Shu Yao, felt like a coward. He felt like a broken thing that had merely survived because it was too weak to die. What was brave about lying in a bed of silk and being fed.
"I don't... I don't understand," Shu Yao whispered.
Bai Qi's voice finally broke, a jagged, wet sound that made the heart spike in sympathy.
"I hurt you so much," Bai Qi confessed, his hand dropping from Shu Yao's ear to cup his jaw, holding him with a terrifyingly gentle grip. "I broke your body. I scared your soul. I made this world a nightmare for you for months... year i guess."
He took a shuddering breath, his pupils vibrating with a visceral grief.
"And yet… you're still here."
His voice faltered, like the words themselves were too heavy to carry.
"You stay in this room… in this house… with me—" he swallowed, his gaze dropping for a moment before forcing itself back to him, "—with the person who hurt you again and again."
There was a pause, thick and suffocating.
"And still… you look at me like that."
His voice softened, almost breaking.
"With kindness. With patience.
As if I'm not the one who deserves your anger… your hatred."
He let out a quiet, unsteady breath, shaking his head as if he couldn't understand it, couldn't accept it.
"That… that is the bravest thing I have ever seen, Shu Yao."
His eyes dimmed, something fragile flickering in them.
"A courage so quiet… so terrifying… that it makes me feel like nothing more than a child standing in front of you again."
Shu Yao watched as tear's escape Bai Qi's eyes and track down the his cheek. It was a sight that shattered Shu Yao's serene discipline. He couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand the way Bai Qi was turning himself into a monster of the past when all Shu Yao wanted was the man of the present.
Shu Yao slowly shook his head, his movement limited by his atrophied neck muscles.
"Stop... stop blaming yourself," Shu Yao pleaded. "Please."
Bai Qi lowered his gaze, his forehead drifting closer until it nearly touched Shu Yao's. The distance between them became almost unbearable—too close, yet not close enough.
His expensive cologne lingered between them, warm and refined, clashing gently with the cold, sterile scent of the clinic. It was a strange mix—like something beautiful trapped in a place it didn't belong.
His breath brushed faintly against his skin.
For a moment, he closed his eyes.
"I shouldn't be this close to you…"
he murmured, voice low, unsteady. "Not after everything I've done."
"And yet…" a faint, bitter smile touched his lips, "I can't stay away."
"I'm sorry… Shu Yao."
Bai Qi's voice came out rough, barely more than a breath in the fragile space between them.
"I can't…" he shook his head faintly, as if the words themselves were cutting him open. "I can't look at you—"
His gaze dropped, catching on his wrists, so thin it made his chest tighten painfully.
"—or hear the way your breathing falters…" His voice broke, quiet and helpless. "Not without remembering."
A hollow silence stretched between them.
"That it was me."
His fingers trembled, lifting slightly before stopping midair, as if he didn't have the right to touch him anymore.
"I did this to you."
The confession fell like something irreversible.
"I hurt you… the one person who was never supposed to be hurt by me."
Shu Yao felt.
A quiet, aching pity.
Shu Yao wanted to reach out and pull Bai Qi into a tight embrace. He wanted to be the pillar that caught the falling king. He wanted to wrap his arms around Bai Qi's broad shoulders and whisper that the debt was paid, that the war was over.
But as he tried to lift his arms, his body betrayed him.
His muscles felt like lead. A sharp, stinging pain raced from his spine to his fingertips—a reminder from the Belladonna that his recovery was a mountain he had only begun to climb. His hand fell back to the silk sheets with a pathetic, heavy thud.
I am useless, Shu Yao thought, his own tears finally beginning to spill.
He watched Bai Qi falling apart, his soul disintegrating into guilt and grief, and Shu Yao was trapped in a "pathetic" body that wouldn't even allow him to hold his lover's head. He was a sanctuary made of glass, unable to provide shelter because he was too busy trying not to shatter.
Bai Qi saw the struggle. He saw the way Shu Yao's hand failed him, and it only added more fuel to the fire of his self-loathing.
"See?" Bai Qi whispered, his voice thick with a dark, maniacal certainty. "You can't even move because of what I did. Don't tell me to stop blaming myself when the evidence of my sin is sitting right in front of me."
He leaned in and pressed his forehead firmly against Shu Yao's. It was the only contact he allowed himself—a bridge of heat and sorrow.
Shu Yao closed his eyes too, letting his tears, He realized then that their relationship was a beautiful, tragic knot. Bai Qi's love was built on penance, and Shu Yao's love was built on forgiveness.
"I will never blame you... for anything," I whispered. My voice sounded thin, a ghost of a sound echoing in a hollow canyon. "You just misunderstood everything. I am fine. I will get fine soon..."
I tried to force a smile. I wanted to be his sanctuary, his peace. But I could see the way my own words wounded him.
Bai Qi's breath hitched, a sharp, broken sound that sliced through the quiet. "You... you know that it'll take too much time," he rasped, his obsidian eyes searching mine for a truth I was too tired to hide.
"You know it will take forever for you to be whole again because of what I did."
I blinked, hot tear's tracking down my temple and disappearing into the silk pillow.
"Don't worry," I murmured, my heart thumping a slow, erratic rhythm. "I'll get fine soon. Stop crying, Bai Qi. Please... stop."
