Lan Wangji has to take a silent and pensive moment to consider the mindboggling thought exercise of Nie Huaisang and Claudius in the same room. It is occasionally easy to believe that he never knew Nie Huaisang at all -- that even the delicate, fragile boy who whined about da-ge's expectations, his unwilling childhood companion, was all a construction. That can't be true, however. More likely, Sect Leader Nie began the work of layering pieces of himself after the death of his brother, and that is when it became impossible to track which piece was real and which was the performance.
"You would like Nie Huaisang," he says, after that moment, "and I suspect he would like you, but that he would be unable to resist trying to use you for his own ends. He is known as the Headshaker1 for his ability to pretend at useless ignorance."
1This is a pretty loose translation of Nie Huaisang's title, 一问三不知, which more literally means "one question, three I-don't-knows."
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"You would like Nie Huaisang," he says, after that moment, "and I suspect he would like you, but that he would be unable to resist trying to use you for his own ends. He is known as the Headshaker1 for his ability to pretend at useless ignorance."
1This is a pretty loose translation of Nie Huaisang's title, 一问三不知, which more literally means "one question, three I-don't-knows."