"I'm not saying I want to leave her in a ditch or anything," Shen Yuan snaps -- whines, honestly, though that's a little more self-aware than he's willing to be -- "I just -- I don’t know how to be the kind of person she needs."

He scrubs his hands clean on the edge of his robe before leaning over to take her down off the wall. "She can't talk. Air -- None of the sages ever wrote anything about spiritual swords talking. But she's...I could never feel her spiritual presence this easily before. It's almost like she's alive."

Heh, 'almost.' Good one, Shen Yuan. You clown.