"He's done a great deal to make himself indispensable, including, no doubt, making himself the hub for all smuggling between Haixing and Dixing." He takes a long, slow, frustrated breath. "I should have taken more of an interest in Dixing affairs," he admits, "Instead of allowing myself to be shuffled above to search for the Hallows." But it had been so easy to accept, when what he most wanted had been to be above, searching for Kunlun as diligently as the Hallows themselves.

He reaches up, as if to adjust a mask or glasses he's no longer wearing, then drops his hand back to his knee again. "I remember the stories, a little, from when we were small. That the heart of the Throne was the Captain's command chair, and I've felt it... reaching out, sometimes, when I was near to it. But no-" He shakes his head- "So much was lost when the meteor destroyed Dixing. Not just technology, but the knowledge required to reproduce it, or to understand what little remained."