The loan, gently refuted. He smarts for it, set of his jaw a mean, desperate sketch of gritting teeth and silence. Later, when they do not bide their balance and the conviction to linger upright on stubbornness alone, he might persevere with points of paternal reckoning: take as you are given, gratefully.

Uncle would never condone the return of energies expensed. But he is not here, a looming shadow in wait, he does not linger past Lan Wangji's shoulder to see his son an assembly of war-torn detritus — so much less than he stood, barely days before.

He will revive himself, part over part and the whole to follow. There is a moment when the clawed grasp of Lan Wangji's hands coil, reverrent and soft but caging, around his son's. "What did you play?"

Each song Sizhui learned, Lan Wangji has mastered. Each carefully selected for efficiency, time, skill. Each to its purpose.

"How often?"