The house was quiet again, almost too quiet.Rain had stopped, leaving only the slow drip of water from the roof. Wind pushed gently at the half-open window, stirring the curtains like ghosts trying to breathe. Somewhere in the hall, an old clock struck midnight... one chime, then another, then silence.
Ren lay sprawled across the bed, the blanket tangled around his legs. He'd eaten until his body stopped trembling and then drifted into sleep so easily it almost frightened him. He didn't even remember closing his eyes.
At first there was nothing... only dark water, rippling. Then the dream unfolded.
He stood in a courtyard of stone, moonlight pouring like milk over the flagstones. The air smelled of incense and iron. Soldiers lined the walls, their armor glinting with the pale shimmer of oil lamps. And in the center of it all knelt Lián Zhen.
Ren's breath hitched. The man's wrists were bound with crimson silk, not rope. His hair was longer here, tied in a warrior's knot, streaked faintly with blood. His head was bowed, his shoulders broad and still.
Ren felt his own body... smaller, lighter, wrapped in silks of deep royal blue. The weight of a jade crown pressed against his temples. He looked down at his hands and saw rings... heavy, gold, wrong.
The guards bowed to him.
"Your Highness," one murmured. "The sentence awaits."
Sentence. The word cracked through the air like thunder.
Ren shook his head. "No-no, I didn't mean-" His voice broke on the word.He tried to run forward, but his legs wouldn't move. His body belonged to the prince inside the dream, and that prince was frozen with terror.
Across the courtyard, Lián Zhen lifted his head. His eyes... calm, unbearably calm... found Ren's. No hate, no fear. Only the quiet kind of sorrow that undoes everything it touches.
Ren heard his own voice again, younger, desperate."Father, please! Don't kill him! He saved me...he saved you!"
A figure stood beside him... tall, dressed in imperial robes, face obscured by shadow. The father. The Emperor.
"He broke the law of Heaven," the voice said, deep and unyielding. "A mortal cannot touch what is divine."
Ren fell to his knees, the sound of his silk robes tearing against the wet stone. "Then punish me instead! It was my fault!"
No answer. Only the scrape of a sword being drawn.
The executioner stepped forward. The blade caught the moonlight, silver and merciless.
Ren lunged forward, screaming Lián Zhen's name. Guards held him back; hands like iron clamped around his arms. He fought, clawed, begged.... words tumbling out of him like blood. "Please-please-don't-he didn't-"
Lián Zhen looked at him one last time, and smiled.It was the same soft curve of lips Ren had seen across the breakfast table that morning.
Then the sword fell.
Sound vanished.Color drained from the world.Ren felt the spray of something warm across his face, the world tilting as if the earth itself had flinched.
He screamed until the dream tore itself apart.
Ren shot upright in bed, drenched in sweat, chest heaving. The room was cold, moonlight leaking through the curtains. For a long moment, he didn't breathe. The silence pressed against his ears until he could hear the blood pounding behind them.
He looked down at his hands...trembling. They still felt slick, as if he'd been holding someone's life in them.
The scent of metal hung in his nose. He wanted to believe it was only a dream, but his body didn't. His pulse refused to slow.
He dragged himself out of bed, bare feet hitting the wooden floor, and stumbled toward the window. The rain had stopped. The world outside glowed faintly from the streetlights, a blur of gray and blue.
He whispered, "It was just a dream."
But even as he said it, he knew it wasn't.
From somewhere downstairs came a faint sound... the low hum of movement. Ren froze. His throat tightened. He reached for the doorknob, turned it slowly, and stepped out into the corridor. The mansion was breathing again, the way it always did at night. The lights along the hall flickered faintly, golden and alive.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw him.
Lián Zhen stood near the fireplace, no armor this time, only a dark robe that caught the light at its edges. His back was to Ren, hair damp as if he'd just come in from the rain.
Ren didn't speak at first. He simply stood there, feeling the air shift around them.
Lián Zhen said softly, "You saw it."
Ren's breath caught.
He hadn't told him anything.
Lián Zhen turned slowly. His face was calm, but his eyes carried the storm Ren had just dreamed. They were heavy with centuries of something...guilt, devotion, the ghost of a promise.
Ren's voice cracked. "What… was that?"
Lián Zhen stepped closer, the floor creaking under his boots. "A memory," he said. "Not just a dream."
Ren's fingers dug into his palms. "You were killed."
