Perhaps that's so. It's also not... entirely dissimilar to others I have met.

[others who yet live, he knows, shrouded in silence and hidden away from the world. like Xiao, for whom he had once become an escape from his circumstance. but even so...]

I will keep it in mind. But-- reconnected? What do you mean?

[it's a suspicious word choice to be sure, implying that it's nothing new. Zhongli can't help but latch onto it, lips pursing slightly. everything that's happened is just... so strange, more than he could ever have expected.]