And the heart quickens, stirs with tired quakes of easy, spuming fluctuation, red cresting, waves bright, and the mirror magic of the pond painting his reflection — monster, slanted-eyed, a vision of purity. His whites simper in plain billowing arcs beside Lan Wangji, settle down in tired lines.

He watches Wei Ying and means him close, like the children who trail after his skirts, step and stampede over pebbles, heedlessly. In battle, in tenuous investigation, they have this: Wei Ying measured, sincere, an extrapolation of Lan Wangji's own caution. What whispers between them was dead when they were born, but bleeds fresh now, and the pond's waters murmur.

One knee, the second. He sits as if he were Brother readying for tea, and prepares himself in full ceremony: drags the angry mouth of his sleeve and turns it once, then again, over the cradle of his elbow, safe from harm's way. Then, he extends the willow branch of his arm, dips a hand in the slaughter waters — recovers the thin, thickening, trickled stain of red, and feels the vibration of deaf screams against his skin.

He wants...? What does he want? I want to have not brought you here. "I want your truth." No. No, never that foolishness. "Their truth."