[ It's the details that break his composure, and the way Xichen shares them, his voice hollow, his eyes distant. Nie Mingjue has staked his name on being uncompromising, a man unafraid to face whatever comes his way, but this revelation challenges that, shakes the calm bravado from his voice.

With Xichen's earlier words, he'd assumed that he had killed Jin Guangyao, or that Jin Guangyao had instead killed him, the enmity and suspicion between them finally erupting into genuine violence. It was something he understood - it was a death he could imagine, having always expected that he would die in violence, be it on a battlefield, in the midst of a night-hunt like his father, or from the backlash of his own faltering qi - but murder.

For all the enemies he had made in his life, Nie Mingjue had never imagined he would be murdered after the campaign. ]

When you say that he made things worse -

[ There's anger there, in the pit of his stomach, warring with the horror, but it isn't, it isn't for himself.

It isn't entirely for himself, anyway. ]

He killed me with the skills you taught him? He brought you into the midst of our feud?