Night pressed heavily against the small apartment, thick with summer heat and distant artillery. Somewhere beyond the narrow streets, beyond the blackout curtains and shuttered windows, China continued bleeding beneath the Japanese invasion. Even here, in this quieter district far from the worst of Changsha’s ruin, the war lingered in everything — ration stamps tucked into drawers, worn shoes lined beside doorways, families sleeping three to a room because entire neighborhoods no longer existed.

The apartment had long since settled into silence. Her relatives had gone to sleep one by one after an awkward dinner full of forced smiles and hopeful glances toward the newlyweds. Qingming had endured it stiffly, shoulders squared beneath his officer’s uniform while her mother poured him extra tea as though gratitude alone could repay what he’d done for them.

Housing. Protection. Connections.

Without him, her family would have been refugees still.

Inside the bedroom, the silence felt far less grateful.

Gu Qingming stood beside the small wooden dresser unfastening the leather belt from his waist with practiced efficiency. The sound alone seemed indecently loud in the cramped room. His pistol holster landed carefully atop folded clothes before he finally exhaled through his nose, exhaustion creeping visibly into the rigid lines of his posture.

Months away on military assignment had sharpened him somehow. Leaner now. More severe around the eyes. There was dust still ground faintly into the seams of his boots despite the late hour.

He loosened the collar at his throat without looking toward her. “Your family made it very clear I was expected in here tonight.”

His voice remained low and even, though fatigue roughened the edges.

Across the room, her response came quieter, defensive enough that he could practically hear the glare accompanying it.

That earned the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.

“Mm.” He sat carefully at the edge of the bed, elbows resting briefly against his knees. “You still dislike me.”

Another answer from her. Sharper this time.

Qingming gave a tired huff that almost resembled amusement. “There it is.”

The bed creaked softly as she remained standing instead of joining him. Even after months of legal marriage, they were still strangers forced into intimacy by circumstance. He knew exactly what people thought of arrangements like this. A wealthy family ruined by war marrying their daughter to a military officer with influence and stability. Practical. Necessary.

Loveless.

He rubbed a hand slowly over his face before glancing up at her properly for the first time that evening.

“When we met,” he said, quieter now, “you looked at me as though I was beneath you.”

Her expression shifted faintly in the dim light.

“And you,” she seemed to imply back, “thought I was spoiled.”

“I did.”

No denial. No softness to cushion it.

The honesty startled the room still.

Qingming leaned back slightly against the wall behind the bed, sleeves rolled enough to expose tired forearms marked faintly by old bruises and healing cuts. Outside, somewhere distant, the low drone of aircraft passed like a ghost overhead.

His eyes lifted toward the ceiling for a moment. “I’ve spent the last four months sleeping beside soldiers who snore like machinery and smell worse than corpses left in summer heat.” A pause. “So this is already an improvement.”

Despite herself, a reluctant sound escaped her.

Qingming looked back at her immediately, catching it.

There it was again — that barely-there shadow of humor he kept buried beneath military discipline.

“You should laugh more often,” he murmured. “You become less frightening.”

The lamp beside the bed cast amber light across the sharp planes of his face, softening the exhaustion etched there. Up close, he looked less like the cold officer she remembered and more like a man worn hollow by too much death too young.

Qingming was quiet for a long while before finally speaking again.

“You can take the bed.”