illicitly | (Reply)

From:

[Shi Qingxuan has been alive for a long time.

There aren't many souls around in the heavenly room; a hundred or so at any given time as officials either fall or disappear as the seasons change at a pace incomprehensible to mortal memory. Qingxuan feels intensely, brilliantly, when most would treat their grievances as distant memories, fading with time.

Every friendship weighs as profoundly as the first turn of the season, on him.

He shifts to prop a chin over Huaisang's shoulder, taking in every word with a noncommittal noise or another. He's ready to dip into his considerable pool of history until the tail end of Huaisang's explanation catches him unaware.

Qingxuan is not a martial deity. And while he's not a stranger to taking the souls of those who've wronged others, their innocence never presented any space for contemplation. Every action of his in his long life has been just.

Ah, Huaisang... He hears the echoes of his own brother in the voice of the vulnerable man. Only, the older Shi would have stuck to every questionable decision with an iron clad resoluteness.]

Have you forgiven them, for now? While they're here, Nie-xiong?

[He asks tentatively, fairly ready to accept any answer he may get.]