He knew he had won the argument. He knew she had realized her flaw.
"You..." Ji'an narrowed her eyes, completely abandoning all pretense of polite distance. "Who the hell are you? How do you know about thermal arrays? The idiots here think a fire array is only good for blowing things up."
The man leaned back on his wooden stool, crossing one long leg over the other. He took a slow drag from his pipe, savoring the flavor.
"Those idiots are exactly that. Idiots," the man drawled lazily. "They understand destruction. They do not understand creation. They do not understand that the true mastery of the Dao lies not in how fiercely a flame burns, but in how flawlessly you can control its consumption."
He smiled, looking at her with a heavy, intense, deeply evaluating gaze.
