The cascade of events that lead to this moment—Nie Mingjue in a mesh crop top and billowing pants and a snake shaped chain that connects the neck bit to his trousers, good god—started, like all chaotic things in Mingjue’s life do, with Huaisang. With Huaisang’s new boyfriend, to be precise. And Huaisang’s boyfriend’s brother’s boyfriend’s brother. Who just happened to be Mingjue’s high school almost-sweetheart. - in which Huaisang has an art show, Xichen wears a suit, and there are. Shenanigans.

Some days, it isn’t so bad. His qi irregularities are within the expected boundaries. The desire to give in to the whispering need that wants him to succumb to violence is a quiet thing—imagine how his blood would look on our fingers, Baxia says, but Mingjue smiles through it, bows to Sect Leader Ouyang respectfully, and offers him tea. (If he spends a minute gritting his teeth and breathing heavily in a side chamber before the next assembly at the yearly cultivation conference, does it matter? If a report gets crushed between his fingers and the edge of his vision goes red for a second, a minute, did it really happen if nobody saw?) Other days, it is harder. For those days—the violent ones, the ones where he hangs onto his sanity by the edge of his teeth—he has Xichen.