"Bet you can't though."

"My bet would be that we can't, or that only people who have souls can, but some people would be eager to try and they'd pay for the privilege."

"I guess maybe if some of the people who can do it are really uncivilized, like, a bunch of tribes in the Americas and Europe haven't worked out forming golden cores even though they can do the stuff little kids can do."

"People from this world definitely can and might also be interested in learning from you since you've got the state of the art more advanced, yes. It's also just not that uncommon for a type of magic to be learnable by lots of people and only discovered by some of them; Natsuko's variety is learnable by anyone and the source of power it relies on is renewable in many worlds but the techniques were only discovered in one cluster of them."

"Huh. That's weird."

Lan Xichen purses his lips. "May I be quite frank, Masters?"

"Please."

"You do not understand... responsibility, honor, filial piety. You understand only benevolence. Are these words translating? They are technical philosophical terms."

"They translate, but it seems likely that we don't understand them in the technical philosophical sense."

"Benevolence is-- as Confucius said, 'when you wish to establish yourself, establish others; when you wish to enlarge yourself, enlarge others.' You are very powerful, and you're helping us become powerful. Responsibility is-- your role in the network of social relationships? The Emperor has his duties, and the subject has his duties; the cultivator has his duties, and the peasant has his duties; the mother has her duties, and the daughter has her duties; the older sister has her duties, and the younger sister has her duties; the husband has his duties, and the wife has his duties; friends have duties to each other. There is no relationship we are in, there are no duties we have to you, and you are taking away the duties we have, and giving us duties out of condescension because, benevolently, you want us to feel useful."

"It's true that we don't now have a relationship. We're - hoping to establish one," says Nelen. "Maybe that won't work, maybe the power differential is too great, but if I put up an advertisement for cultivation lessons people would, actually, absolutely, of their own free interest, bid large amounts of money on it, I'm not inventing that."

Flinch. 

"That's-- kind of like going 'we're not abandoning marriages, there are lots of women who'll want to pay a silver coin to have sex with you.'"

"- my point wasn't that it won't be a major shift, just that it's not out of condescension."

"'Oh, don't worry, we're not condescending to you, we're treating you like a whore,' like, not exactly the most reassuring take here?"

Nelen looks at his teammates for help. "My culture doesn't have a stigma on being a whore..."

"D'you lot do arranged marriages or anything?" Natsuko asks. "It doesn't have to be advertised on the open market if you don't want, we could, like, dower someone to make them a worthwhile apprentice or whatever."

Deep breath. "I am sure our polities can come up with a perspective that is respectful to the customs of everyone involved."

"I think it's hard that we're not obviously better than you."

"- if that's important it does seem like it would make everything more difficult."

"It's just that... no one has ever bothered to think about what happens if there's a place that's more civilized than China. We've been the most civilized country in the world since the Yellow Emperor invented farming, boats, clothing, writing, and math. It's hard, for a man, to admit that the country he is loyal to is no longer superior to all others."

"Invented farming, boats, clothing -?" mutters Cassiel to herself.

"I wasn't actually sure you identified much with China as a whole, that's good to know," says Nelen.

"Well, we don't especially, but the jianghu still produces the greatest cultivators in the world-- Rome has some cool techniques, their philosophy stuff is fascinating, but they don't even know how to make spiritual swords."

"And Lan Xichen is inwardly judging me for bothering to learn enough about people outside the jianghu to have an opinion on their cultivation techniques, instead of learning it all through dusty old books or experimenting myself."

"I am familiar with your ways, younger brother."