The question almost strikes him as ridiculous, because the idea of Wei Ying returning and Lan Wangji meeting him with anything but desire seems incomprehensible -- but it is a fair one. The physicality of his feelings for Wei Ying was one of the first aspects of their acquaintance that truly unraveled him. He remembers every detail of the gleam in Wei Ying's eyes, the nimbleness of his body along the Cloud Recesses walls, the flick of his ponytail like something beckoning to Lan Wangji, daring him to take hold of it and pull until Wei Ying could no longer escape him.

Then came his cleverness, his generosity to others, his wit and his insatiable curiosity. Lan Wangji must have known he had sealed his own demise the first time he sat down at his qin, able to think of nothing but Wei Ying flirting with the women of Gusu and effortlessly outsmarting water spirits, and began to compose a song with no spiritual trappings but those of his overburdened adolescent heart.

"Once I recognized him," he says, "it no longer mattered."