"In truth? It sounds like the whims of cruel and pointless beings with too much power," Viktor says, dry but a little sharp. At those beings, for making toys of this, what seems a harmless story. Then again apparently it wasn't just a story.

And that is something Shen Yuan's words make him think of. This Binghe, as a real person, being toyed with. How odd it must be to meet a beloved character from a story, to have them made real before you, only to be denied the right to true free will like... what, some test? Amusement?

"Did you grow fond of him as a person?" he asks, willing to delve into more personal questions since, well, they were already here. "It must be odd, to meet a story and learn them as a person who seems to have agency, a life. A little eh... meta and existential, really."