Lu Shengxun and Lin Yanche's Longstanding Friendship

Lu Shengxun and Lin Yanche’s longstanding friendship is not a quiet or uncomplicated bond: the two challenge one another, trade insults, and sometimes work together to steer events around the people they care about. Their familiarity lets them recognize each other’s motives, but it also makes each man willing to question the other’s judgment. The friendship is therefore shown less through declarations than through access, intervention, and the ease with which antagonism gives way to cooperation.

A friendship expressed through confrontation

Their conversations are strikingly direct. When Lin Yanche calls to confront Lu Shengxun over his interference in Hua Shuo’s affairs, his tone is solemn and accusatory. Lu answers lightly, pointing out that Lin—usually uninterested in other people’s business—has become unusually involved. He connects that change to Lin’s feelings, turning the reprimand into a teasing recognition of what has drawn his friend into the matter. The exchange makes their familiarity legible: Lu can challenge Lin’s conduct and read its emotional source, while Lin feels entitled to call Lu out rather than remain a distant observer.

That candor can be abrasive. During a later video call, Lu objects to Lin pursuing him through that channel, and Lin responds with an equally hostile retort. Lu then turns from the quarrel to ask Su Qingrou whether she slept well. The scene places their sharp banter beside the ordinary intimacy of the people around them: neither the insults nor the immediate return to everyday business appears to require a formal reconciliation. Their friendship can absorb friction without making every disagreement a rupture.

Shared knowledge of the Su sisters

Lu’s understanding of Lin deepens when he thinks back to Lin’s earlier reactions to the Su sisters. When Lu had mentioned the sisters, Lin had scoffed at him. Lu now interprets that response differently: he realizes Lin had been acting as their protector, unwilling for Lu to discover their beauty and, especially, their warmth. This retrospective recognition does not erase Lin’s jealousy or protectiveness; it gives those earlier dismissals a motive grounded in concern for the sisters and in Lin’s own closeness to them.

The same knowledge informs Lu’s later dealings with Song Yuner. When Song asks whether Su Xiangwan arranged for her to come, Lu denies that anyone invited her or could stop her, then tells her to call Lin and ask where he is. He predicts that failing to find Lin will leave her flustered and ready to accuse others. Lu’s response shows that he knows both Lin’s importance to Song and the disorder that their entanglement can produce. He uses that understanding to confront Song, then leaves with Su Xiangwan. The moment is pointed rather than tender, but it depends on Lu’s familiarity with the ties linking his friend to the people around them.

Cooperation behind a staged encounter

The clearest evidence of practical alliance comes when Su Qingrou explains that the night’s arrangement involving Lu and Song was discussed in advance by Lin and Lu; she adds that Lin was the one who asked Lu to do it. Su Xiangwan is startled by the disclosure and asks whether the matter had been planned beforehand. The answer reframes the apparent encounter: rather than a spontaneous lapse by Lu, it was a coordinated maneuver involving the two friends.

Su Qingrou’s explanation also emphasizes Lu’s usual self-discipline. She argues that he would not readily have had an affair with Song, and that if he were inclined to do so, it could have happened when they first met. The staged situation therefore rests on a distinction between appearance and intention: Lu and Lin use the outward suggestion of an affair as part of a plan, while their prior coordination supplies the hidden cause. Their alliance is consequential because it gives Lin a means of involving Lu in a delicate personal conflict, and it gives Lu enough trust in Lin to participate.

Friendship under the pressure of intimacy

The relationship is repeatedly observed through its entanglement with romantic and protective loyalties. Lu sees Lin’s concern for the Su sisters in retrospect; he recognizes Lin’s emotional investment when Lin intervenes over Hua Shuo; and he is willing to follow Lin’s request in the arrangement involving Song. These episodes present friendship not as separate from romantic life but as one of the channels through which it is negotiated. Each man’s actions affect the other’s relationships, and each can use his knowledge of the other to expose, challenge, or assist him.

Their bond nevertheless retains an edge of competition and mockery. Lu’s teasing is not simple approval, and Lin’s challenges are not polite advice. Yet the encounters end not with evidence of a lasting break but with further communication, shared plans, or a return to familiar company. The friendship’s defining pattern is thus a combination of friction and access: each man can object to the other’s choices because he remains close enough to be involved, and their closeness makes cooperation possible even when their manner is combative.