He weeps as children do, Wei Ying, for the pretty poetry of it, the indentation of a cleansed path on cheeks dust-stained and greyed, and his mouth soured, his soul contorted. A picture of innocence, tattered for sport — it speaks of the old practices, of defiling a bride, only to tear her veils, injure her family, spoil honour. To wash your hands in brittle gold and see them come glistened, and know cold river waters will steal their shine thereafter. To seize, for the arrogance of a claim.

A graceless thing, to own Wei Ying when he bares himself, the man he was before he gained new name, the boy, the martyr. When he vivisects his reputation, skin to bone, and finds gossamer and spiderweb, stale air and decay. No substance.

Alone, Lan Wangji wrenches himself — shifts, clumsy and slow and unresting beside himself the weight of ground-host, of sacred territory. There is in inhalation, a part wind, a part himself, the better half the destitution of Yiling.

"I think, once, I may have loved him." But he tips like brass pendulums, momentum paralysed by weight — collides in increments, forehead to Wei Ying's own, the divide of his headband a cold juxtaposition of distance and filigree. He does not exorcise the wet of Wei Ying's face with starved fingertips.

And he decides, "I think," for all it aches, "you are not him."

Worthy of the name 'Wei Ying'. Wearing the parchment of a known face. The sum of broken parts. "But I know you."