yue qingyuan recognizes that fan. it's one he gifted to his xiao jiu that shen qingqiu never used, one of many gifts from him that were refused or thrown away. seeing this fan is what prompts him to finally ask a question he already suspects the answer of.
there is no real outward sign when the system is speaking with shen qingqiu but i like to think that his eyes would drift to where the system screen is for just a moment. of course, yue qingyuan is way too observant to not take notice, even though he doesn't know what it means.
shen qingqiu has a great (if thin) poker face in canon, but yue qingyuan has been studying his body's expressions for decades at this point so he likely can spot shen qingqiu's nervousness where most wouldn't. since this comic is from his POV, i wanted to show that.
I wanted to end it in the same panel it started in to show that nothing truly has changed. there is nothing that yue qingyuan can do about this confirmation. just knowing won't change the facts: xiao jiu is gone and only this new shen qingqiu remains. but it's been long enough, and he has suspected for enough time, that he can live with the truth, even if he'll never know what truly happened.
