Bab 199: Familiarity Breeds Contempt

The Pavilion Mistress turned, and multiple chairs appeared. She sat in one of them. She wore elegant silk robes, and her foot, clad in delicate embroidered slippers, rested over the arm of the chair.

"You know, in old age, one doesn't easily adopt positions like this," she said happily. "Ah, to be young again." She leaned back. "You must have asked yourself many times."

"I've been largely trapped in his spell charms for many years," Xilai said. "But yes. I think of it now. All the time."

"I only know that in the months before the final battle with the demonics, he discovered something. Something terrible. I badgered him to tell me, and he would smile and tell me that I wasn't ready to understand it."

Xilai grimaced. "He never said as much to me."

The Pavilion Mistress nodded. "But now you know what he knew. I know it too, now. There aren't many secrets between us now."

"Yes," he said.