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Luo Binghe had never particularly liked Ming Fan.
It was hardly a secret to those who knew him well. Ning-jie, certainly, had never needed to ask, and only kept throwing him those disappointed glances every time she caught him doing something she deemed unkind.
Luo Binghe made sure she was never present when he did.
Maybe once, when he had first joined the sect and had not known any better, Luo Binghe had still been optimistic about finding his place on Qing Jing Peak. Those sorts of pipe dreams had ended with the first insult, the first fist thrown—or perhaps the first time he had been banished from the sleeping quarters.
There had been a time when Ming Fan had been taller than him, better fed than him, dressed in Qing Jing Peak colours Luo Binghe had still been trying desperately to deserve. There had been a time when a careless word from Ming Fan could turn half the other disciples against him, when his laughter carried farther than any kindness ever did, when Luo Binghe had learnt exactly how much humiliation a person could swallow without choking.
There had also been a time when Shizun—not his Shizun, but the one from Before—had allowed it all to happen, when he wasn't actively encouraging it himself.
Things were rather different now.
Ming Fan was no longer taller, nor did he hold a higher standing. Luo Binghe was no longer a starving, confused boy. And, most importantly, Shen Qingqiu no longer favoured his Head Disciple the way he once had.
That last part filled Luo Binghe with a delicious sense of justice.
Perhaps it was petty of him but Luo Binghe had never claimed otherwise.
Every time Ming Fan looked at him with that old disgust, as though he were still somehow above Luo Binghe, it was Luo Binghe who could lean against Shen Qingqiu's slim frame. Luo Binghe who could brush his Shizun's hair, touch him freely, even kiss him, and watch Ming Fan's mouth tighten with displeasure.
His Shizun.
His husband.
"Shizun," Luo Binghe said now, resting his chin upon Shen Qingqiu's shoulder while Ming Fan laid out the tea service, "this one thought Shizun disliked Junshan Yinzhen?"
They had returned to Cang Qiong Mountain only because Shizun had some matters requiring his attention. As soon as those were finished and dealt with, Luo Binghe would be more than happy to take him back to their own rooms, far, far away from this place.
Shen Qingqiu paused, eyes widening in surprise.
"Binghe!"
His fan snapped open to hide the lower half of his face, though not quickly enough to conceal the pink already spreading across his cheeks. His eyes flicked towards his Head Disciple.
"Don't be rude."
The hungry beast curled somewhere inside Luo Binghe's chest purred with satisfaction.
Ming Fan's expression shifted through several emotions in quick succession: surprise first, then embarrassment, and something sharper that looked dangerously close to bitterness. Then it disappeared.
His face smoothed over so quickly that Shen Qingqiu, already busy glaring at Luo Binghe over the edge of his fan, probably did not notice.
Luo Binghe did.
His kind Shizun might no longer remember why this particular tea had once been so common on Qing Jing Peak but Luo Binghe knew.
Ming Fan's family sent it every year, an expensive gift delivered to their illustrious golden child of a son and, through him, to the shifu whose favour that son had once enjoyed so openly.
For a moment, Ming Fan's fingers remained resting against the lid of the teapot. He did not move until the faint tremor passing through his frame had subsided.
"This disciple apologises for not preparing a more suitable variety. Would Shizun prefer jasmine tea instead?"
His voice was carefully bland.
Luo Binghe counted it as a victory, relishing the fact that Ming Fan no longer called him Shifu in that disgustingly sycophantic tone. Shizun sounded far more appropriate coming from him now.
"No need, no need, this master is content with the choice."
Shizun was above visible flailing—barely—but he had said his piece, and Ming Fan, ever the dutiful disciple, bowed his head and poured him a cup. The stream did not waver, and neither did Ming Fan's hand. He tilted the pot exactly so, two fingers against the lid, sleeve drawn back.
Perfect posture, perfect execution of the same motion he must have been making for years.
Luo Binghe remembered those hands differently: smaller, softer, holding the hem of Shen Qingqiu's robes, trotting along half a step behind him and looking unbearably proud whenever the man bothered to speak to him.
"This disciple is glad."
Ming Fan did not immediately look away; instead, his eyes lingered on Shen Qingqiu as the man lifted the cup, watching with an unusual intensity. Shen Qingqiu took a sip, expression unchanging.
Something in Ming Fan's face dimmed.
Then he lowered his eyes and reached for Luo Binghe's cup as though nothing at all had happened.
