"Then this Jin Guangyao will address the honourable Xiu Ya as 'shigu.'" He's wearing a thoughtful little smile on his lips now while he contemplates this hypothetical meeting with the sword-as-omen, as though this peculiar quirk of circumstance is a source of not-quite-amusement for him, but something adjacent to it, somehow.

The piece Jin Guangyao has opted to perform for Shen Yuan is lengthy and meandering, like most of the music in his repertoire, and so for a time he is content to let the conversation between them idle into a companionable silence while the music carries them forward through time. When the melody's final strands finally fade away into silence, he settles his hands in his lap and looks across at Shen Yuan again.

"How are you feeling now?"