After another deliberate pause, Lan Wangji nods, and lets his concern ebb for the time being. It matters to him, too, that Claudius chose to trust him with specificity rather than in a moment of generalized carelessness. And although he would not have spoken so freely of his own secrets without that truth compulsion, there is no one else for whom he would have stayed long enough to see the spell come to its conclusion.
"As I told you," he says, "Wei Ying's death was celebrated by most." He considers, with an effort of calculated thought, how best to explain this. He had never intended to share Wei Ying's history, but to have Shen Qingqiu know it and not Claudius is too great an insult. "In his first life, he had a great deal of blood on his hands." Recalling Shen Qingqiu's words recalls, too, the first sight of Wei Ying after his emergence from the Burial Mounds, hollowed-out and dark-eyed and twirling a flute whose resentful energy seemed to have consumed the laughing boy Lan Wangji once knew.
Lan Wangji indulges in a grounding breath. He attempts to relax his hands where they are trying to curl into fists atop his knees. "I cannot justify everything he did or every life he took, but I agreed to share his burdens. He has regrets, and he could have walked no other path. Shen Qingqiu compared him to Luo Binghe, and with my tongue loosened by that curse, I could not stay silent. Wei Ying would never have tortured a man over a single kiss gone awry. He was occasionally cruel, but never petty. What he did was done out of love and a desire for justice for his clan, for his family, and for a group of women, children, and elderly farmers whom no one else would deign to shelter."
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"As I told you," he says, "Wei Ying's death was celebrated by most." He considers, with an effort of calculated thought, how best to explain this. He had never intended to share Wei Ying's history, but to have Shen Qingqiu know it and not Claudius is too great an insult. "In his first life, he had a great deal of blood on his hands." Recalling Shen Qingqiu's words recalls, too, the first sight of Wei Ying after his emergence from the Burial Mounds, hollowed-out and dark-eyed and twirling a flute whose resentful energy seemed to have consumed the laughing boy Lan Wangji once knew.
Lan Wangji indulges in a grounding breath. He attempts to relax his hands where they are trying to curl into fists atop his knees. "I cannot justify everything he did or every life he took, but I agreed to share his burdens. He has regrets, and he could have walked no other path. Shen Qingqiu compared him to Luo Binghe, and with my tongue loosened by that curse, I could not stay silent. Wei Ying would never have tortured a man over a single kiss gone awry. He was occasionally cruel, but never petty. What he did was done out of love and a desire for justice for his clan, for his family, and for a group of women, children, and elderly farmers whom no one else would deign to shelter."