some of this is copy pasted from another comment i left lmao.
spoilers:
so far the timeline of events we know for certain happen as follows:
xin & lau meet as kids in the annex, along with their siblings (this is where we currently are in the story, this is a flashback)
their siblings die because they went against the head family (we don't know what really happened yet, this is from context)
xin & lau become heir and guardian
xin & lau go to school together
they have a huge fight (ch 61) which causes xin to sever all contact for 5 years
5 yrs later, xin asks lau to come for his birthday and to investigate the tattoo (which was at the beginning of the story)
lau investigates
stays with xin one night, has a panic attack due to past trauma and runs away (s1 finale)
lau investigates on his own, deduces its lian
lau confronts xin, xin says he knew who was tattooing him from the start & burns their contract
wei knocks lau out, wei & xin are seemingly working together now (cue the flashback to the beginning of the timeline)
heres my current theories/deductions that are likely/confirmed true:
Lian and wei are the ones doing the tattooing. There was a flashback in one of the chs (i forgot which) where lian says something along the lines of that she has to place the head family above everything else. This is because lian is the heir of the 1st collateral line, whose duty is to basically relay the head family's commands to the other collateral lines. Wei obviously would go along with this because he's her guardian and from the looks of it obeys literally everything he says (kinda robotic tbh).
My current theory for why lian and wei are tattooing xin is because the head family is ordering them to. As i said earlier, lian is implied to have been raised her whole life to obey their wishes, so i doubt she would say no if that was her upbringing. Coupled with the fact that xin seems to want the tattoo for his own reasons i really don't see why she would refuse.
As for why the head family's doing this... no clue tbh. This is a bit more spoilery into the raws but often times we can see lau and xin's older siblings talking about what the head family's elders are planning. They're up to something no doubt, we just don't know what yet. My current theory is that they want to eliminate the whole heir system altogether but thats an even longer and more spoilery theory so i wont get into it for now (unless u want me to lmao).
Xin is complicit in the tattooing because well... imma be real idk why. there are some theories i have but again those are really spoilery for the raws. I think at this point he feels as if lau is miserable and stuck staying with him because of their guardian contract, so he thought it would be best to sever their bond altogether. imo this was a long time coming. The last time xin saw lau in the timeline was when lau told him everything would be alright and then had a panic attack and ran away even after xin begged him to stay. This is evidently a pattern that their relationship has had over the years (as we can see in ch 61 where xin severs their relationship for 5 years). ig xin decided that he feels like he's chaining lau to him and lau fighting back will only keep them both in a cycle of misery, so he just ended their relationship. (There is maybe? another more complex reason but again its really spoilery)
anyways thats it for my yapping session lmao. lemme know if u have any questions.
SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT IS GOING ON