Firstly it doesn’t look typical for a cold sore, I’m a dentist so get to see them really close up at all stages.
Secondly go to the NHS site and read up on how we end up with cold sores. In order for them to affect you, you first need to have had a primary infection which usually involves high temperature, a mouthful of ulcers and a week or so of being quite poorly. It is a bit similar to hand , foot and mouth or chickenpox so is often missed. Not everyone develops the secondary infection, recurrent cold sores.
After primary infection the virus takes up residence in the trigeminal ganglion ( the junction box where the sensory nerve that supplies your face, teeth and mouth divides into the three main nerve branches), when the immune system is compromised by a cold or similar the virus is able to sneak past the busy immune system and travels along a branch of the nerve ending up at the terminal ends of the branch. The lip is only one area that can be affected, in the mouth you often see a cold sore like lesion on the palate where there are terminal nerve endings. You often see them inside the nose, theoretically anywhere where there are clusters of nerve endings.
Although for most people they are a painful inconvenience, if you suffer with them you need to be aware that they are infectious and that it is possible for them to cause life threatening complications. They can cause meningo-encephalitis, as can other members of the herpes family, such as chickenpox, but these complications are very rare. Anti virals are very effective treatments.
The encephalitis is more likely with the primary infection or in immunosuppressed patients. I was caught out when my DS had chickenpox and like most of us assumed his persistent high temp was par for the course. He ended up in hospital with suspected viral meningitis.