He makes people feel important. With inevitability, Lan Wangji thinks again of Wei Ying, whose warmth can flood a room like the sun framed perfectly in a wide and open window. He thinks of Wei Ying winking at the women of Caiyi, catching loquats, nudging Lan Wangji with his shoulder and saying, Ladies, isn't this young master terribly handsome? He thinks of Wei Ying in the Burial Mounds, the lean and terrible Yiling Patriarch smiling at the old women and the farmers with their patchy beards, planting A-Yuan in the ground like a radish and laughing. He thinks of Wei Ying with Wen Qionglin, refusing to accept the Ghost General's subservience.

He takes the first sip of his own cup of tea. "You had no choice but to love a boy like that."