There's a time for lines like you look familiar and have I met you before? Even when you're well aware where you met -- it can be worth playing the game of going through all your past engagements and acquaintances, dancing around where your interests happened to meet. It's the feeling of getting to know someone again, enlivening in its way, with plenty of opportunities for smiling flattery because how could you forget a face like that.

But Claudius couldn't forget a face like this one. It's veiled, yes, but her clothes, her manner -- they're all things Claudius couldn't invent. Tell-tale signs. He even thinks he remembers her name, Liu Mingyan, because even in his dream he had to memorize everyone's names.

"Luo Binghe," Claudius says out loud, to no one. "I'm conscious for this one. You caught me in the middle of a nightmare, last time, and if you want me to thank you for interrupting, I will. But I'm ..." What would Luo Binghe want to hear? It's a waste of time to even consider it. Claudius isn't giving him more extravagant flattery, and it's not as though they're friends. He's not going to flatter himself into thinking the interruption of his nightmare came from any personal concern. Nevertheless. "I'm fine. You can go back to manipulating the dreams of other mortals."