There's a certain kind of satisfaction to earning such a strong reaction, as there always is when he reveals the final shape of what happened. Anticipating his audience's reactions correctly, constructing an inescapable truth from all the details gathered before, it's quite nice to be proven right and see justice done in the same breath. Of course the stakes are much lower when it's only a story, which suits him just fine now. And it hardly means he can slack off! Not that he would set out to make a child cry, but it's obvious she isn't distraught so much as caught up in the story, which is what she came here for after all.

And it's easy to get caught up in her righteous anger in turn, Li Lianhua nodding and pointing at her eagerly. "Of course she did! She lost no time to go see him, taking the letter and the mirror with her as proof. And can you believe he tried to deny everything? Tried to claim the affair long over, tried to claim he only took the mirror to save his brides from the bad luck that might kill them. Oh he acted so regretful, truly a fox mourning a dead rabbit. He even accused her in return of snooping, of fabricating an outrageous lie to get out of marrying him!"

Li Lianhua is aware he mustn't flub the ending of this tale, to make all the emotion she's invested worthwhile, but which route to choose? Justice must be done, but which kind would she enjoy most? A trial of his peers is the sensible, real-world option, and she is quite the sensible little person herself. But isn't it a little unbefitting of the ghost story this has become? A death, then, in revenge or self-defense? Some other punishment? Maybe he can coax one last direction out of her before he chooses one himself.

He looks at her with the same kind of dismayed expression she might be wearing to ask, "How could she stand for this? How could the brides in the mirror?"