"I can’t even take you home," he says, with coolly enforced casualness. "You know that, don’t you? Even if I ripped up every threshold in The Unclean Realm, the bagua will stop you. The Stone Castles can’t shelter you, either, nor can the Sabre Halls."

It is not at all something terrible that must be endured for a greater good’s sake.

“Jin-zongzhu,” comes a voice, “have you ever thought that while you may be the mantis, tonight, there is an oriole in wait behind you?”

Behind Jin Guangyao, Nie Mingjue — the sage, the keeper, the forgotten part of the tale — stands, stretches out his hand, and snaps his neck.

There are many things that Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue do not talk about.

That night, Nie Mingjue dreams of Qinghe, but it is a Qinghe that is far from home.

Longing makes the world bright and the yearner blind, he knows, but even without his want soaking through and staining it, he thinks— he would be sure.

Nie Mingjue wakes, and he is not within his guest rooms at Koi Tower.

However could he run from Nie Mingjue, after all, when it is always and only ever will be Nie Mingjue that he runs to?

If they cannot be vulnerable with one another as brothers, who else will shoulder that weight for them? Who else could survive it? Who else would dare risk their back and their life in the trying?