"And so," Dr. Lecter says, "here we are, to the great entertainment of whoever is watching this. They might be hoping that the fierce corpse and the young cultivator would enact a dramatic xianxia scene, but instead I am here, and we are cooking."

Jin Guangyao does rub his nose at the unease the idea of somebody watching him for entertainment elicits in him; then he realises what he has done, and gives a yelp.

"At one time, everybody from my world who came here was from a slightly different version of our reality, as everybody had taken the opportunity to change something about it, based on what they had learned here. It was very good to see; my friends are really fiendishly clever," Dr. Lecter says, sounding proud of these people. "All those different antler-shaped plans all paid off beautifully, and separately. It was a kaleidoscope of possible stories, none of them quite mine."