The carriage's interior felt suddenly quieter, the clatter of hooves muted beneath the muffled fabric walls. Suyin sat across from him, still catching her breath from the sudden retreat. Her fingers rested lightly on her lap, but her eyes—bright and searching—were fixed on him.
"That man…" she began softly, "he's the Crown Prince?"
Qin Fuhua's gaze flickered toward the curtained window before returning to her.
"My cousin."
She tilted her head. "Then why is he the Crown Prince, and not you?" She quickly added,
"Not that I care for titles—it's just strange. You… carry yourself like one far more than he does."
For a moment, silence. Then, with a breath that seemed to draw something heavy from the past, he spoke.
"When I was a boy, there was an… incident." His voice was low, even, but the memory in it was sharp. "The Emperor's favorite consort had a son—her pride, my father's joy. We were returning from a summer hunt together, riding in the same carriage along the cliff road."
The sway of the current carriage seemed to echo the one in his memory.
"A wheel cracked. The horses panicked. The carriage tipped." His gaze darkened. "I remember the plunge—the weightless moment before the world fell away—and then… nothing but the river below. When I woke, I was on the shore. Alone."
Suyin's fingers tightened slightly over her skirt.
"They never found him. And the whispers began." His jaw tightened. "That I'd planned it. That I was jealous. That I'd pushed him out to save myself." He looked away, his voice cooling. "A jinx, they called me. A prince who brought death."
The road curved beneath them, the wheels humming over packed earth.
"My father stripped me of my right to inherit. Left me the title of 'Prince of Qin' only to keep face. My cousin was named Crown Prince within the month."
Suyin studied him—not the feared, untouchable man the world knew, but the boy left standing on that riverbank, the weight of loss and accusation settling on his shoulders like a chain.
Slowly, she reached out, her hand brushing over his.
"Then one day," she said quietly, "we'll find the truth. And they'll choke on every lie they ever spoke."
His gaze softened, a quiet ember burning in the depths.
The steady rhythm of the carriage wheels could not drown out the weight of Suyin's thoughts. Her gaze lingered on Qin Fuhua, but her mind was still fixed on the man they had just seen—his cousin, the Crown Prince.
Slowly, the edges of a suspicion began to align. The Crown Prince's face… there was something hauntingly familiar in the way his features were set, the curve of his brow, the steel in his gaze.
A reflection—muted yet undeniable—of another face she had seen before.
The Emperor's.
The fake one.
Her hand shot out, curling around Qin Fuhua's. "Do you have a painting of your uncle? The Crown Prince's father." Her voice was low, urgent.
Qin Fuhua's brow furrowed.
"I've seen the portrait of your father in the Palace," Suyin continued, her words quickening as if to outrun the weight of her own realization. "The current Emperor looks similar… yet not. If your uncle resembles him, even slightly—"
Her mind spun.
Could this have been the very moment the imposter began his reign?
Qin Fuhua's eyes narrowed as he considered. "My uncle disappeared a long time ago," he said slowly, "but… There should be a family portrait of the Crown Prince's household in the archives. I can send word to Weizhe. He'll know where to look."
Their gazes locked, an unspoken understanding passing between them. If they could see that portrait—see the true face of the Emperor's supposed "brother"—they might finally unmask the shadow pulling the strings from the throne.
"It will take days for Weizhe to receive the message and return," Qin Fuhua murmured. "We'll have to time this carefully. The longer we wait, the more ground we lose."
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[A couple of days later]
The night air was crisp, carrying with it the faint perfume of plum blossoms. Their pale petals fluttered down like slow-falling snow, catching in Suyin's hair and glimmering faintly beneath the moonlight.
She sat on the low wooden bench beneath the tree, the village beyond them quiet save for the occasional distant bark of a dog. Above, the stars glittered like a thousand silver lanterns hung in the heavens—distant, unblinking witnesses to her thoughts.
She had given so much of herself today—binding wounds, easing pain, coaxing the wary villagers into trust with her gentle persistence. And yet, for all her efforts, the question they had come here for remained unanswered. The Teng Zhi's purpose was still a shadow, an echo without a source.
Lost in thought, she didn't notice the soft tread of footsteps behind her until a familiar weight settled around her shoulders. The warmth of the cloak was immediate, chased by the deeper warmth of the man who draped it over her.
Qin Fuhua's presence was a steady, grounding thing, like a mountain beside her in the night.
