( This man, who has forged and tamed Yin iron whole, who sundered sect politics, who created new pathways of cultivation.

This man, who grew lotus flower in barren muck, who found a child to raise from ether, who created a clan.

This man, who sequestered his welfare amid threats to banish disrepute and reveal decades of conspiracy.

This man, who has here kept them whole and hale, alive and tremulously bartering their path home.

...this man, Lan Wangji decides between extensive, painstaking blinks, is a fool. Just as politely, he abandons Lethe without her indulgences — bear with it, beautiful girl, serpentine darling, already threatening him with scowls and petty glares and another choice nudge, for she is a conqueror of the skies and he only a peasant who owes her obeisance — and drifts to catch his husband's ribbon-bound wrist. To hold it up in pained, pointed, staring illustration, until one of the matrons left of Wei Ying in the interminable queue, takes this time to mutter, 'Ain't even gold, that.'

Truer than the sophisticated, studied artifice of Jin filigree, deeper than the thunderous cleaving of Nie, more intrusive than the deceptive artfulness of Yunmeng. Heart and soul and the emblem of the clan crowning the bindings of the sect, anointing Wei Ying's claim. )

You recognise no claim?

( There are deserts complaining of more humidity than his voice. )