There is a dense white static ringing in his ears and a molten pressure building behind his eyes from a swell of emotion that is too massive, too all-consuming, too wild and despairing to be released through tears or words or even a scream. It defies Jin Guangyao's ability to categorize it, because it is composed of every black and horrible thought he ever had about A-Song and his wretched parentage, thoughts he had always kept bottled away and tucked into the darkest crevices of his heart; and it is also the smell of the top of his head through tufts of black hair when he was still a newborn, and Qin Su placed a baby in his arms for the first time; it is the shriek of his laughter and the sight of him in Lan Xichen's arms (a particularly sweet and acute pain); it is every pang of revulsion that caught him unawares, when he couldn't look at his son without remembering the truth; and it is the burning fury that is threatening to chew its way out of his stomach right now, knowing that Wei Wuxian knows how his son died, and will not tell him.

"My schemes," he echoes in a low, flat voice. He stares back at Wei Wuxian unblinkingly, either unaware or uncaring of his own tears, and shakes his head slowly like his words don't make any sense. His breathing is coming more quickly, raggedly, and wouldn't it be the height of irony if he qi deviated right here, right now?

He laughs. It is not a reassuring sound. "Wei Wuxian. Tell me what happened to A-Song, or I swear to you, I will ruin you. I will not rest until I have ruined you in this place for as many lives as that sea sees fit to vomit either of us back onto its shores, and in whatever foul place we are sent to next." His lip twitches, the barest hint of teeth, before he shouts again, "Tell me!"