"It's cold out here, my dear," he murmured, voice threaded with quiet concern. He lowered himself beside her, his sleeve brushing hers as the faint scent of orange blossoms reached her.
"Why are you sitting alone?"
She turned to look at him, and her lips curved in a smile—not one of cheer, but of quiet gratitude. The kind of smile that spoke of knowing how rare it was to find someone who would sit beside you without asking you to change.
"As your wife," she said, her fingers brushing lightly over his sleeve, "I feel I should tell you everything you need to know about me… and I should know about you, too."
Qin Fuhua didn't answer right away.
The stillness between them was deep, as though the world itself held its breath. His eyes were shadowed, and she could sense the weight of years locked away behind them—years he had guarded like a fortress.
Yet now, the way he looked at her was different. His love for her had become something beyond possession, beyond words—a devotion that, if tested, would see him gladly lay down his life for hers.
When he spoke at last, his tone was low, threaded with memories he had never let breathe.
"I never mentioned my past because…" His gaze shifted to the dark horizon. "It was something I never wanted to remember. As a child, after the accident, no one wanted to play with me."
He paused, the silence heavy with the unspoken.
"My mother and grandfather… they were always there for me. But their kindness could not shield me from the whispers, the pointing fingers. They said I was cursed, a jinx. It hardened me, made me a tougher child than I should have been." His eyes lowered, a flicker of old pain passing over his features.
"My father threw me into a stronghold, insisting I grow into strength. I tried. But then… we were ambushed. Enough that I was nearly taken."
Suyin's breath caught, but she stayed quiet, her eyes never leaving his face.
"They found me unconscious," he continued. "My father had his soldiers retrieve me, and they told me he too had survived. But our stronghold had fallen. From that day, I swore I would become strong enough to protect him. I went to the mountains to train… and that is where I met my master."
His voice faded, leaving the quiet hum of night to fill the space between them.
Suyin studied him, feeling the ache in his words settle deep in her chest.
This was a side of Qin Fuhua she had never seen—raw, unguarded, and unshaped by the armor he wore before the world. And she realized, under the plum blossoms and the cold starlight, that this was the closest she had ever been to the core of him.
The night had begun its slow descent into stillness, the kind where even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
High above, plum blossoms quivered in the branches, their pale petals trembling before they broke free, drifting like fragments of a quiet dream. Each one spiraled gently to the earth, their fragrance lingering in the air like the memory of spring.
Suyin drew the edge of the cloth closer about her shoulders, chasing away the creeping chill.
But after a heartbeat, she paused, her gaze softening as she leaned toward Qin Fuhua, draping the other half of it over him. The gesture was simple, but it carried warmth beyond the cloth itself—an unspoken vow that she would not let him face the cold alone.
A rare, fleeting smile touched his lips, breaking through the usual austerity of his features.
Without a word, he drew her into his embrace from behind, arms folding around her in a hold both protective and grounding.
She could feel the steady rhythm of his breath against her back, the quiet strength of a man who had weathered countless storms yet found reason to pause here, beneath the blossoms.
"But nothing matters now," he murmured, his voice pitched low, as though the night itself must be kept from knowing, "that I have you, my love."
The words slipped into her heart like a warm tide, and for a moment, she forgot the world beyond the two of them.
She had always known him as a fortress of ice—distant, unyielding, his heart hidden behind walls too high to climb. Yet, piece by piece, he had allowed her in, revealing not only the tempered steel of his will, but the scars that had shaped it.
And she loved him more for those scars, for the battles that had not broken him, even when they had left him bleeding inside.
"There must have been so much you've borne," she whispered, her head tilting so that her gaze could meet his beneath the dappled shadows of the branches. "So many battles you fought alone."
A breeze stirred, scattering another flurry of petals around them. In the hush that followed, she leaned up and pressed her lips to his cheek—a kiss as light as the falling blossoms, as brief and tender as moonlight over still water.
"I'm glad to be here with you, too," she said, her voice shy yet certain, carrying the quiet conviction of a vow.
Above them, the sky stretched endlessly and deep, jeweled with stars that seemed to burn all the brighter for the darkness between them. But neither of them looked upward. The cold night, the drifting petals, the weight of each other's presence—all of it was enough. And in that small circle of warmth beneath the plum blossoms, it felt as if the world had narrowed to just them, and that was all it ever needed to be.