( were the situation slightly different, and had wen qing been just a bit more desperate, she might've greeted him with a hug. she can feel her arms lift as if to embrace him, the muscles of her legs stopped mid step as if she remembers herself a moment too late. it's still all written across her face — gratitude, and sorrow, those two phrases she left him with in the cave on burial mounds. thank you and i'm sorry.

instead of a hug, she instead greets him a more familiar way, expression growing a bit stern after his words sink in, head cocked in semi feigned irritation. if her eyes seem shiny and wet, it must just be a trick of the light. )

Who doesn't know you?

( she swallows thickly, letting the mask sit more rightly on her face. after a long blink she sharpens her gaze on him, looking now with a doctor's sense of diagnosing. )

Stop speaking nonsense. You must be the sick one, saying such strange things. I should dissect you.