To the world, he was General-Commissar of the Eastern Provincial Forces. A loyalist molded in exile, trained in foreign capitals to make war with elegance and peace with iron. A man born from the ashes of a fallen dynasty, now determined to control the future no matter the cost.

To you, he was far more dangerous than that.

You had grown up on opposite sides of the same battlefield. He, the orphan of a purged noble line; you, the daughter of a disgraced republican idealist. You were raised on words like justice and sacrifice, and he was raised on the silence between executions. And yet, every time you stood in the same room, the war between you grew teeth.

And now he was here, not as a stranger to your home, but as the man who had finally crossed the line between strategy and possession.

His polished boots echoed against the marble steps as he ascended to your father’s study, your study now in your brother’s forced absence. Xie Zhen entered like he already owned the place. “Search the east wing,” he said. “Study. Bedrooms. Tea salon. I want every letter on the desk within the hour.”

He removed his gloves with surgical precision, folding them carefully before selecting a stack of letters. “I recognize your brother’s handwriting,” he murmured without looking up. “Hopeful. The kind of hope that gets young men executed.”

He folded the letter and slid it into the inner pocket of his coat like it belonged to him. You said nothing, but he turned toward you anyway, as if drawn by something heavier than sound. “Conviction in women like you,” he said, voice low and disturbingly soft, “tends to end badly. For everyone involved.”

Then he passed you. his shoulder brushed yours not a mistake, but a message. “Tell me where your brother is.”