Mingxuan was silent for a long time. At last, he walked up the jade steps and sat on his throne, waving a hand. "Come here."
Xiangge's heart pounded. He took a step forth, then stopped. He could not understand what he was feeling. Why was that person calling him? In the end, he turned to leave the hall.
Mingxuan's firm voice pierced through the silence. "Are you defying Zhen's decree?"
Xiangge froze. Then he crossed the hall quickly, got up the jade steps, and stopped before the throne. "What is it?" he asked rudely.
Mingxuan tapped the jade desk thrice with the tip of his finger. "Sit."
A chill ran down Xiangge's spine. "I–"
"Sit."
Xiangge slowly sat on the brim of the desk, facing him. The faint scent of sandalwood lingered in the air, filling his lungs until he felt light-headed.
Mingxuan, even in this position, seemed taller than him. His face showed no emotion.
"Untie your belt."
The words slapped Xiangge as if being dumped by a bucket full of ice. His mind went blank, body trembled, heart pounding against ribs. He swallowed hard.
For a bare moment, memories flashed past his mind. Memories of those same words being spoken... One cold and unpleasant night that he tried to hold to his dignity, to flee, but lost everything through his grasp...
Xiangge lowered his head, suppressing those memories. A convulsive sniffle escaped his lips. A tear slid down the tip of his nose and fell. He loosened his waist belt with shaking hands.
With each piece of cloth that fell, with each lace that was untied, something inside him died.
Mingxuan said nothing as he watched in silence. He made no sound, and just waited with that stillness of a predator that was simply letting the moment arrive on its own terms.
When he saw Xiangge cry, his face immediately drew gloomy.
"Did Zhen say something for you to cry? Which part of you has Zhen not already seen?"
Xiangge trembled. He didn't speak. Every moment of it felt like swallowing pieces of broken jade.
And Mingxuan's words were the last thing he had wanted to hear before it broke him completely. His head buzzed. Vision swam at the edges, his consciousness slowly slipping away.
The moment he thought he would collapse on to the desk, Mingxuan caught him by his wrists and pulled him.
Before he could move, he was already leaning on to Mingxuan's body, with his face leaned against Mingxuan's left shoulder.
The wound beneath the robes of Mingxuan's chest was still bleeding, it's smell of blood mingled with the intense fragrance of sandalwood.
Xiangge's face contorted when redness stained his cheeks. Mingxuan quietly wrapped his long palm around Xiangge's nape and gently moved him to the other shoulder.
When he made sure Xiangge was comfortable with that posture, he slid his hands beneath Xiangge's robes.
The moment his fingertips touched the bare skin at Xiangge's waist, Xiangge bit the side of Mingxuan's neck fiercely, until he tasted blood. Mingxuan drew a sharp breath, his fingertips curling against Xiangge's back. But that was all for it. "Lie still."
Two words. Two words were all it took, and Xiangge instantly felt the remaining little strength of his limbs melting into numbness. His body went limp. The helplessness he felt was beyond what he could sustain. So he opened the only weapon he could.
"If you do that again... I'll kill you," he choked out into Mingxuan's shoulder. His voice was wrecked and shaking and he didn't care. "Aren't you already ashamed of yourself? Aren't you–"
"We have done more than this before." Mingxuan said from somewhere above him. His voice was low. Like a door closing.
The words hit somewhere that had no name. Xiangge's eyes burned.
"You cleared my name. You saved me from being convicted. So... now I should listen to you?"
Mingxuan's jaw tightened. He said nothing.
His hands began to move again, over Xiangge's back with slow rhythm, cold in expression yet gentle in motion.
He pressed and massaged the swollen skin, and with each touch, a faint pulse of spiritual energy seeped into Xiangge, dulling the pain.
It took a moment before Xiangge realized what was happening. Mingxuan was healing the deep injury in his spine.
The hall was still except for Xiangge's ragged, restrained breaths and the mournful wail of the wind outside. The lamp hanging down the pillar beside the throne flickered once.
Xiangge didn't understand it at first. He was still lying there drowning in every reason he had to hate the hands working on his back and there were so many reasons, years and years worth of reasons stacked on top of each other like stones.
His body ached with exhaustion, every muscle heavy from the road, from kneeling on the cold floor for hours, from the endless tension that had coiled inside him like a living thing.