Luo Binghe held out his cup.
He had got exactly the reaction he wanted yet for some reason it wasn't nearly as satisfying as it should have been.
Across the table, Shen Qingqiu was discussing the changes to the lesson plan. Ming Fan answered whenever addressed, each time maintaining the persona of a perfect immortal cultivator.
Nothing was wrong.
And yet Luo Binghe found himself watching him for the remainder of the afternoon.
Once noticed, the strangeness became difficult to stop noticing.
Ming Fan had always been diligent, for what it was worth.
Luo Binghe wished he could say otherwise. He wished he could dismiss Ming Fan as one of those spoiled rich brats who had bought their standing with family money and nothing else.
That wouldn't be true, though, and as little love as he held for his martial brother, Luo Binghe could give credit where it was due.
At first, when he had been younger, cold and beaten, lying in the woodshed through that first winter, he had still been under that impression. But the vigilance necessary to avoid Ming Fan and his followers had soon made Luo Binghe intimately familiar with where the Head Disciple was, what he was doing, and whether it was likely to end badly for him.
He remembered Ming Fan as the sort of senior disciple who would do everything well enough to remain comfortably above the juniors, then spend the rest of his energy making certain everyone knew it.
But even he seemed to have changed with time.
Back when he had been one of the rare male pupils Shen Qingqiu tolerated, if not outright liked, Ming Fan had striven to do well enough to earn his shifu's recognition.
In some of Luo Binghe's darker moments, when whispers about Shen Qingqiu's visits to brothels mingled with rumours that he preferred female disciples to male ones, Luo Binghe had even wondered whether Ming Fan's duties as Head Disciple extended beyond carrying tea and running errands.
Once, Luo Binghe might even have taken some vicious satisfaction in the thought.
Now he found he couldn't stomach it.
The fact remained that the Ming Fan of the present had changed.
Where once he had striven for recognition, now he trained until his wrists trembled, until his palms split and bled, until he kept enough salves and bandages in his rooms to avoid Qian Cao almost entirely.
When he wasn't with Ning Yingying—and nowadays Luo Binghe was fairly certain there was nothing but sibling affection between them—Ming Fan practised. Calligraphy, strategy, painting, music.
Again and again.
Ming Fan seemed almost possessed by the need to reach some invisible standard, though where exactly it lay, Luo Binghe could only guess.
He was fairly certain the why had always been Shizun.
And Shizun only attended to his duties as Peak Lord part-time now. When he did return to Qing Jing, naturally much of his attention remained with his husband, Luo Binghe, as it should.
Ming Fan therefore had little chance of receiving the recognition he seemed to starve for.
Not unlike the dog he had so often accused Luo Binghe of being.
Ming Fan could play the guqin well enough that Shen Qingqiu occasionally sent younger disciples to him rather than teaching them himself. Luo Binghe discovered, quite by accident, that his painting was better than most of the decorative screens hanging in Cang Qiong's receiving halls.
The music was the worst part, and not because Ming Fan lacked talent—quite the opposite.
Luo Binghe had been passing one of the smaller practice courtyards when the sound stopped him, carrying through the open lattice windows, controlled enough that each note landed exactly where it should.
Luo Binghe froze beneath the eaves.
He hated that song.
His heart began pounding before he had properly understood why. Sweat gathered against his palms, his fingers curling into fists at his sides.
For one disorienting moment, he was standing beneath the courtyard eaves and somewhere else entirely at the same time.
Seasonal gatherings.
Guests from other sects.
Shen Qingqiu seated before an instrument so exquisite that even as a child Luo Binghe had known better than to ask what it cost, or worse—touch it.
The former Shen Qingqiu had favoured the piece whenever outsiders visited Cang Qiong, displaying Qing Jing's refinement as readily as he displayed rare paintings, antique scrolls and instruments made from materials Luo Binghe had never even heard named anywhere else.
Some of those instruments had been assembled by Shen Qingqiu's own hands.
The man who struck children for mistakes and called them worthless when they cried.
The man who despised imperfection.
The man who trusted nobody.
The man Ming Fan had once followed around like an imprinted duckling.
Inside, the final note faded.
Silence followed.
Then, very softly—
"Again."
Luo Binghe's spine went rigid—he could sense no one else there.
"Ming Fan, this is not what Shifu taught you."
The voice was unmistakably Qing Jing Peak's Head Disciple's, yet the words sounded borrowed, something repeated from memory rather than formed in the moment.
