Luo Binghe is pleased to be sent back to Venera, at first. He didn't enjoy himself the last time he was here, but the thing is, in the aftermath of that, he enjoyed himself even less? The things he was forced to revisit by the plague; his helplessness in the face of its dreamscape, a realm that until now he had believed he had mastered; not even getting to stab Estinien... It's all left him feeling insecure and distracted, loosely aware that he's failing to keep on task with his goals, but too preoccupied by his inner demons to truly feel those goals are worth prioritising.

Being reunited with the cursed sword that exaggerates his negative emotions and encourages his destructive impulses hasn't helped with that, of course...

But now the Regent has handed down this very specific, easy to follow order. He's going to win some good boy points and get himself back on task. How hard can it be to track down and capture some stupid mortal rebels in a city like Venera?

i. TRACKING DOWN SOME STUPID MORTAL REBELS:
This is the easy part. Luo Binghe has no qualms whatsoever with hunting down people who he's pretty confident are going to die after he arrests them. He'd be willing to simply behead them in the street himself if it was what the Regent had asked.

It wasn't what they asked, though, so he's approaching this with a little more finesse. He's memorised the list of names and is prowling around Venera, dressed as inconspicuously as he can manage, but still with a sword at his waist that gives you bad vibes if you look at it. Closer to the beginning of the cull, you might find him [a] in the artisan's district, chatting amiably with a teenage girl who's sweeping wood shavings out of a workshop about her father, to whom this workshop apparently belongs; a few days later, as the locals' hackles have started to go up, he's having a slightly harder time [b] at one of the city's larger markets, getting visibly impatient with a stern-looking man selling vegetables.


ii. DOING THE OPPOSITE THING, ACTUALLY:
So, it turns out one of the stupid mortal rebels is a name Luo Binghe recognises. More specifically, it's one of the older women he worked with when he was sent here last. He'd been infiltrating the the hospital kitchen in order to sneak his blood into the food, so that he could use his blood mites to examine infected civilians from the inside. And he'd hit it off with the various old ladies who usually volunteered there pretty much immediately, due to being really earnest and polite with old ladies, and also a skilled cook who insisted he'd learned everything from his beloved mother. And he was just doing it so they wouldn't be suspicious of him, but also… it was nice. To have some sweet aunties fuss over him like that. It wasn't like he was going to let it get in the way of anything he needed to do. Sure, maybe he'd brought gifts for them from Achamoth when he was sent back to Venera on this mission, figuring he could give them something nice in between disappearing people for the Regent, but that didn't mean he was invested, just that he liked to repay his debts, and they'd been kind to him.

But.

Looking down at that name on the list, Binghe tries to remind himself that these women don't matter. The only thing that matters is Shizun. He needs to take control of the Kenoma's power so he can form a new world where Shen Qingqiu will never be so disappointed in him as to abandon him the way he did. If everything goes to plan she will die anyway. Except... he doesn't know if he really believes that new world can happen. He never has been sure. It's hard to feel hope with his hand on the hilt of Xin Mo. It's easier to feel impatient, and possessive, and desperate to cling to whatever small happinesses the world will allow him to hold.

So, here he is: running errands for the hospital aunties as an excuse to lurk around that specific hospital, so that if any of his fellow Kenoma come snooping around here looking for Cher Alba, he can misdirect them. If he spots one of his supposed comrades, he'll make a beeline for them.

"Have you heard anything useful?" he asks, apparently sincere.

Pleroma Aions, of course, will just get glared at. He's not doing anything bad, though, so you can't harass him!! (You can, but he'll be really smarmy about it.)

ooc: i'll match format if you'd prefer to tag w brackets! if you want binghe for something different feel free to hit me up on plurk or discord or da plotting post ✌️