REN POV
My lungs wouldn't follow orders.
My chest rose too fast, too shallow, air scraping painfully against my throat as I tried to steady myself and failed. My fingers trembled, clinging to the collar of Lian Zhen's cloak like it was the only solid thing left in this world.
"Zhen… what was that… what did it do to me…?"
My voice cracked. Embarrassingly. But I couldn't help it.
He held me tighter.
Not rough.
Not demanding.
Just… tight, like he was afraid I'd disappear if he loosened even a little.
His hand slid up to the back of my head and pulled me into his chest. His heartbeat thudded slow and steady beneath my ear, deep and grounding, the only sound that felt real after the creature's voice had torn reality open.
"You're safe," he murmured into my hair. "You're here. With me."
But his voice wasn't steady.
There was something trembling under it. Something I wasn't used to hearing from him.
Fear.
Not fear for himself.
Fear of me knowing something.
I felt it in the way he exhaled shakily, the way his thumb stroked small circles on my back, calming me while trying to calm himself.
"Zhen… look at me."
He hesitated.
But he lifted his head slowly, and I saw it...
the fracture in his composure.
"Tell me everything," I said, clutching his shirt. "Please. I want to know. I deserve to know. About you. About me. About the past. About what that thing meant. About us."
The word us made him flinch.
He swallowed once, throat bobbing.
"You truly want to know?" he whispered.
"I need to know."
Something inside him softened.
Folded.
Sank against me like he'd been holding up a mountain alone and had just now allowed himself to set it down.
His arms wrapped fully around my waist, one across my back, one under my knees as if I were something precious he was terrified of dropping. He pulled me into his lap on the bed, holding me against him like he was trying to anchor both of us to this moment.
"Then listen," he breathed into my temple, voice warm, voice fragile. "And forgive me for what comes next."
His hand trembled.
And then...
He began.
His voice lowered, deepened, smoothed into something older than anything I'd ever heard from him before. Like ancient silk sliding through fingers.
"It started," he whispered, "in a palace made of white jade."
His breath warmed my ear as he spoke, his arms tight around me, his heartbeat steady but too loud...like he feared each word might shatter what we had now.
"In the kingdom of Lingyuan… there existed a palace untouched by sorrow. Sunlight entered it differently...soft, shy, as if afraid to disturb the purity living within its walls."
His chest rose and fell slowly, rhythmically, as memory surfaced like a tide.
"And at the heart of that palace," he murmured, "lived a boy of eighteen springs."
I closed my eyes and saw it through his voice.
"The prince," he said.
Something in his grip tightened.
"You."
I felt my breath catch.
"You were a light the world was unworthy of touching. Your skin held the glow of morning dew, soft and pale, as if moonlight had woven itself into you. Your hair fell like obsidian silk down your back… smooth, untouched by wind or dust. Your eyes… Ren… your eyes were the purest thing I have ever seen."
His voice cracked softly there.
"Deep, gentle, luminous...like someone had trapped the very first drop of dawn inside them."
My cheeks heated.
Even now, even terrified, even clinging to him, I still felt my heart flutter at the way he spoke of me. Like he wasn't describing a prince...he was describing someone he had worshipped quietly, secretly, painfully.
"No one in the kingdom was permitted to look upon you," he said. "Not because you were fragile, but because you were sacred. The purest, untouched beauty. Spoken of in rumors. Imagined in paintings. Guarded more fiercely than the throne itself."
He inhaled.
"And you… you spent your days in the royal gardens. Running barefoot through the morning grass. Laughing with your white bunnies...your constant companions. You named each of them, even the ones that looked the same."
His lips curled faintly against my hair, like remembering it hurt and soothed him at the same time.
"You believed the garden was the whole world."
His fingers brushed my cheek gently.
"And you were happy."
His voice wrapped around me, warm and steady but fragile in a way I'd never heard before.
"Zhen…" I whispered softly. "I really… I was that…?"
"You were everything," he answered immediately, without hesitation, without doubt.
His forehead pressed gently to the side of my head.
"You don't understand how beautiful you were, Ren. How unreachable. How impossibly luminous."
His breath shook.
"And how deeply I…"
He stopped himself.
Swallowed.
Corrected.
"How deeply everyone adored you."
But I heard what almost slipped out.
He held me tighter, arms locked around me like he could keep the past from falling onto us.
"Tell me more," I whispered.
He shivered, but continued.
"Your eighteenth birthday arrived," he said softly. "The palace was overflowing with gifts...silks, jewels, gold artifacts from far kingdoms. But you didn't care."
His chest vibrated faintly as he let out a breathy, sad little laugh.
"All you wanted… was to go outside."
I felt my heart twist.
"You begged your father," he said. "The king. A man who loved you more fiercely than he loved his own throne. He feared losing you more than anything else."
Zhen's palm slid against my waist, warm, steady, protective.
"He said no. Of course he said no. He always said no. The world outside the palace was unpredictable, wild. And you… you were his last remaining joy."
His voice lowered.
"But you cried."
My breath caught.
"You cried in a way only you could...quiet, gentle, your eyes shimmering but refusing to let tears fall without permission."
His arms closed more tightly around me as if remembering that sight hurt him.
"No king could survive that," he whispered.
I swallowed.
"So he agreed?" I murmured.
Zhen nodded slowly against me.
"But on one condition," he said. "A single, absolute condition."
His hand curled in the back of my shirt.
"That you would not go alone."
I felt him tense.
And then...
He fell completely silent.
Not because he was done.
But because he was afraid of the next part.
Afraid of telling me.
Afraid of my reaction.
"Zhen…" I whispered softly, turning in his arms just enough to look up at him. "Hey… it's okay. I'm not going anywhere. Tell me."
His eyes...dark, deep, storming quietly...met mine.
He looked like he was standing on the edge of something dangerous.
Like the truth was a fire he'd been burned by before.
His voice dropped to a whisper.
"Ren…"
His hand rose to cup my cheek.
"I was the condition."
My breath froze.
My heartbeat stuttered.
His thumb slid across my lower lip...barely there, trembling.
"You chose me."
My world spun.
"You begged your father to let me be the one to accompany you."
His forehead pressed to mine.
"And that decision… changed everything."
His voice faltered.
Then he whispered...
"I'm terrified of losing you all over again."
END OF CHAPTER