Oh, had he said that out loud? Shen Yuan nods reluctantly. "In my first month here," he explains, "I had to take an oath that I wouldn't run from him, if he ever did arrive. But of course the real Binghe wouldn't know that, so when the hallucination tried to use that to call me back..." He smiles again, an utterly humorless baring of teeth. "As I said, I know the visions aren't real."

His pensive mood is destroyed, however, when Lan Xichen speaks *that damned refrain.* His eyes flash with anger he *knows* is misplaced, but cannot help but express as he snarls and says, "*No.* I don't believe that. I refuse."