I have 15 of them in my mesh and they work fine for years.
End devices (battery powered) always have only one connection.
The Aqara devices are rather picky when it cones to choosing a router (mains powered device) to route their traffic through, that’s why they mostly route traffic directly to the ZigBee stick.
You can try to force the Aqara devices to route traffic through another device in Phoscon. Unpair the aqara device, then in Phoscon go to lights and press add new lights. While it is searching for lights, put the Aqara device into pairing mode. You won’t get a successful message, but if it was successful you should see a new sensor under sensors.
However, ZigBee routes are dynamic,this means that it can randomly change the route.