It seems that this is something else they have in common, then - when everything was revealed, after everything was done, there was only emptiness. Lan Xichen is undeniably better, after his months of being here, than he had been the last time he saw Huaisang on the steps of the temple, feeling as though everything he was had been carved out of him.

But that is only because here he has purpose. Here he must protect his brothers and nephew, here he has widened his family to include both Wuxians - and, by extension, added another nephew. Here he has hope that perhaps he might not be too late to stop Nie Mingjue's death, to prevent Meng Yao's descent from being complete, at least in two other timelines if not his own.

He cannot find it in himself to protest when he also suspects that whatever absolution Huaisang found for him may be gone, when he learns how Lan Xichen is attempting one of them. That he still believes this Meng Yao, who remembers nothing even of the Sunshot Campaign.

But watching Huaisang unravel tears at his heart, and he wishes - he doesn't know. That it had never come to this, that the people he loved were not all dead or broken, that, for once, something could go right for all of them.

"Huaisang," he murmurs, but he finds he doesn't know what to say at the moment, either. Instead he reaches out, gently curling his fingers around one of Huaisang's fists.