The corroboration that Nie Mingjue wouldn't approve of who his little brother had become doesn't cut as deeply as it would have while Huaisang had been actively pursuing his revenge. Even though he'd suspected it then, it still would have devastated him. At this point, however, it's simply validation. Confirmation of a truth already known.

That he'd loved him, too, doesn't surprise him as much as it probably should, considering how often Huaisang had lied to himself over the years. It was easier to betray the ones who loved him once he'd convinced himself the love between them hadn't been real in the first place or the bonds were as deep as he'd thought.

Huaisang's own hands on his cup are beginning to tremble, sloshing tea against the sides but he forces himself to breathe and take a drink to calm himself.

"I was. Almost unbearably so. I wondering what the point of it all was more than once. Nothing I sacrificed. Nothing I did would ever bring him back to me. He was gone. Then I would get angry because you took him from me. And I would get angry at Xichen-ge for valuing his oath to you over his oath to him. It was all I had left to keep me going."

Huaisang looks away, blinking back sudden tears, face drawn, weary, and pale. There's no real fight left in him, just the sorrow and grief that have been his constant companions for the past ten years.

"I couldn't tell anyone. Not without evidence to back up my claims. And I couldn't involve anyone. If you'd known it was me while you still had the upper hand, what would you have done to me? My sect? Would they have become test subjects for your demonic cultivators to toy with? Would I have become one myself? I was frightened. I was alone and I had no one I could turn to for help."

Time for more tea. He'd initiated this talk, he reminds himself, and it is a necessary one in order to keep the peace. As difficult and painful of a subject as it is.

"I had to learn how to be strong and take care of the matter on my own."