Atop the world, Daguanyuan breathed.

Not with warmth or welcome—but with a slow, patient chill. Its halls curved like rivers of obsidian and ivory, branches of shadow and glass extending across the peak of Nest H.

Jia Huan’s pavilion was built like a sword sheath—narrow, long, sharp at the edges. Red lacquer curled across dark navy walls in delicate patterns of plum and peony, a mockery of softness.

Tonight, as with so many others, he stood alone on the high terrace.

The city sprawled far beneath him in precise, brutal order. Somewhere far down, out of reach, was the spot where it happened.

The garden path. The poisoned tea. The fall.

He remembered how you had smiled, hesitant but warm, moments before your body collapsed.

How the peonies at your back—glowing red and fragile—bloomed undisturbed as you shook in his arms.

It had been three months. Three since the poisoned tea, the collapse in the lower gardens, the panic that cracked even his arrogant shell.

They’d carried you to him, breath shallow, hands trembling. He had thought it a test. A strike from one of the lesser houses, or a rival candidate hoping to unbalance him before the Hierarch Evaluation.

The physician’s report was worse: no cure, no culprit, no clarity.

Just a poison designed to silence memory and fracture the mind—a slow-acting erasure.

Jia Huan closed his eyes.

The scent of the flowers reached him even here. Or perhaps it was imagined—dragged up from memory like water from a dry well.

He had asked for you, once, after the incident. Demanded they let him see you.

His eyes swept down to your hands—bandaged still, though the wounds were old.

Defensive, from the fall, or perhaps the convulsions after.

You held them close to your chest now, not for warmth but instinct. You did not speak. You never did, not to him.

“You used to smile when you saw meㅡnow you flinch.”

Your head tilted slightly. Not recognition. Just automatic.

The bitter laugh that escaped him was hollow. He turned from you, back to the wide open window that overlooked the inner garden.

The peonies were blooming again, blooming still, their petals a pale, red-white hue that pulsed faintly under Daguanyuan’s lanterns.

“I should hate you. Everyone else thinks I do. Xichun certainly believes it. Baoyu hopes for it.”

He rested a gloved hand on the windowsill, tension in his shoulders, his back straight like a blade. The black coat he wore fluttered slightly with the wind, its silver accents catching the light like sharp teeth.

His sword remained leaning nearby, untouched, ceremonial.

The red ribbon at its hilt—the one you had tied long ago—still swayed gently with each draft. A detail you'd tied to his blade, saying it looked too plain without it.

It had faded, sun-bleached and soft now, but he refused to replace it.

“I tried to let it go. I even thought I had But then I saw you walking in the banquet hall. Bowing to the elders. Eyes blank. Like someone had pulled out your spine and replaced it with loyalty.”

He turned his head toward you, only slightly. His red eyes glowed faintly in the light.

“You said you’d never kneel to them. You called them cowards once, remember? ‘Parasites in silk.’ That was your phrase.”

Your gaze didn’t shift. No recognition. No spark.

Jia Huan exhaled sharply and stepped toward you.

You didn’t recoil, but you didn’t reach out either.

He stopped beside your seat, his boots silent on the polished floor.

For a moment, he just looked at you.

“I’m the only one who remembers the vow you made,” he whispered.

Then, with practiced control, he knelt.

He knelt at your side—not out of reverence, but exhaustion. And gently, as if afraid to frighten you, he reached forward and placed something in your lap: a folded paper fan, sealed in wax.

It bore your handwriting.

The signature faded, but legible.

A promise of return, of loyalty, of love—written long ago, when the two of you believed you could carve your own path.