A moment later, Ming Fan began from the first verse.
Luo Binghe stayed for half of it before leaving.
He told himself it was irritation that made his stomach twist.
After that, he began recognising Shen Qingqiu everywhere.
Not his Shizun, but the man he had been Before.
It was there in the way Ming Fan lifted his chin when displeased, or in the sharp flick with which he corrected a junior's grip on a brush.
Now that Luo Binghe had noticed it, had finally categorised it as Shen Qingqiu's imprint, he found it in every little thing.
He recognised the arrangement of Ming Fan's hair, formal even on days when half the peak had given up and tied theirs back with whatever ribbon happened to be nearest. He recognised the cut of his robes, the embroidery hidden along the inner sleeves, the qiankun pouches tucked discreetly beneath them—as though a Head Disciple, just like a Peak Lord, ought to have emergency supplies ready at all times.
It was in the incense Ming Fan used to mark the passage of time, in the snacks he bought on his rare trips down the mountain, in the tea.
Always that damned tea.
Luo Binghe could still remember the near-scalding liquid pouring over his hair and face, the only mercy being that this particular variety was brewed at a low enough temperature not to burn him.
Ming Fan had not merely been Shen Qingqiu's student, nor merely his prized pupil—he had allowed himself to be shaped by that man.
He had taken on his mannerisms, his habits, his standards, daring to grieve his shifu as someone precious rather than remember him as the stain upon the world Luo Binghe knew him to be.
The realisation that Ming Fan was suffering did not soften Luo Binghe towards him; if anything, it made him worse.
Because there was something obscene about it, as Shen Qingqiu was still here.
Alive.
Kind.
Happy.
He laughed more now, openly and with far less effort to hide it. He ate proper meals, praised Luo Binghe's cooking, and slept curled against his chest, complaining about the heat while refusing to move away. He read terrible novels he enjoyed dissecting with Shang Qinghua. He even tolerated Liu Qingge appearing unannounced at all hours, though that last part was something Luo Binghe could quite happily live without.
This was the Shen Qingqiu who should have mattered.
And still Ming Fan moved through Qing Jing carrying the other man's shadow on his back as if there had been something worth preserving. As if cruelty could and should be mourned.
As if the old version had any claim upon the life they had built afterward.
Luo Binghe loathed it.
It took him an embarrassingly long time to realise that beneath all that hatred was something familiar, something he had not felt in quite a while.
It was fear.
Since then, any teasing, any poking Luo Binghe might once have indulged in while Ming Fan was present became half-hearted at best.
He couldn't help noticing that it no longer brought him the same satisfaction.
Now that he had identified the reason behind his decidedly unpleasant feelings towards his shixiong, he found himself disliking the thought that his own behaviour might merely be another reaction to—another extension of—the Shen Qingqiu from Before.
Worse, he began noticing something else.
Once, Ming Fan would have answered him eye for an eye—at least whenever Shizun wasn't listening—with one of those veiled insults wrapped in enough florid language that he could later pretend innocence if challenged.
For the past few days, though, he had simply...
Stopped.
He no longer rose to any bait. He answered Luo Binghe with nothing but perfect politeness and studied indifference, his expression smoothed into one Luo Binghe recognised all too well—it was the face Ming Fan wore for outsiders.
For visiting cultivators, ones who had no friendly dealings with the Cang Qiong sect.
For people from Huan Hua Palace, especially.
How dare he?
Luo Binghe found himself caught between a thin trickle of satisfaction—perhaps he had finally managed to break Ming Fan after all—and something much more difficult to swallow.
The insult of being placed in the same category as an Outsider instead of one of Ming Fan's shidis.
Wasn't that what Luo Binghe had wanted, though? For Ming Fan to finally drop the pretense of being martial siblings and leave him alone to his marital bliss?
For the man to stop looking at him as though they still shared something merely because they had once worn the same colours?
The stone dropping into his stomach and the sudden tightness in his chest informed him that apparently that was not the case.
For the first time since the worst of the misunderstandings with Shizun, Luo Binghe felt lost.
And it wasn't only Ming Fan who acted out of character.
Shizun had started watching him more carefully, his eyes still kind but sharpened by that familiar analytical look that meant he had noticed far more than Luo Binghe would have preferred.
Ning Yingying had begun giving him those looks again too, when she wasn't shaking her head and simply walking away.
Luo Binghe knew, rationally, that he was no longer the small boy everyone on Qing Jing Peak could turn against with a word.
