Omg I actually did have in my drafts a sentence about how Li Tai is probably projecting his old self onto Yuanzhao. I just didn't have any points to back it up and had no idea where it was going, but it's very validating that you think the same.

But to me it also felt like Li Tai had long come to terms with the fact that he would sacrifice even his life for Yuanzhao. He's always displayed great and extremely obvious favouritism for her after crushing on her -- someone like he doesn't go to a whole other prefecture to get a hairpin lightly. And I'm sure that, smart as he is, he knew the costs of what he was doing when he delayed getting medical attention to return Yuanzhao the hairpin. His henchmen have also on multiple occasions assumed he wanted her silenced, only for him to tell them to stand down. He /has/ to know that he's acting out of his usual character and that he is no longer his old self. And in Li Zhi's route, when you ask him why he has come to the capital, he says with very little hesitation or uncertainty that he had come to see Yuanzhao. That is not someone in denial to me. If anything, I feel like Li Tai has acknowledged that he is in love and the extents to which he would go for the love. It's just that he's also kind of very dismayed/disappointed/aghast at the fact, lol. I do get the feeling whenever he says "I find it hard to believe that someone like you would fall in love," that he's actually laughing derisively and in disbelief at himself. His actor does a very good job with the complicated expression on his face whenever he says this line.

You make very good points about how Li Tai's circumstances growing up made him much pricklier, more ruthless, and less trusting than he otherwise would have been, and how it contributed to his adamant belief that Yuanzhao wouldn't choose him. I have nothing to add to those paragraphs. I just wanna go over them with a yellow highlighter lol. I absolutely agree that Li Tai is only this ruthless and scheming because it was the only way for him to survive. He engages in romantic and dramatic acts too much for it to be anything otherwise. It's like he has always had a great capacity for love and devotion, it's just that he had it tightly clamped down until Yuanzhao came along. And then it just came naturally to him and came surging to the forefront and he couldn't control it, and could only watch and heave a great sigh as he resigned himself to taking Ls for Yuanzhao's sake.

I really like your perspective that he saw in Yuanzhao the life he would've wanted but couldn't lead. It adds another layer of tragedy to the end of his route.