doesn't. even when killing him would've been a justified reaction.
(his words here when talking to the mutant in particular are fascinating to me. once hei xiazi confirms he can understand him, the first thing he tells him is "你是人". you're human. and he pauses after that before asking about his mutation. that sentence wasn't part of the question, it was a statement. a declaration, to someone warped almost beyond recognition of the living.)

Warning: Discussion of near death experiences