[ Xie Bi'an clings to the umbrella as though it will be enough to replace his old companion, as if it will soothe his aches and his growing madness in the way that madness is never soothed - only fed. The umbrella is a sad thing, limp from his clutching, tattered at one edge, all in black the way the Xie family's heir has been adorned in white. The juxtaposition between light and dark, yin and yang, does niot escape Wei Wuxian - he wears the mantle of darkness, after all. As intimately wound around his fingertips as an overzealous lover might be. Those same fingers, he gestures with, crooking one towards Xie Bi'an. ]

It's a little late in the game to begin mistrusting me, young master. I promised you that, indeed; I don't intend to break my most solemn promise. If you'll pass me the umbrella and stand in front of him, I'll be able to do just that. Pretend like you're about to see your bride's face for the very first time!

[ Without the umbrella, the entire movement falls apart; even standing there, in the middle of a space that crawls and swarms with the insidious, seductive lure of evil and of the dead, he can sense the fluttering thing that is encaged within. Fan Wujiu, or what was left of him apart from th corpse, is tucked away within the umbrella that he had with him when he had perished under that bridge. ]