"I didn't want you to feel this," says Wei Wuxian quietly, reaching for the edge of his robe on the bed. He shrugs into it, wrapping it tight around his torso. "Any of you. And so we lied to Jiang Cheng about how his core was returned to him. The Wens caught me when I was waiting for him to come back from the mountain. They threw me into the Burial Mounds. Without resentful energy, I wouldn't have survived."

Wei Wuxian clutches his own elbows. "I knew what you all thought about it, but I wanted to live, Lan Zhan."