He smiles, one hand dropping back to his side. His other one comes up to run a finger along the length of his nose, looking sheepish. Explaining unorthodox cultivation doesn't seem like it's going to make sense in any context here, and how much should he say? Yet he's curious that of all things, and given what Nie Huaisang has told him of his prior time here, that's what she asks.

"When you ask like that, how can I refuse?" Another smile, eyes squinting this time to extend the sense of it being meaningful, the hand at his nose dropping down to press to his chest.

"Please forgive me if what I say ends up being too direct, I'm not sure how else to say it. Spirit soothing deals with death. Not everyone, or everything, dies cleanly. When a life's cut short too soon, too violently, or with too much resentment in their heart, instead of passing on like we hope for all those we've lost, the spirit or their energy can stay behind. To soothe spirits is to help them move on, you could say," and he offers a helpless sort of laugh, palms turned toward her again from where his arms are at his sides, "Which might soothe the spirits of the living, too, knowing those they love aren't lingering to the point they forget themselves."

He's seen no sign of the reality he knows being part of the local belief system aside from a loose sense in the celebration several months past, but if anything reeks of the living and dead energies of those who are not strictly only human, the whole of Santa Rosita certainly does. There's certainly example enough of the living reaching points of forcibly forgetting themselves.

"It's not a belief for everyone," he says, offering a small shrug of his shoulders. "So please, you're free to laugh, I won't mind."