Ai Miao's absence carves a void in Gu Lian's world. As the prince sharpens into a sovereign, the wound remains—silent, festering, and unforgettable.
The first winter after Ai Miao's departure was the coldest season of Gu Lian's life.
That night, he dreamed a strange and vivid dream. He was back at the hot spring during the autumn hunt, steam rising around him. Ai Miao stood with his back turned, the red mark on his shoulder still visible. Gu Lian approached joyfully, wanting to embrace him from behind—only to grasp at empty air.
The scene shifted. He stood alone in a blizzard, watching Ai Miao and Murong Che side by side atop the walls of Beijing. They smiled at each other. In Ai Miao's hand was not a memorial, but the royal seal of Beijing. He turned to look at Gu Lian, his gaze calm and distant—as if staring at a stranger.
"You see? Without you, I've gained a far broader world," Ai Miao's voice cut through the snow, cold as ice.
Gu Lian tried to shout, to question, but his throat was frozen. He could only watch as Ai Miao turned away, disappearing into the snow with Murong Che—not even a corner of his robe lingered for him.
Gu Lian woke with a start, drenched in cold sweat. Outside, the night was still deep. The brazier in the Eastern Palace burned hot, but it could not chase away the chill in his bones or the desolation in his heart. The dream had felt too real, magnifying the betrayal of Ai Miao's silent departure into a venomous sting lodged deep within him.
He no longer lost focus over memorials—those eyes that once distracted him now existed only as cold embers. He grew silent, sharp, like a sword suddenly unsheathed, cutting down every warmth that dared approach.
"Your Highness, the Ministry of Rites has submitted the draft for your wedding ceremony. Please review it," the eunuch said, voice cautious.
Gu Lian's brush did not pause. The cinnabar ink bled across the page like congealed blood. "Burn it."
"Your Highness! This concerns the foundation of the realm. His Majesty and Her Majesty—"
"Then let Father abolish this unfilial son." He looked up, eyes calm, but the eunuch fell silent instantly, drenched in cold sweat. It was the calm of someone ready to burn everything down.
In the end, Gu Lian knelt outside the Hall of Heaven and Earth for a full day and night. He bargained: "If within three years, I can prove myself capable of governing independently and earning the court's trust, I ask that Father and Mother allow me to postpone marriage and devote myself to state affairs."
The Emperor and Empress relented—temporarily.
Gu Lian poured himself into governance, almost masochistically. Canals, salt and iron, border trade, civil appointments—he handled them with ruthless precision. He refused all assistance, rejected every gesture of goodwill or hidden intent. It was as if he had absorbed Ai Miao's methods and principles into his very bones.
Late at night, he would sit alone in the empty palace, mentally simulating: If he were here, how would he resolve this? Then he would execute the solution—more fiercely, more decisively.
He succeeded. During the floods in Jiangnan, he personally visited the disaster zone, punished corrupt officials, calmed the displaced. His results exceeded expectations. When border tensions flared, he deployed troops with surgical strategy, earning the respect of veteran generals.
The court began to realize: the Crown Prince had changed. He was no longer the clever youth guided by Ai Miao. He was a blade—sharp, commanding, impossible to ignore.
Only Gu Lian knew: every triumph was a slow dissection of that name. He was proving, again and again: See? Without you, I can still succeed. Even better.
In the winter of Yongxi Year Twenty-Two, Beijing surrendered completely. News of Ai Miao's triumphant return reached the capital.
That night, Gu Lian shattered everything in his study. Five years. The thorn in his heart had not dulled. The name stirred the wound until it bled anew.
On the day Ai Miao returned, before any formal audience, he was summoned to the imperial study.
"You did well," the Emperor said flatly. "The position of Deputy Minister of War is yours."
The Empress added, her tone gentle but firm: "Ai Miao, remember your place. The Crown Prince is doing well. There's no need to revisit old misunderstandings. If you truly care for him, you'll know what to do."
Kneeling on the cold floor, Ai Miao understood the terms: Stay in court—but stay silent. Protect the prince's reputation through distance.
