[1.2] Dan Feng's Mistake: The History of the High Cloud Quintet - Honkai: Star Rail Lore

Find it interesting how "The three who must pay the price" are all on the path of Destruction, but Jing Yuan and Bailu are Erudition and Abundance respectively.

I love how Ashi has made Luka her HSR standin for her HSR videos like how Yanfei is her Genshin standin lmao

I also think that Jingliu is the one responsible for Blade's desire for revenge, considering his whole mentality of being a weapon comes from her (she was the first person to call him "blade"). It is also the perfect revenge: Jingliu, who had to kill her loved one, curses both Dan Heng and Blade to hunt and kill each other, over and over again

Everyone always forgets to look at this story from the perspective of Jing Yuan. Just imagine how difficult it was from him to see his friends cut each others throats. Also i believe that Lunae used the Fruit of the Arbor to grant Blade immortality and not his bone marrow.

Bailu is a clone of Baiheng that Dan Feng, with Yingxing(now Blade)’s assistance, created in an attempt to revive her after a terrible battle that she sacrificed herself in. The result of their “great sin”(the edited Transmutation Arcanum) was a dragon abomination that reverted into an egg when it was slain, and when that egg hatched, what came out was…. The tiny dragon girl we all know and love.

There’s a text somewhere (sadly can’t remember where) that also describes the public’s outrage at Jingyuan making Danfeng’s sentence lighter so he wouldn’t suffer as much, as the Ten lords were detaining DF unjustly under the guise of ‘educating him’ as a reborn Vidyadhara. He exiled him so he wouldn’t live a life suffering under the preceptors, which is interesting. Really sad and touching to think of how Jingyuan has looked out for all his friends even though they may not remember it

I love how Jarilo IV is fast and quick with the story, there ain't really much needed characters to flush while as soon as we went to luofu the story went down deep and hard. We have bits of the quintet backstory, Kafka's story, the deep rooted story of the hunt and the abundance eons, and some other stuff.

The reason Bailu doesn't dream and age because her connection was disconnected by what Dan Feng did, to make Yingxing immortal. Also a medicinal/alcoholic gourd is a very serpent related item in asia. Since Long, the Aeon of Permanence who created them, doesn't exist anymore, I feel like it's probably impossible to create a new viridhaya. In the quest where we go into the water city, we see some phantoms of the past. Most of them seem to be depicting DFs life. And one of them is an older girl with a little boy. And they talk about how when she hatches hes going to be high elder. She could be Bai Lus former self. And there are more than just one High Elder. So Bai Lu could just have been another Elder previously. Oh and the reason why Blade could have had white hair is because by that time, he could have been older. In the story quest, the phantom that is implied to be Yingxing, is described to be ''middle-aged''. It makes sense as Blades Artefact Sets Shoes tell how Yingxing has travelled the worlds quite a bit. The Blade that exists now is supposed to be him at his prime so the colour could have returned. The choice of casting Miki Shinichirou is also strengthening my theory as he is known to be typecasted as older males.

This aged like fine wine. I am convinced Ashikai is either a time traveller or an insider in Mihoyo.

This makes jingliu sound evil. The fact that she murdered blade over a thousand times because of what happened to Baiheng is unjustified. Based on this interpretation of events, Blade and Dan Heng only tried to save Baiheng after an accident. Unless if Jingliu was mara struck before and she somehow completely lost her mind.

Ngl, the more I hear of the HCQ the more sad I feel for Jing tbh. In return for brings the most stable and least messy member he's rewarded with the knowlage of (potentially) all his closest friends being alive but not in ways that allow for a reestablishment of proper relationships . One half are totally different people and other half insane. It actually impressive how he managed to avoid bring marastruck so far...

There is a possibility that Baiheng is the bosom friend instead. Because it's said that "In hazy memories of the olden days, he finally made up his mind to gift his bosom friend with his hand-made jade flask, only to realize with a shock that the person he longed for was no longer there." Baiheng is the only one who died before the HCQ broke up, before Jingliu frantically barged into Scalegorge in search of [her], before the Flash pv, before everything went down to shit. Dan Feng "died" after the sentence was dropped onto him by Jing Yuan, who reincarnated into Dan Heng and it seems that connecting the timeline, Dan Heng is the one who got chained up in the Prison because he said "His sins are not mine!" Or sth like this. Also, it's implied that Yingxing died after the disastrous event (possibly reviving Baiheng into Bailu), but we'll have to wait for 1.4 to confirm this. There are two things that keeps me in denial when it comes to "bosom friend ≠ baiheng" and "beloved ≠ baiheng" 1. Honkai team in HI3 doesnt feed the mlm ships as hard as they do wlw ships 2. Baiheng has been hinted to be the "heart" of the HCQ's bond. Reviving someone into an immortal is a sin according to Xianzhou people, they have been at war with Yaoshi and her believers for so long. I think it's very fitting for Jingliu to be extremely distraughted by YX and DF's desire to revive Baiheng and turn her into immortal, not to mention the whole event ended up in creating a monster out of the "beloved". Yingxing was a very shy, insecure and unconfident kid back then, it was Baiheng who encouraged him and one of the reasons why he rose as Luofu's most legendary craftsman. Dan Feng and Jingliu survived the war because of Baiheng's selfless sacrifice, Dan Feng wished for her to survive and live, so it's really hard to imagine that Beloved IS NOT Baiheng at all. I'm not speaking this as a shipper anti, I'm just speaking as someone who has been following Blade's development since his beta, and I find it easier to accept that Baiheng is indeed the Beloved and the Bosom friend, that one person who loved everyone, loved by everyone...and ultimately...turned that love into an envoy of tragedy.

All of this lore dump and i gotta say i feel so bad for jingyuan. Imagine watching the people you grew with just slowly turn on themseleves and being unable to do anything about it. The poor man’s been bearing that much weight for all those years and suddenly he gets a reunion with all of them after all that fiasco. Hopefully he gets a peace of mind soon. But i honestly won’t be surprised if that peace means he’ll pass away.

the Blade and Dan Feng relationship reminds me of being "sworn brothers" which you normally see in eastern literature

In traditional Chinese culture, exchanging cups of wine is a ancient rite that two people have sworn each other loyalty. This does not necessarily mean matrimony, it could mean also becoming sworn brothers.

I think blade’s current hair is dark now because that’s his actual hair color when younger—the mirage echo between danfeng & yingxing actually refers to yingxing as a middle aged man, so he was rather old supposedly at the time of much of this happened. I think after danfeng revived him using some part of himself he just regained his hair color from youth

Love to drink wine with my bestie under the moon, platonically

I remember reading the Bailu x Baiheng conspiracy theory. I hope we actually get the older Bai Heng character since she was part of the Nameless as well.

I don't know who to be more impressed with: ashi for being such a solid researcher and theorist, or HSR's writers for putting in all the breadcrumbs. Imma go with ashi. Well done. You should get a job at the divination commission! This has to have been written before the jingliu quest, because she mentions baiheng.

Honkai lore has always been so interesting! But hopefully Star Rail won’t be as convoluted as 3rd? TT in any case CHEERS TO FUTURE LORE AND THEORIES