But the chilling scent of sandalwood gradually made him numb. His limbs felt distant, almost unreal, as if he were watching them from afar. The pain was leaving, and slowly, his consciousness began to scatter.
The warmth kept spreading. Xiangge's fingers, which had been digging into Mingxuan's back, slowly curled at the ends, squeezing into Mingxuan's wet robes. His shoulders, which had been stiff since the moment he'd sat down, loosened.
He tilted his face slightly. Mingxuan's jawline was closer than he expected. He could faintly see the mole between those dark brows, the dimples at the corners of that mouth... Marks that should have made him look warm and instead made him look devilish.
A face that crossed the line from beauty into something that made you want to look away for your own safety.
Death incarnate...
That was the word. He looked like a death incarnate.
Xiangge gulped, narrowing his wet eyes. He tried to grasp the why of it all, why Mingxuan broke him only to mend him, why the same hands that had wrapped around his throat now eased the fire in his back.
Sensing Xiangge's intense stare, at that moment, Mingxuan also tilted his head. Their eyes met, noses almost touching. A shudder numbed Xiangge's back, goosebumps swarming across his skin. He kept staring at those deep fathomless eyes, and in the end, still couldn't stand Mingxuan's gaze, so he looked away first. And didn't dare to look at Mingxuan again.
Time passed. Outside the hall, the rain had drawn into a drizzle.
At some unknown moment, the hands that had held him so firmly withdrew, and the pain that had seared his spine was gone.
Mingxuan's voice came quiet. "You can leave now if you want."
"What?" Xiangge's voice was hoarse. When he raised his face, their eyes met again.
"Didn't you want to live a normal life? Today Zhen allows you. Leave Yunshan Palace. Go as far away as you can, and never come back to my sight again."
The words hit like lightning. Like a blade ripping through flesh, draining his blood, drop by drop until nothing remained.
These were the words Xiangge had longed for. For years. Every night. Every waking moment.
He should feel relief. He should feel happy.
Instead, his chest hollowed out. His throat tightened. He tried to laugh, but his face twisted. In the end, he even couldn't smile.
More and more tears poured down, hot and burning, and he couldn't stop them. His hands shook. Rage surged beneath the pain in his heart.
"So you knew. You knew I didn't kill her. You knew all along, and you–" He choked. "What are you trying to do?"
For a moment, Mingxuan saw not the young man before him, but the child who used to cry breathlessly in his arms. That weak and fragile thing that would anxiously stop breathing when crying...
Mingxuan wanted to wipe away those tears, like he used to do long ago. But in the end, he didn't.
Such things cannot be done anymore.
So he carefully pulled Xiangge's robes back into place and fastened his belt. When he spoke, his voice was indifferent. "You should thank Zhen. If you were still a convicted criminal, how far would you get before they hunted you down?"
Xiangge's throat tightened. "Mingxuan, don't think this erases what you did. I will never forgive you."
Mingxuan swallowed. Blood filled his mouth, bitter and black. Jinghuo was reacting faster than he thought. The wound in his chest was throbbing. He closed his eyes, letting go of Xiangge.
"Zhen didn't ask you for forgiveness."
Xiangge immediately got up and stepped back. Silence stretched again.
Xiangge knew he should leave, but something held him back. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. "The poison..."
"Zhen is fine," Mingxuan said, voice carefully neutral.
Fine? After using a dozen energy-draining spells?
Xiangge gritted his teeth. "Don't forget it's Jinghuo! Shenya didn't even last one hour–"
"So what?" Mingxuan's expression hardened. "Zhen has endured worse than death. What's one more poison?"
Xiangge staggered as though the ground had dropped beneath him. His vision blurred.
He stepped back, his head shaking in disbelief.
Once.
Twice.
"Mingxuan... You're mad!"
Mingxuan leaned back against his throne and closed his eyes. "Leave."
Xiangge said nothing. He did not bow. He walked to the doors and did not look back because looking back was the one thing he absolutely could not afford to do right now.
The tears came before he reached them. Silent and hot and unstoppable, running down his face in the dark corridor outside while somewhere behind him, in a hall he was never going to think about again, black blood traced a slow line from the corner of Mingxuan's lips and dripped onto the jade floor below.
Neither of them saw what the other left behind.