"Yes." The word fell without resistance. "By your father's order."
The room felt smaller. The air tightened around Ren's lungs. He wanted to scream, to demand it make sense, but his throat closed around the sound.
"Why-" he began, but Lián Zhen's gaze stopped him.
"You begged for me," Lián Zhen said quietly. "You knelt in front of the throne. You called me by name, the name no one else knew. But the king… he thought I had bewitched you." A faint smile, the kind that hurts more than it comforts. "Perhaps he wasn't wrong."
Ren shook his head, tears blurring his vision. "I don't remember any of it."
"You will," Lián Zhen murmured. "Memory doesn't die. It just waits for the body to catch up."
Silence stretched. The fire cracked softly, filling the space between them.
Ren's voice broke. "Why are you here now?"
Lián Zhen looked at him as though the question itself was fragile. "Because you called me," he said. "The moment you touched that mark, you reached for me again."
Ren's hand went to the nape of his neck instinctively. The skin there was still warm, pulsing faintly beneath his fingertips.
He whispered, "This mark… it's yours too."
Lián Zhen nodded. "It bound us once. It binds us still."
Ren wanted to step back, but his feet wouldn't move. He wanted to deny it, to say this was madness-but somewhere beneath the fear, there was something else. Recognition.
He saw again, for a flicker of a second, the image of that courtyard... the rain, the torchlight, Lián Zhen's eyes just before the sword fell. And within that vision, a flash of something warmer: the memory of lips meeting, soft and desperate, under a moon long gone.
The memory burned through him. It didn't feel imagined. It felt remembered.
Ren's voice came out small. "What were we?"
Lián Zhen's eyes softened. "You were the crown prince. And I…" He paused, as though the word cost him something. "I was your guard. Your shadow. Your sin."
Ren's breath hitched.
Lián Zhen continued, voice low. "I swore an oath to protect you with my life. And I did. Even when they called me traitor. Even when they took my head."
The fire flared suddenly, a gust of heat brushing Ren's cheek.
He whispered, "This is impossible."
Lián Zhen took one slow step closer. "So was loving you," he said.
Ren felt something crack inside his chest. He couldn't look away. Every word Lián Zhen spoke slid into him like a truth he'd been running from.
"Why now?" Ren asked, barely a breath.
Lián Zhen's gaze drifted to the window, where rain began to fall again. "Because time is folding in on itself. The line between what was and what is… it's thin here. In this place."
He turned back to Ren, the light catching in his eyes. "You brought me back when you entered this house. Maybe you were meant to. Maybe the story we left unfinished refused to stay buried."
Ren's hands trembled. "What do you want from me?"
Lián Zhen looked at him for a long time. Then, quietly, "Nothing. I want you to live."
The simplicity of it cut deeper than any riddle ever could.
Ren stepped forward before he could stop himself. The floor was cold under his feet. The air between them hummed faintly, charged with something old and alive.
Lián Zhen raised a hand... not to touch, just to let it hover near Ren's face, the way someone reaches toward light they're not sure they deserve.
"I remember everything," he said, voice barely above a whisper. "But you...your heart chose to forget. Maybe that was mercy."
Ren's eyes blurred again. "Then tell me," he said. "Tell me everything."
Lián Zhen shook his head. "Not yet. Some truths break too soon if forced open. Let it come on its own."
The fire dimmed a little, shadows stretching long across the floor.
Ren took a shaky breath. "You talk like you've been waiting a long time."
Lián Zhen gave a small, tired smile. "A thousand years is long enough to forget how to speak plainly. I'm trying."
For the first time, Ren almost laughed. It came out broken, but real.
Lián Zhen watched him, something gentle in his eyes. "Sleep," he said softly. "The night still has teeth, but it won't bite while I'm here."
Ren hesitated. "If I sleep, will I dream of you again?"
Lián Zhen's smile faded into something wistful. "You always have."
Ren turned toward the stairs, his body heavy, his mind a blur of past and present. He looked back once, just before he reached the top. Lián Zhen was still there, standing by the fire, his shadow long against the wall, his eyes distant as if watching time itself unravel.
When Ren lay back down, sleep didn't come easy. It hovered, uncertain, tugged between fear and longing.
And somewhere below, in the hush of the dying fire, Lián Zhen whispered to the dark...
a promise lost to centuries, finally spoken again.
END OF THE CHAPTER.