Cold drizzle stitched through the night air, veiling Cloud Mountains in a silver mist.
The thirty-two-thousand-step-long towering stairway to Yunshan Jade Palace shimmered green. Its moss-covered steps were slick and treacherous.
Spirit lanterns swayed along both sides of the mountain path, casting pale halos through the fog.
Their dim golden light flickered in the downpour, revealing every jagged root and worn stone, every place where the ancient steps had crumbled beneath the weight of time.
One guard at the gate to the mountain path shaded his eyes with the back of his palm and blinked at the lashing rain. Then he spoke to the other.
"Isn't it strange? Yunshan City is surrounded by enchantments cast by Junshang himself. It even stops snow and rain, unless Junshang lowers the spells himself."
The other looked completely blank. He wrung water from his drenched uniform. "Maybe Junshang lowered it?"
The guard smacked him with a dagger hilt. "Are you dumb or what? It's one hour past midnight. Who would lower the enchantments at this hour?"
The other person moved away, cursing heavily. "What's there to fuss about?"
The guard turned to look at the sky again. Rain water trickled down the sides of his face. "This rain, and lightning isn't normal." A shivering voice escaped his lips. "Junshang... is angry..."
Just as he said this, a wave of energy and wind rushed past, so quickly that he felt his vitals go numb. A layer of goosebumps covered his skin. In that bare moment, a dark shadow flashed past.
The guards fell back, horrified. That was unmistakably Heisha.
Heisha only listened to Junshang. Then who was the other person on the steed? By the time they looked, the steed had already disappeared up the mountain path.
Up this perilous stairway, Heisha charged like a thunderclap, its swift hooves striking the steps with rhythm.
Its black mane whipped in the rain. Each stride, thunderous and wild, scattered mist like smoke.
In the saddle, Xiangge hung half-conscious.
The world pitched with every jolt, his soaked robes clinging heavy as a shroud, vision blurring as lanterns streaked past like falling stars.
Each brutal stride sent sharp agony racing up his spine, the fracture burning like a blade splitting bone. A low groan slipped from his lips. He bit down hard until he tasted blood. He trembled, cold and broken.
Silently, Mingxuan moved: one arm circling his waist, the other sliding beneath his shoulders.
With practiced ease, the kind that came from years of catching this same person before they fell, he pulled Xiangge into the warmth of his chest.
Even now, with poison coursing through his veins, Mingxuan moved unshaken.
The motion was practiced, unhurried.
There was no gap between them now.
Xiangge's body stiffened. Pain flared through his back. But the warmth that enveloped him dulled the edge of it, softening the agony to something almost bearable.
Pressed against the Emperor's chest, the thunder of hooves no longer pierced his spine. The jolting became distant, muffled, as if the world itself had wrapped him in cotton.
Was it deliberate? He didn't know. Couldn't know.
He hated how his body betrayed him, how it eased into that quiet warmth despite everything, how the pain faded the longer they remained like this, how some treacherous part of him still recognized this embrace as safety.
His lashes, wet with rain, fluttered open.
Through the haze of pain and exhaustion, he saw the stairs rising up Cloud Mountain, brightened with a hundred thousand spirit lanterns, glowing like a constellation brought to earth.
Upon its summit stood Yunshan Jade Palace, where he would be convicted. Perhaps executed.
No matter how hard he tried to justify it, this warmth, this false safety, the fact remained: with each step, he was nearing his own death.
The absurdity of it made his nerves burn.
"Stop acting like I matter," he whispered, voice bleeding.
His cheek hovered near Mingxuan's collar, close enough to catch the faint scent of sandalwood beneath the sharper smell of blood and rain.
"You just... look at me like I'm a duty. A shame. A thorn in your side that you can't remove."
Mingxuan said nothing.
The only response was the steady rhythm of Heisha's hooves, the rain against stone, the wind howling through the mountain pass.
"I know what this is," Xiangge went on, his voice breaking like ice over. "You're trying to compensate. For guilt. For failure. For whatever keeps you awake at night."
A cough racked his chest. Blood rose on his tongue, warm and metallic.
Mingxuan stayed silent, moving only to draw his cloak tighter around Xiangge's shivering frame. Like closing a wound that wouldn't stop bleeding.
