In times not of war, Nie Mingjue appreciates the beauty of a well-crafted blade (Nie Huaisang looks the same, when he tilts his head and tuck a smile in his eyes as he lets his gaze stroke down a fan), and war games (this, his brother protests doesn't count), and especially writing letters to his dearest friend, long with details and suffused with humour; the Sunshot campaign cuts through his free time, turning any moment stolen away from the war effort into a vice, the mere suggestion of which makes Nie Mingjue recoil - if even writing to Lan Xichen on the run was at all a good idea.

Nie Mingjue's second is a good man, a smart man, with sharp humor beneath gentle eyes and the ambition to earn the position that his father's conduct refused him, and Nie Mingjue is glad to have him by his side, and allows himself to imagine writing so to Xichen.

Someday after the war, when Meng Yao is in Lanling, Nie Mingjue will have reason to write to him, as well.