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Your parents gave you life and then died before you could give them anything in return, and that was the start of everything else.
You gave your blood to Jiang Fengmian, an oath of filial fealty, and you gave the skin off your back to Yu Ziyuan as penance for your existence. To Jiang Yanli you gave your stomach and with it, the ability to be comforted. To Jiang Cheng you gave your golden core, and you gave the gaping emptiness it left behind to the resentful dead, turning half-man and half-wraith in exchange for survival.
To Wen Chao you gave your teeth and nails, a righteous and vicious revenge. To Wen Ning went your right hand, to Wen Qing, your left, and to A-Yuan, the cradle of your arms between. To the rest of their clan you gave your spine in futile protection, and when you found their corpses swinging high above the gate to Nightless City you gave them your weeping eyes.
Throughout all this, you gave your dear, dear Lan Zhan your beating heart—secretly, helplessly, inevitably—and by then you had given so much of yourself away that when the rest of the world came for you, howling and insatiable, you could only step back over the cliff’s edge and keep the relief of death for yourself.