Nor would Lan Wangji, as distasteful as he found Asmodean's accounting of his past. Still. "He is volatile," he says as explanation for the question, "and if we crossed blades, I would not come out the victor." His concern is largely not for himself in this matter, but for those he has sworn to protect. Claudius, of course, but any of the other mansion residents who are more vulnerable than a cultivator.