He told Lu Meng more than he told Suyin.
This was not because he trusted her more — it was because she was, by her own nature, harder to give partial truths to. Her karmic sensitivity meant she could feel when the thing she was being told didn't match the texture of what was underneath it. Partial truths, to her, felt like rooms with incorrectly placed furniture — technically inhabitable, but wrong in a way that produced constant low-level unease.
So he told her more. He told her about the fragments — the laughing figure, the somatic experience during the ceremony, the ocean that felt like being vast rather than drowning. He told her about Elder Shou's story, the sage, the phrase tell it the breaking is not its fault. He told her about Wei Fangs' research, the heterodox theorist, the entry in the restricted archive.
She listened without interrupting, which was a thing she could do in a way very few people could — a true listening, with no audible internal narration, just reception and storage.
When he finished, she was quiet for a long time.
"You think it's true," she said. "Not that you have unusual cultivation. You think the whole framework is true."
"I think—" He stopped. Started again. "I think something is true. I think the fragments are real experience, not invention. I think the pattern of my life is too consistent to be random. I think Elder Shou had too much specific knowledge to be coincidence. But I don't know exactly what is true, and the not-knowing is—" he paused "—it's like standing in a room where I can feel that the floor is hollow and I can hear the echo when I walk but I haven't found the trapdoor."
"You're afraid of what's under the trapdoor," she said.
"I think what's under the trapdoor is so large that understanding it changes everything," he said. "I think when I know, I can't unknow. And right now I'm—" he looked at his hands "—right now I'm in a sect I mostly understand, with people I mostly value, with a life that is mostly manageable. When I know, I don't think any of that survives."
Lu Meng looked at him for a long time. The coldness that had been growing in her since autumn was present in her expression — not aimed at him, but ambient, background, the slow withdrawal of warmth that was happening to her from the inside and that neither of them could see from within.
"The people you value," she said. "Do you know what proximity to you is doing to them?"
He met her eyes.
"I can feel it," she said. "On myself. The drain — it's not just perception. Something is running through me. Not taking exactly. More like — leaving residue. Like a river running through a container that wasn't made for river water." She was precise about this, the way she was precise about everything. "I don't blame you. I want to be clear about that. I'm telling you so you know I know, so you don't have to manage what I know. But I think you should be aware that whatever is happening to you is not contained to you."
"I know," he said. "I've known since my father."
"And you don't pull away from people."
"I tried," he said quietly. "For a while. It didn't help. The processing happens regardless. The only difference is whether the people it affects know about it or not."
She was quiet.
"You can leave," he said. "I won't — I don't want you to, but I understand if—"
"I'm not leaving," she said, with the flat clarity of a decision already made. "I'm noting the facts. I'm not the type who leaves when the facts are difficult." She paused. "I am worried about what the residue is doing to me over time."
"I am too," he said.
"Then we'll watch for it together," she said. "And when something changes in me that seems wrong — I'm trusting you to tell me. Even if it's hard to say."
"I will," he said.
He meant it. He would fail at it, later — not because he lied, but because when the change in her became unmistakable, the circumstances around it would become complicated enough that the moment to say it cleanly would keep not arriving. This was not an excuse. It was just how the tragedy was shaped — not in dramatic failures but in correct decisions that accumulated into loss.