Chinese GL

- Bian Jin pausing to appreciate the little flower that lives out its life ignorant of the affairs of the world, surviving because that is life's instinct no matter that most would think it an empty pursuit for something of no intelligence, uncaring that no one but Bian Jin will even notice... it doesn't feel particularly subtle but just like that little flower, I do not care! I love stuff like this, from a character who is seen by most (including herself) as a weapon, as in some ways even less of a living being than that flower. Love seeing a weapon kneel before the beauty of the life she defends, down to the smallest little flower. (It actually reminds me of a quote from another novel, from a different living-weapon character, who has a thought along the lines of his only wish before he died was to see the blooming of the flowers he had spent his life's blood to water). I'm also intrigued by what feels like perhaps an ongoing thread of life-amidst-decay, or the contrast of fading grandeur and new life. And by the way the emphasis on this little flower's life even though it lacks sentience and thus (in the eyes of most) importance, vs Black Box evolving sentience and becoming harder to distinguish from 'real' life, and how all of this combines.

- The last bit of this chapter!!! I knew she was losing time!!! I knew it!!!!!!!!! What is going on and who is in her head with her and what was she looking for on those shelves and and and!!!