"I understand," he said.
He thought of Murong Che, the puppet king he had built. When Ai Miao left Beijing, Murong Che sat on the throne, no longer burning with youthful fire—only quiet resignation and a trace of reverent fear.
"Sir," Murong Che had asked, voice eerily calm, "Are you returning to serve your prince—or to become his caged bird?"
Ai Miao had not answered.
Murong Che accepted his fate, becoming a diligent but powerless ruler, pouring himself into managing the land he had inherited.
This "creation" of Ai Miao's now stood as a silent testament to betrayal—wedged between him and Gu Lian.
At the celebration banquet, Gu Lian sat at the head of the hall, watching the familiar yet distant figure enter. Ai Miao looked thinner, travel-worn, eyes lowered as he bowed.
"You've worked hard, Minister Ai," Gu Lian said, voice flat, no ripple of emotion.
"It was my duty," Ai Miao replied, equally distant.
Throughout the banquet, Gu Lian never looked at him again—but he felt Ai Miao's presence with every nerve.
He waited. Waited for Ai Miao to approach him in private, as he had so many times before. To offer an explanation.
But nothing came.
Ai Miao melted into the ranks of officials—respectful, silent, unreachable.
A Lie was also present. Now a fifth-rank general, hardened by years at the border. He raised a toast to Gu Lian, and when his eyes met the prince's gaunt profile, they softened briefly—then quickly returned to form.
He had heard the rumors: the Crown Prince's obsessive diligence, the refusal to marry. He could do nothing. So he climbed back to the capital, step by step, just to be near Gu Lian again. To guard, silently, the moon he had cherished since youth.
During the banquet, a minister recalled their days as students. A Lie smiled and played along, but his gaze drifted to Gu Lian—tinged with quiet sorrow.
He knew better than anyone: the wound named Ai Miao had never healed. It had festered.
Gu Lian felt that gaze, but never responded. A Lie's loyalty was a mirror—reflecting, more clearly than ever, the betrayal of another.
In a quiet corner, Su Wanqing sat like a flawless but lifeless sculpture.
She bore no official title, yet was seen as the future empress. Her position was awkward. She watched the silent tension between Gu Lian and Ai Miao, her lips curving in a barely visible bitterness.
For five years, she had been a placeholder—a shield Gu Lian used to defy convention and protect a love the world refused to accept.
Once the capital's most admired beauty, she had become a symbol—of the prince's deliberate neglect.
She had no one to blame. The Emperor and Empress offered her gentle apologies. Her family urged patience.
So she waited. Year after year, in a gilded cage, watching her youth slip away.
Thus, court witnessed a strange phenomenon: The Crown Prince and the new Deputy Minister of War—perfectly matched in governance, utterly estranged in private.
In court, they coordinated flawlessly. Outside, they were strangers.
Gu Lian's resentment grew with every polite exchange. He began attending poetry gatherings, polo matches, accepting invitations from noble ladies. He allowed rumors to spread.
He wanted Ai Miao to lose control. To show pain.
But Ai Miao only buried himself deeper in work.
Gu Lian often considered banishing him again—out of sight, out of mind. But every time he saw Ai Miao's focused profile in the council chamber, saw how he managed Beijing's affairs with precision, a more complex feeling seized him.
He hated the betrayal. But he knew—no one was more valuable to the realm. And he couldn't bear to let Ai Miao leave his world entirely.
So a strange equilibrium formed. They were trapped in the same palace. Seeing each other daily—yet farther apart than ever.
In five years, Gu Lian had forged himself into the sharpest blade in the empire. But even blades feel pain.
He had won the realm. But lost the boy who once lay beside him in the quiet of night, who once indulged every forbidden touch in silence.
The boy he thought shared his heart—had only ever been a dream.
Ai Miao, day after day, watched his Crown Prince grow ever more brilliant—and ever more alone.
He held tightly to the purple bamboo brush engraved with Unity of Thought and Action, and whispered silently in his heart: Your Highness, look at you. You've become extraordinary. This… is good.
Painfully good. A kind of goodness that cuts to the bone.