( Lan Wangji had done the same thing, holding Wen Kexing by the wrist as he had shaken with anger. He wants to find it funny that Lan Xichen does the same, but it just makes him feel sad that either of them had to. He blinks, his eyes damp, clearly struggling with himself on what to say. )

The Valley Master.

( Without context it sounds so easy, so innocent. But it is torn out of Wen Kexing all the same, something blood-soaked and violent. His words are a faraway murmur, as though the spectre has thrust some part of him back into the past. )

He killed my parents. He raised me. Which is worse, do you think? The thing he took from me, or the thing he made me to be?