It did not stop his throat from tightening.
Alone.
Ostracised.
An outsider.
He hated it.
Clearly, he needed to find Ming Fan and make him fix whatever this was, because this was obviously his doing.
Luo Binghe ignored the small voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Shizun telling him he was being foolish.
He looked for Ming Fan in the teaching halls first. It was still daytime; the man should have been teaching as one of the instructors.
No luck.
For some reason, instead of his hateful bully of a shixiong, the advanced guqin class had been taken over by one of the older Hall Masters.
Luo Binghe lingered just long enough to confirm that Ming Fan truly wasn't there before slithering away unnoticed and spreading his senses across Qing Jing Peak in search of his wayward nemesis.
Strangely enough, Ming Fan seemed to be in his quarters.
Probably sleeping, judging by the feel of his rather diminished qi.
Luo Binghe scoffed at the laziness and continued onwards, righteous fury warming his veins.
As he came closer, he knocked—no answer came.
He waited one breath, two, three.
Nothing.
Now that he was closer, however, something about the qi beyond the door bothered him.
It was diminished, certainly, but it did not have the settled quality of sleep or meditation. There was something muted about it instead, oddly distant, as though Ming Fan were physically present behind the door while the rest of him had gone somewhere Luo Binghe's senses could not follow.
Enough was enough.
"I'm coming in," Luo Binghe warned before entering.
The room was both everything and nothing like he had expected.
As he had suspected, traces of Shen Qingqiu were everywhere, though there was enough of Ming Fan himself woven between them that the quarters could never truly be mistaken for his former shifu's.
It was dark.
The curtains had been drawn despite the hour, and only Luo Binghe's demonic eyesight allowed him to make out the room without reaching for a lamp.
The familiar guqin occupied a place of prominence, immaculate despite everything else. Several calligraphy scrolls hung nearby, each positioned with almost painful precision.
The rest of the room was… maybe not messy but disordered.
A robe had been left folded only halfway across the back of a chair. Books remained open where they had been abandoned. A cup sat forgotten on a low table. One of the drawers had not been pushed fully closed.
Tiny things, yet from Ming Fan they felt almost alarming.
Luo Binghe had just begun considering whether this could be stored away as ammunition for later when his gaze finally fell upon the bundle curled in the middle of the bed.
All amusement disappeared. Ming Fan looked like a ghost.
His face was bloodless against the dark spill of his hair. His eyes were open but unfocused, enough white showing around the irises to make tendrils of unease creep beneath Luo Binghe's skin. His entire body shook with fine, relentless tremors.
Sweat had soaked through his inner robes; the damp fabric clung to him, outlining a frame far bonier than Luo Binghe remembered.
For a few moments, Luo Binghe only stared.
"Ming Fan?"
Nothing. That was—
Luo Binghe frowned and stepped closer. After only the barest hesitation, he closed one hand around Ming Fan's shaking arm.
Ming Fan's eyes snapped into focus.
He glared at Luo Binghe with all the murderous force of a soaked kitten dragged out of a river.
"Get out," he hissed, his voice all barbs despite how weak it sounded.
“Careful, Ming-shixiong. You're beginning to sound exactly like—”
Luo Binghe's words died.
Ming Fan went even paler, until he looked barely alive. The grief suddenly left bare, no longer hidden behind a barbed remark or a snarl, made Luo Binghe deeply uncomfortable.
Ming Fan looked resigned, and it did not suit him at all. “Don't. Just… go away.”
Luo Binghe straightened.
“Excuse me?”
“I said leave. You got what you wanted, found another thing to torment me with. Just laugh, and go. Away.”
A year ago, even six months ago, Luo Binghe would have happily laughed.
Would have reminded him whose husband he was speaking to. Whose favour he enjoyed. How very little authority Ming Fan possessed over him.
Instead he looked at the man's face.
Then at his hands.
They were still shaking, fingers curled over an old fan with cranes.
Luo Binghe left.
He did not know what to do.
He could go to Ning Yinying, or even better, ask Mu Qingfang to take a look at Ming Fan because clearly the man was not well.
But the idea of trying to explain why he had been there, and why he had seen Ming Fan in his current state, made him realise that, with all the animosity between them over the past months—if not years—the chances of anyone believing he had nothing to do with it were low.
The thought of Shizun—his husband—once again doubting his actions and intentions was unbearable.
