If Lan Wangji wrote this same song today, it might well be markedly different. He hears, when he plays it, the rough edges, the technical imperfections he could have smoothed out with another two decades of study, the desperation that overtook him as he composed it. He hears Wei Ying saying Lan Wangji! Wangji-xiong! Lan Zhan! and he hears Wei Ying screaming at him in a cave in Yiling, ordering him to leave, and he hears Wei Ying's new voice laughing over the words I'm much more attracted to people like Hanguang-jun. He would not change even one note, now.

It is less a performance, this time, as compared to playing for Claudius and Crowley. Sagramore did not ask this of him, and it is only the two of them, a moment shared with a friend. Still, there is no melody his hands know better than this one.