Lan Wangji had hardly realized his own trepidation about this request until it has passed. He has never explicitly asked such a thing before; he was Lan Zhan, or A-Zhan to his mother, and then he was Lan Wangji, and his brother and his uncle adjusted accordingly. He finds himself smiling at Claudius' recitation, warmed enough that even an allusion to Jiang Wanyin's existence, which is unfortunate indeed, does not dampen his mood.

"I am a cut-sleeve," he says, a little wryness in the lingering quirk at the corner of his mouth. "A man who desires other men."