Hearing Huaisang wax rhapsodic about someone is strange but...honestly not bad. This is what he'd hoped for him—that older-him would have something to be enthusiastic about. If it was a strange just who he was talking about and half of everything else he was saying was deeply alarming, that was fine.

"Stronger than me?" Mingjue asks, amused, then declares, "I would like to meet. As soon as is convenient for them. And you. Since you like them so much. I can threaten them to be good to you. You didn't have anyone you liked quite this much when I knew you."

Something's taken hold of his tongue now that he's a good ways through his meal, but in a way subtle enough that he only feels like he is speaking perhaps more than he was used to.

"Where did you meet them? You said they were a girl, at first? A lady? What style do they cultivate?"