Claudius feels a fresh flare of fury — he knows his own secrets were selfishly kept. However he told himself it was for Gertrude’s sake, to guard her from the knowledge of what he’d do to free her, he didn’t want to be caught. He wanted to get away with a murder, and reap the rewards of it. His own dismay and anger at the play has faded. But Wei Wuxian kept a secret nobly, kept the secret of his own self-sacrifice, kept it even from Lan Wangji for twenty years. And someone else gleaned it without effort, someone outside their lives, with no personal stake in the matter.

“Did he learn it from his dramatic adaptations?” asks Claudius, more to confirm than anything else. He lets bitterness color his own voice — not so much at Shen Qingqiu for watching an entertainment, but at how fragile and exposed their secrets are once they’re on the stage.