Xichen's silence answers the question more eloquently than his following words do and Mingjue scowls at both. "So I did, and then you and...Meng Yao had to deal with his grief." Ah. There's the familiar frustration. It rumbles through his chest and scrapes at his throat as he lets out an angry sigh. He hates this vision of the future Xichen has sketched for him, but he honestly had never expected his life to end any other way. It was either a qi deviation or a battle or a night hunt.

"Fine," he says. "Fine. So I died and it was more horrible than I anticipated. I'm not surprised."

He shakes himself, leaning forward toward Xichen, looking him straight in the eyes. "Is there anything else I need to know about this future you're from?"