In that case, the only thing he could do was… make Ming Fan look slightly less half-dead, and only then dump him into Mu Qingfang's capable hands.
He nodded to himself.
It sounded like a plan.
Luo Binghe returned to Ming Fan's door half a shichen later with a tray balanced in one hand.
For a moment, he simply stared at the closed door, wondering whether he was supposed to ask for permission or forgiveness before entering this time. His fingers twitched against the edge of the tray before he finally raised his hand and knocked.
Nothing.
He glanced down at the bowl of congee, the thin broth, the tea he had deliberately chosen because it was mild enough not to irritate an empty stomach.
"I brought food."
For several moments, there was still no answer. Then, muffled through the door, came Ming Fan's voice.
"I told you to leave."
"And I did."
Luo Binghe frowned at the wood separating them. He was beginning to wonder whether Ming Fan had fallen unconscious again when something shifted inside.
"Then why won't you stay like that—gone?"
"Open the door."
"No."
The old irritation sparked readily enough, familiar and easy, and Luo Binghe's fingers tightened around the tray. Then the image of Ming Fan curled on the bed, shaking and barely responsive, rose unbidden in his mind.
The anger had nowhere to go.
He exhaled slowly. "Either you let me come in, or I will call Shizun."
That finally earned him a response. There was the faint scrape of movement, followed by the click of the latch, and the door opened only a fraction.
Ming Fan stood behind it wrapped in an outer robe thrown carelessly over whatever he had been wearing before. His hair had been tied back, but unevenly, several strands still sticking to his damp temples. He looked marginally more alive than before, which was hardly saying much.
His gaze dropped to the tray.
"What is that?"
"Food."
"Are you trying to poison me?"
Luo Binghe's temper flared.
If this lord wanted you dead, Ming Fan, do you truly think poison would be necessary?
The retort came so naturally that he nearly said it aloud. Instead, Luo Binghe swallowed it down and answered only, "No."
Ming Fan watched him for another moment, evidently searching for whatever trick was supposed to follow. When none came, his shoulders sagged and something about the motion looked less like relief than resignation.
Once, Luo Binghe would have enjoyed seeing him like this.
When he had been younger, shivering through winters in a woodshed and dreaming about revenge, he had imagined returning every humiliation tenfold. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, until Ming Fan finally understood what it was like to be powerless beneath someone else's hand.
Now, faced with the reality of it, Luo Binghe found no satisfaction at all.
Ming Fan stepped away from the doorway. It was not quite an invitation, but Luo Binghe took it as one and entered, placing the tray on the low table while Ming Fan lowered himself heavily onto the edge of the bed.
The silence between them stretched until Luo Binghe could no longer tolerate it.
"You're in an appalling state for Qing Jing Peak's Head Disciple."
Ming Fan let out something between a laugh and a bitter bark.
"What Head Disciple? Don't make me laugh."
Luo Binghe frowned. "What do you mean? You have been Head Disciple for years. Has your memory deteriorated that badly?"
Ming Fan looked at him as though Luo Binghe were being deliberately stupid.
"Shizun is barely here. The younger disciples don't need me. In fact, most of them would rather go to Ning-shimei, and for good reason." He lowered his gaze to his hands. "And I am not the one Shizun would choose."
"What are you talking about? Shizun gave you the position. You represent him whenever he's away."
"Yes. Whenever he's away with you."
The bitterness in Ming Fan's voice sharpened, although he still did not look up.
"If you were here instead, who do you think would have the title now?"
Luo Binghe opened his mouth, but Ming Fan continued before he could answer.
"I used to know what tea to prepare before he asked. Which incense he wanted if he was reading and which one if he was painting. Whether he wanted the windows open depending on the weather. Which disciples he tolerated during meals and which ones would irritate him." His fingers curled slowly into the fabric covering his knees. "Now I feel as though I don't know him at all."
Luo Binghe swallowed.
"Why did you stop calling him Shifu?"
Ming Fan went completely still.
It had not been the question Luo Binghe had intended to ask, yet apparently it had been sitting somewhere beneath all the others, waiting for an opportunity to force its way out.
For a while, Ming Fan said nothing. When he finally answered, his voice was strangely calm, as though he were saying something obvious rather than something that made Luo Binghe's chest tighten.
"Because Shizun is here."
His fingers tightened.
"And Shifu is not."
For once, Luo Binghe had no immediate answer.
"That is a good thing," he said eventually. His voice remained even, though something sharper ran underneath it, an edge of warning steel he could not quite suppress.