Xiangge's eyes burned. He couldn't tell anymore where rain ended and tears began.
"Just pretend I never existed," he said hoarsely. "Go back to your perfect world. The one where nothing you do is wrong."
Heisha surged forward again, galloping through another turn in the mountain path. The spirit lanterns flared as they passed, casting long, shifting shadows across the trail.
Night guards at each pass stood frozen in stunned silence as Heisha raced past them.
Xiangge didn't care. Let them see. Let them whisper. Let the entire palace know. He pressed closer, not for comfort, but out of spite.
"I loved her, you know," he said suddenly. "Shenya. She was my lover. She was mine before you made her yours. You took everything from me. My name. My family. My throne. My future." His breath hitched. "Even her."
Mingxuan's grip tightened on the reins, almost imperceptibly.
"So treat me like a burden if you want." Xiangge's voice trembled on the edge of collapse. "Lock me up. Execute me. I don't care anymore. But don't you dare give me illusions. Don't pretend this means anything."
He pushed away the cloak that was covering him. But Mingxuan pulled back the cloak over his body. His movements were firm.
The final ascent loomed ahead. Ten thousand moss-slicked stairs winding into the thick mist.
Mingxuan hasn't spoken a single word since the horse ride. His face, unreadable in the dark, stayed forward, cold and remote as a statue carved from winter itself.
"Say something!" Xiangge shouted. His cry shattered the quiet. "Say something, damn you! Lie to me, I don't care! Just, just speak!"
No reply. Just the wind. Just rain drumming the steps.
That silence gnawed down his throat like a blade.
Xiangge's voice broke to a whisper. His lips trembled. He swallowed hard.
"That night–hngh–!"
His eyes widened, words dying in his throat. Because Mingxuan pressed his palm against his lips. Xiangge couldn't speak.
The same hand that once held him now choked every word before he could speak.
He opened his mouth and bit that hand with all his might. He tasted blood. But Mingxuan's hand didn't move.
Tears fell harder, scorching down Mingxuan's fingers. Finally Mingxuan sighed. He slowly dropped his hand.
Then something changed.
Warmth bloomed in Xiangge's chest. Soft at first, then spreading fast, chasing the cold from his limbs. The grinding pain in his spine dulled, then faded completely.
Beneath the cloak, Mingxuan's palm pressed flat against his chest. Spiritual energy poured from that touch, flooding his meridians with cultivated power.
The poison burned hotter in Mingxuan's chest with each transfer, feeding on the very energy he gave. He gritted his teeth and pushed more qi into Xiangge anyway.
Xiangge bit his lip.
No.
The poison...
Mingxuan was killing himself faster. For this.
Xiangge tried to shove the hand away. His arms wouldn't move. Heavy and useless, like they belonged to someone else.
Mingxuan held him effortlessly. He had been restraining him this entire time while forcing warmth into his shivering body.
Xiangge's throat tightened. Why won't you just let me suffer?
Mingxuan pulled Xiangge closer, and gently traced his long fingers against Xiangge's wet head. "Sleep."
That voice was extremely low.
Xiangge did not know whether it was his own weak body, or Mingxuan's words.
In that instant, the warmth became overwhelming. It flooded his senses, drowning thought and rage in warmth that felt like sunlight after years of winter.
No. Not like this. He fought against it, for consciousness, for control. But the pull was too strong, dragging him down like hands beneath dark water.
Panic flared in his chest. This was how it ended, then. Silenced. Subdued. Stripped of even the right to stay awake.
The world tilted sideways. The mountain, the lanterns, Mingxuan's jawline, all of it blurred into watercolor smears.
He tried to speak. Tried to curse. Tried to say that night and make Mingxuan hear it, make him acknowledge what he'd done.
But his tongue wouldn't form the words.
His body betrayed him one final time, going limp in Mingxuan's arms, helpless, and utterly defeated.
The last thing he felt was the steady rise and fall of Mingxuan's chest against his back. The last thing he heard was the rain lashing against stone and the distant toll of temple bells.
The last thing he thought, before darkness swallowed him whole:
Even now, you won't let me speak.
His eyes fluttered closed. His head fell back against Mingxuan's shoulder.
So he did not feel the warm tear that trailed down his cheek, the tear that didn't belong to him.