[Blade leans into the touch a little, his expression mild.] It's fine. Really. My memory isn't the best, but it's a little better than yours when it comes to certain matters of the past. I would do well to remember that.

As for the anger... I doubt all of it was my own. [A pause.] When you—that is, the Dan Heng of the past—said that you would see it through until the end, that was the happiest I'd ever been. I didn't hear that woman's voice in my head for once.

[He squeezes their still-twined hands. See? Everything is fine. Ish. A shadow darkens Blade's gaze when the Preceptors are mentioned.]

Them again.

[He can't even be surprised, though hearing that they had tried to kill Bailu, an innocent, infuriates him enough that he bares his fangs for a second.]

They would have strongarmed you into it if you had gone, or worse. Perhaps they would have even threatened you with her well-being if you didn't cooperate.

Snakes. Vipers. [His grip tightens on the railing.] What are the chances they were part of this from the very beginning? What if... they deemed Dan Feng uncontrollable, and orchestrated his fall to seize control again?

[There's nothing they can do about past lives, about sins committed by them or by the Preceptors. And yet a part of him still despairs, knowing they struggled and struggled to free themselves of fate's trappings and couldn't see their way out of it.

No wonder the old Blade had been so fucking tired.]