Ming Fan flinched.
Before Luo Binghe could decide whether he regretted it, however, Ming Fan surprised him once again by nodding.
"I know."
Luo Binghe stared.
There was no indignation in Ming Fan's face, no denial. Only that same exhausted grief he kept trying and failing to hide.
"He was cruel," Luo Binghe tried.
"I know."
"He hurt me. He hurt other disciples too. His words were like a viper's bite; the moment he sensed weakness, he struck."
"I know."
"He nearly crippled me. He nearly killed me more than once. Just think about the cultivation manual!"
His voice had risen without him meaning it to. Anger was gathering again, hotter with every calm agreement Ming Fan gave him, because despite all of it—despite knowing, despite admitting it—
Ming Fan still looked so damn sad.
This time, Ming Fan closed his eyes.
"The manual was my idea."
Luo Binghe stopped.
"He would have approved had he known about it," Ming Fan continued quietly. "So believe me, Luo Binghe. I do know."
Betrayal, hot and ugly, twisted inside Luo Binghe's chest.
"Then why?" He heard the accusation in his own voice but could no longer pull it back. "Why do you still—"
He stopped.
Mourn him.
Emulate him.
Drink his tea.
Ming Fan opened his eyes and, somehow, seemed to understand everything Luo Binghe had failed to say.
"I never asked you to miss him," he said. "I never asked you to forgive him."
His voice wavered for the first time.
"But he was still my Shifu."
Luo Binghe looked away.
His gaze caught on the guqin, then the calligraphy hanging nearby, then the old fan with cranes resting where Ming Fan had abandoned it. All those little fragments he had spent weeks learning to recognise.
For all that time, Luo Binghe had looked at them and seen a threat. A challenge. Evidence that Ming Fan refused to acknowledge that the better Shen Qingqiu was standing directly in front of him.
Perhaps none of it had ever been about Luo Binghe.
The thought was unpleasant in an entirely different way.
"I still hate him," he said eventually.
"I know."
"I don't think he deserved—"
Luo Binghe stopped.
Ming Fan waited without prompting him to finish.
His gaze dropped instead to the food sitting untouched between them.
"But that has nothing to do with whether you eat."
Ming Fan blinked.
Luo Binghe nudged the tray closer. "So eat."
For a moment, Ming Fan looked as though he might refuse purely out of principle, but whatever stubbornness remained in him was apparently weaker than his exhaustion. His shoulders sagged and he reached for the spoon.
His hand trembled badly enough that porcelain clicked against porcelain.
Luo Binghe pretended not to notice.
Ming Fan managed several mouthfuls before slowing, his hand eventually coming to rest against the edge of the bowl.
Luo Binghe remained where he was until the bowl was half empty. Only then, when Ming Fan finally set it aside, did he speak again.
"I'm getting Mu-shishu."
Ming Fan's entire body tensed. "I don't need—"
"You can barely hold a spoon."
"I said—"
"And I heard you." Luo Binghe caught the sharpness in his own voice and forced it back down. "I won't drag you there. I'll ask Mu-shishu to come here instead."
Ming Fan continued watching him suspiciously, but the protest seemed to have gone out of him.
After a moment, he said, "Don't tell Shizun."
Luo Binghe stiffened.
Of all the requests Ming Fan could have made—
"I don't want him to see—"
Ming Fan stopped.
Whether he meant himself in this state or the little memorial hidden throughout the room, Luo Binghe couldn't tell. Perhaps Ming Fan himself didn't know.
Either way, Luo Binghe could imagine Shen Qingqiu's face if he learnt of it. For now, it was better left alone.
"I won't make it his business unless it needs to be," Luo Binghe said. He hesitated before adding, "But for what it's worth, he does care about you."
Ming Fan's expression changed, though Luo Binghe could not quite tell into what. He looked away.
"Fine."
There was nothing more to say.
Luo Binghe made it as far as the door before Ming Fan's voice stopped him.
"Luo Binghe."
He looked back.
Ming Fan was staring down at his hands, his posture once again trying to approximate the perfect Head Disciple Luo Binghe had known for years
"Don't misunderstand."
That was familiar enough to almost make Luo Binghe bristle in habit.
He didn't.
"I wouldn't dare."
Ming Fan looked up sharply, perhaps searching for mockery, but Luo Binghe had already turned towards the door.
For once, he left before either of them could ruin it.