This description of devotion softens Lan Wangji's face anew. It is surprisingly familiar: I provide the wine, he tells a silly but ultimately entertaining story. He, too, would do nearly anything that Wei Ying asked of him. He hid bottles of Emperor's Smile under the floorboards of the jingshi for years for the hypothetical enjoyment of a dead man.

"You love him," he says, as if in agreement with some point that Crowley has made. Perhaps he is being overly blunt, but what is the use in dancing around this?