Jin Guangyao is staring back up at Lan Xichen with bits of frost still clinging to his hair and the ends of his eyelashes, though it sublimates directly into the air around them as the effects of the clarifying thought take root. Abruptly, they are just two men standing right up in each other's space atop the wall around the siheyuan's inner courtyard. There are a couple of bystanders hanging out on the opposite side of the street looking up at them with obvious nosy interest.

Their onlookers might as well not exist. Jin Guangyao doesn't look away from Lan Xichen and covers one of the hands on his shoulder with his own. "Let's--strengthen the wards and arrays around the siheyuan," he suggests, since his silver tongue is failing him in every other respect.