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[laughitoff]

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[laughitoff]

I'm not taking. Anything. Or I'm trying not to.

[closes his eyes, leaning his head against the stone]

I'm right here.

[strikingchords]

[it's quiet on the other side of the grave marker.]

[laughitoff]

[lets it stretch a little before he speaks again...]

[strikingchords]

[after quite a long while, soft again]

Lying is forbidden.

[laughitoff]

Am I lying?

[honest question]

[strikingchords]

Not speaking of you.

[closes his eyes, unseen]

What I said, before.

My opinion did not change.

[laughitoff]

[a bitter little chuckle]

I suppose anything would be a fond memory compared to now.

[strikingchords]

That is not it.

[laughitoff]

Then...?

[strikingchords]

...

[quiet]

That Wei Ying is not a faithless person.

[laughitoff]

...

Not many people would agree with you.

[strikingchords]

They are mistaken.

[Lan Wangji always sounds so sure.]

[laughitoff]

Yet I tried to bite the throat out of someone who's been a paragon of faithfulness, you may remember.

[strikingchords]

...

I had failed as well.

And, I did not let you.

[laughitoff]

...how did you fail, exactly?

[strikingchords]

[the silence after that question stretches again, for a very long time.]

"Someone who stands with you."

...

Who to keep faith with, alone?

[laughitoff]

Where would you have stood with me? How? To what end?

You can't have faith when you're dead.

[strikingchords]

How to guess now?

You did not even know I wished it.

[laughitoff]

[swallows]

I would much rather you were alive and living well.

[strikingchords]

...

[pitiless]

What of those who wished it for Wei Ying?

[laughitoff]

That's different.

[strikingchords]

...

[soft again?]

Explain it.

[laughitoff]

You're Hanguang-Jun. You go where the chaos is. You do a lot of good for the people, for your sect.

I'm a demonic cultivator. I don't think I did most people around me much good, in the end. Even if nothing had gone wrong, the most I could ever have achieved was keeping a handful of people safe on a corpse mound longer than I did.

[strikingchords]

[...

even quieter, now]

That is why.

[laughitoff]

[closes his eyes]

Please.