The touch surprises him, a pleasant and welcome surprise like the first warm breeze of an oncoming summer. In this room, Claudius dressed in the style of his world and reaching kindly for him, he feels the reassuring weight of their agreed-upon brotherhood more than ever. Now that he is no longer a young man who touches no one but a grown man who touches the people he loves with gratitude for it, he turns over both of his hands, palms up, and offers them to Claudius.

"Wei Ying awoke four days later," he continues, and his voice remains calm. "He understood why my brother could not trust the Yiling Patriarch. He had seen Nie Mingjue's memories, and knew that during the years leading up to his death, he had been struggling more and more to soothe his qi as a result of his saber cultivation. Jin Guangyao would play the qin for him. Xiongzhang had taught him a musical cultivation technique, Cleansing. This technique calms the mind and spirit. On his bamboo flute, Wei Ying played the melody he had heard within Empathy. It was not Cleansing."