The possibility that keeps him up at night is that Meng Yao came into his service an honest man, and over time changed into what he sees before him now. That, as his ambitions rose and his world grew grander, he reshaped himself and discovered the things he was capable of, all the while looking like his familiar self, but transforming under his skin into something Nie Mingjue could hardly recognize.

He will remake Qinghe—refurbishing its rooms, balancing its ledgers, soothing its master’s tempers—until it’s a place for a man like him.

It was always hard with him. You couldn’t get anything of substance by asking for it directly. Taichi had remembered how irritating that could be, but now he felt along with the annoyance a rush of irrational fondness. It was what Taichi used to like about him. What you got out of him, you felt like you earned. Not because you worked for it, but like he’d seen something in you that was hidden from yourself and decided he could humour you for a while. It was probably too much to hope for that he still would.