Yao Shen goes very still, holding in a breath until his throat starts itching.
Xin Hulei's words aren't an admission of guilt, but they aren't the clean and easy 'no' Yao Shen was hoping for.
He lets out the breath suffocating him, and clears his throat to get rid of the itch. "What do you mean?"
"That I invited death upon them," he says. His eyes seem even darker in the half gloom of dawn.
"But you didn't kill them?" Yao Shen asks, trying to get a clearer picture of what must have happened.
"Is there a difference?" Xin Hulei asks, and the most harrowing thing for Yao Shen is that he seems to genuinely not know. "If someone's intentions are good, but the consequences disastrous, should they be praised for a beautiful bloodbath?"
Yao Shen hides his face on the pillow with a muffled groan. "That's...more moral quandary than I can stomach this early in the morning."