"I just can't stop," he groaned, his head dropping as he gripped the edge of the mattress. Then, he looked up, his gaze burning with a sudden, visceral desperation. "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me before that you had feelings for me?"
The question hit me like a physical blow.
My heart began to wail—a frantic thud thud thud, that filled the room with panic. My eyes went wide, the glassy sheen of my tears spilling over. The secret I had buried under layers of silence and sacrifice was finally out in the open, and it felt like a wound being torn open.
"I... I was afraid," I stammered, my chest heaving. "I was afraid that... that I'll ruin both yours and Qing Yue's relationship."
The name felt like a blade in my throat. Qing Yue. My beautiful sister. The one who had the light while I stayed in the dark.
" I didn't want anything to hurt... either of you," I whispered, the words dissolving into a sob.
POV: Bai Qi
His words were a symphony of self-destruction.
I felt the air leave my lungs. How could one soul be this generous? How could he stay silent, watching the man he loved chase a ghost, all because he didn't want to ruin a relationship that was built on a lie?
He had let himself be a shadow. He had let himself be the victim.
"Why you never said anything?" I asked, my voice cracking, the weight of my own stupidity pressing down on me like a mountain of lead.
Shu Yao's tears were falling freely now, soaking into the expensive silk. His entire frame began to tremble—a violent, atavistic shudder that shook the very foundations of the bed.
"I... I was afraid. I am sorry," he gasped, his breath coming in sharp, syncopated hitches. "I never want to ruin... I never meant to..."
He was hyperventilating. The trauma of the past, the poison in his blood, and the crushing weight of his sister's death all collided in a single, devastating moment. His big, brown eyes were glazed, looking past me, toward a memory I couldn't reach.
"Qing'er..." he choked out. "I'm sorry, Qing'er... I couldn't save you..."
"Shu Yao!"
I stood up in a fluid, panicked motion, my heart slamming against my ribs.
"Shu Yao, look at me! Breathe!"
His eyes rolled back, the light vanishing from them as if a candle had been snuffed out by a cold wind. His body went limp, his hand slipping from the silk covers and falling toward the floor.
"SHU YAO!"
The room was a vacuum of silence, lit only by the cold, bluish glow of the city lights reflecting off the marble floor. Shen Haoxuan sat motionless on his leather couch, his silhouette looking like a gargoyle carved from ice. He didn't want to talk.
He didn't want to move. The weight of his own failed machinations felt like lead in his veins.
Then, his phone vibrated—a sharp, invasive buzz against the glass table. He glanced at the caller ID.
Ming Su.
He let out a long, weary breath. He almost let it go to voicemail, but some lingering sense of shared wreckage made him reach out. He swiped the screen with a gloved thumb.
"What now?" he asked, his voice a flat, dead line.
"I am just tired of everything, Shen," Ming Su's voice crackled through the speaker, high-pitched and frayed at the edges. "Whenever I try to go outside, everyone makes a mockery of me.
My reputation... it's a carcass they're picking clean."
Shen closed his eyes, his grey gaze hardening behind his lids. He knew that feeling—the social paralysis of becoming a pariah.
"Because of that damn cold businessman," Ming Su hissed, her voice dripping with a venomous clarity. "Because of Niklas, I am a prisoner in my own home. But don't you worry..."
A bitter, jagged smile played on her lips, audible even through the phone.
"I'll make him regret it. He thinks he can sit on his throne and dictate who lives and who dies? He thinks he can do whatever he wants?"
She swung away from the floor-to-ceiling window, the silk of her robe snapping against her legs like a whip. Her heart was a drum, beating out a rhythm of ancient, festering pain.
She stopped, her breath hitching as a memory flashed before her eyes—her father's body hanging, Her big, brown eyes went wide, reflecting an agony that was decades old.
"Just like he did to my father... I'll make him regret everything."
The tears were hot, stinging her cheeks as they fell.
"No matter what happens, Shen," she said, her voice shaking with a terrifying resolve. "I'll take my revenge. But not from the famous Niklas von Rothenberg. I won't waste my time on the king. I'll destroy his heart. I'll destroy Bai Qi."
Three miles away, Shen Haoxuan remained still, his grey eyes fixed on a point in the dark. The mention of Bai Qi's name triggered a physical reaction—his jaw clenched so hard the muscles in his neck stood out like cords.
"Bai Qi is probably busy," Shen said, his voice dropping an octave into a dangerous, low rumble. "He'll likely standing guard by the bed of his sick lover. distracted. And Vulnerable."
"We need to make another plan," Shen stated, his mind already spinning digital webs of destruction. "The old tactics failed. We need something absolute."
His grey eyes widened, flashing with a sudden, dark inspiration.
"How about abduction?" Shen proposed. "A clean sweep. We take him from the villa, isolate him, and let Niklas watch as his legacy is dismantled piece by piece."
On the other end of the line, Ming Su let out a sharp, hysterical laugh.
"Abduction?" she mocked. "No, Shen. That's too slow. I would rather push him from a ten-story floor. I want to see the moment he realizes the air is empty.
I want to shoot him while he's looking into my eyes, so he can see my father's face one last time."
Her voice turned into a low, maniacal chant.
"Once he gets in my hands... if he gets in my hands again... I'll make sure there's nothing left for Niklas to bury."
The line went dead with a sharp, final click.