"I'm fine, I promise, baobei. In fact--"
Yingxing instantly became wracked by unimaginable pain along his back as the meridian nodes laced into every vertebrae jostled roughly against nerve and bone as the inflamed flesh protested the attempt by the Furnace Master to raise more than his head from the clean bedsheets. It had been an unthinkable procedure, to be sure, but the spinal meridian nodes traditionally utilized by Cloud Knights to telepathically control several floating, sentient swords at once had been adapted by Yingxing for a different purpose: with these, he'd be able to discard the clunky gear he usually wore when remotely piloting his mechas on the battlefield and now could control a dozen at once.
He'd been glaringly aware of his shortcomings by these folk he once revered as celestials as a boy, but with an ingenuity that blazed past every immortal craftsman, his unheard genius saw him fight alongside his friends in the Quintet as more than just their weaponsmith. Now, he could ensavage the brutes that had annihilated his home as a boy and make him taste the fury that had fueled him since boyhood.
For now, his wife's worried, oceanic blues commanded his attention. His hand rose to cup Xiuhua's cheek, smiling crookedly.
"...I've never been better."