Lan Wangji can see it; he can see how he often feels like a man who was crafted for one purpose and then, painfully, chose another with the changes wrought by time. Of course Wei Ying would always be at the center of that. Whether that version of Wei Ying lives again, and Lan Wangji wants him to, wants so badly for every Wei Ying in every universe to live in whatever way is possible, the Lan Zhan who loved him will never be the same for having known him.

"Your other self told me a story of love," he says. It amounts to an agreement. They are both sentimental, and as painful as that can be, surely they would want to be no other way.