The recovery suite was bathed in the soft, amber glow of the setting sun. The rhythmic beep-beep of the heart monitor was the only bridge between the silence of the room and the chaos of the world outside.
Lian sat in the corner, shrouded in shadows. He had changed into a fresh black turtleneck, his gloved hands resting on his knees. He looked like a statue—cold, immovable, and hauntingly beautiful. Across from him, Jin-Ho leaned against the window frame, his eyes never leaving Lian. He knew the internal storm was coming.
A low groan broke the silence.
On the bed, Feng's eyelids fluttered. His fingers, no longer stained with the black rot of the poison, twitched against the silk sheets. Slowly, his eyes opened, unfocused and clouded, until they landed on the figure in the corner.
"Lian...?" his voice was a mere rasp, a ghost of its former booming authority.
Lian didn't move. "Don't try to speak. Your vocal cords are still recovering from the neurotoxin."
Feng ignored the command. He reached out a hand—not with the demanding grip of a patriarch, but with the trembling uncertainty of a man who had seen the afterlife. "You... you saved me. I saw you. In the dark... I saw your face."
Lian's jaw tightened. "I did what was necessary for the Lian family's reputation. A dead Chairman is bad for the stocks."
"No," Feng whispered, a tear escaping the corner of his eye and trekking through the wrinkles of his aged face. "You didn't do it for the stocks. I saw your eyes... they were full of such... such lonely pain. My son... what have I done to you?"
The Psychological FractureThe words hit Lian like a physical blow. In his first life, his father had never looked at him with anything but disappointment. He had been a tool, a bargaining chip, and eventually, a sacrifice. Lian had built his entire second life on the foundation of that hatred. It was his fuel. It was the ice in his veins.
But this man—this version of his father—was looking at him with genuine, heart-wrenching regret.
"Stop it," Lian hissed, standing up so abruptly his chair screeched. "Don't look at me like that."
"I was so proud of your brothers," Feng continued, his voice gaining a desperate strength. "I thought you were weak, so I ignored you. I left you alone in that big house... I let them take you. I'm sorry, Lian. I'm so sorry."
Lian felt a crack in his chest. The "Extreme Loneliness" of the old Lian—the boy who had died wishing for this exact moment—surged upward, clashing violently with the King's cold logic.
'It's a lie,' the King whispered. 'He's just weak because he almost died.'
'He loves me,' the Boy cried out from the depths of his soul.
The conflict triggered a massive sensory overload. Lian's vision began to spark. The smell of the lilies in the room turned nauseating. He felt the phantom sensation of his father's "love" as a physical weight, a touch that he couldn't escape even though no one was touching him.
"Lian, hey, look at me." Jin-Ho was at his side in an instant, his voice a sharp, grounding tether.
Lian pushed past him, his breathing turning into jagged, panicked gasps. He couldn't stay in the room with that look—that love. It was more dangerous than the Viper's poison. It threatened to melt the ice that kept him alive.
He bolted from the room, his footsteps echoing down the sterile hallway.
The Anchor in the StormLian didn't stop until he reached the rooftop garden of the hospital. The cold night air slapped his face, but it wasn't enough to stop the trembling. He collapsed against a stone planter, his hands clutching his head.
"I don't want it!" he screamed into the wind. "I don't want his regret! It's too late! He's supposed to be the enemy!"
A shadow fell over him. Jin-Ho didn't say anything at first. He just stood there, letting Lian scream at the sky. Then, he sat down on the edge of the planter, leaving exactly twelve inches of space between them.
"It's the hardest thing in the world, isn't it?" Jin-Ho said softly. "Finding out that the person who broke you is also a human being."
Lian looked up, his eyes bloodshot, his face wet with tears of rage and confusion. "He doesn't get to be human. Not after what I've been through. Not after two lifetimes of being nothing!"
"You're right. He doesn't get to erase the past," Jin-Ho agreed, his fox-like eyes reflecting the city lights. "But you don't have to be a prisoner of his hatred anymore, Lian. And you don't have to be a prisoner of his love, either. You are the Sovereign. You decide who he is to you."
Jin-Ho slowly extended his hand, palm up, resting it on the stone between them. He didn't touch Lian, but the invitation was there.
"The loneliness you feel... it's because you're waiting for them to pay back a debt they don't even know they owe. Stop waiting. I'm already here. I'm the only debt you need to worry about."
Lian stared at Jin-Ho's hand. The silver moonlight caught the scars on Jin-Ho's knuckles—the ones he got fighting for Lian in the hallway.
Slowly, with a hand that shook like a leaf in a gale, Lian reached out. He didn't touch Jin-Ho's skin, but he placed his gloved hand over Jin-Ho's, feeling the solid, unwavering heat beneath the leather.
The "Psychological Break" didn't mend, but it stilled. The silence on the rooftop was different now—it wasn't the silence of a tomb, but the silence of a truce.
"I still hate him," Lian whispered.
"I know," Jin-Ho replied, his fingers twitching slightly under Lian's hand. "We'll work on that after we kill the Viper. For now, just breathe. I've got the perimeter."
Beneath them, the city hummed, oblivious to the King who was learning how to be a person again. But in the shadows of the hospital parking lot, a silver-haired man watched the rooftop through a pair of binoculars, a thin, cruel smile playing on his lips.
The "Shadow's Grip" had failed, but the Viper had found a much more interesting poison: Hope.