Success by the number of crimes committed leaves Lan Wangji exceptionally cold. It puts him in mind of cultivators who care to go night-hunting only to acquire as many kills as possible. Heroes and villains are not always so different, not when those hierarchies are in place and not when there is fortune and renown to be harvested. He already had little respect for Aornis. He has less, now.

He has his own thoughts on Claudius' theories, thoughts about the ways that communities can bind people, sometimes too tightly and sometimes just tightly enough to constitute a necessary comfort. About the Wall of Discipline, four thousand rules that live stamped into his mind and will stay there forever, even if he lives here twice as long as he ever lived in Gusu. About his own long years of loneliness, and what he would or would not have done to alleviate that loneliness.

But he isn't having tea or playing an idle game of weiqi with Claudius. This is a game, but they are not playing. He's quiet, Bichen a cold beacon in his hand and the forest floor soft beneath the soles of his boots.