That anger rises like in him like a fire catching, blazing through dry kindling. It’s such calculated cruelty — proof against whatever shallow defenses he’d once made of Luo Binghe lashing out in the moment, in the extremes of emotion. Claudius provoked his ire, and for that he claimed some credit, but Lan Wangji was asleep in his own bed. Luo Binghe had no reason to hurt him except that he wanted to hurt someone, nothing to prove or protect, only malice. And he didn’t merely inflict fear through the threat of pain — he didn’t send some impersonal vision of monsters with teeth — he used Lan Wangji’s fierce and loving heart against him. For what? For nothing. Nothing came of it, except denying a man the private peace of sleep.

“Cruelty for the sake of cruelty,” he says. “At least Aornis knew herself to be a villain.”