"It's good that you understand Little Ling," Hall Master Bian Xing said, leaning back comfortably on a pile of cushions. "I had been concerned that you'd lash out in some misplaced display of masculine pride. Tell me, are you really a man? You hardly look it after so many years of shaping yourself this way," she said. "Perhaps you've been trying to transform yourself completely all this time."
"I am a man," Wu Ling said instantly. While he acknowledged that there were two sides to himself, he was very clear on what his true face was and which 'self' was a guise that he donned when circumstances required it. "If Hall Master wishes, I can change and return in more gentlemanly attire."
"No, that won't be necessary," the Hall Master said firmly. "I prefer you this way. I permit you to present yourself to the world as a gentleman when outside the sect, but within the sect, as far as I'm concerned, this is your true face."
