[Honestly Nie Mingjue is pretty shocked as well. He just covers it pretty good with bluster and a stern face. He's still working through some thoughts, the lot of them forming a disjointed, swirling storm in his brain rather than his heart. There is much to be concerned over, both back home and here. It's frustrating in a way he does not appreciate at all. He should be back there - with Huaisang - but he knows he's dead. And somehow, instead of simply being dead, he's here, with Lan Xichen, in a world neither of them are familiar with.

It's turning out to be one of those days.

With the confirmation and the lack of anything monstrous to be found on Lan Xichen, Nie Mingjue nods once as if he's satisfied, letting go of his arm, accepting the touch to his own.] Then this force has one thing correct. You are no monster, Xichen.

[And then he huffs a frustrated sigh, scratching at the neck of his robes, flashing scale and something like the impression of tiger stripes crawling across the side of his neck and down his shoulder. He'd hide them better, but he's not afraid of losing face in front of an old friend.] Whatever becomes of us in this dream, it will happen in this magical world as well? [These damned scales itch.]