Subtitle: When redemption and harm originate from the same dose, the human heart becomes the sharpest reagent.
The dawn light had not yet broken. The Imperial Guards still patrolled outside Guiyun Manor. The mirror array remained, Chu Hongying's confinement order hanging like a blade of frost.
That bottle of "Heart-Calming Elixir" had been sent deep into the Imperial Hospital overnight under the guise of a medical inspection by Lu Wanning. Though the Emperor's decree was stern, the principles of medicine were supreme—she had seized this fleeting chance to glimpse the truth.
Shen Yuzhu had been moved to an underground chamber in the Imperial Hospital, deemed "too severely poisoned." In name, it was isolation; in reality, it was concealment. This was the border between light and shadow in the Empire—where the Empire buried its truths.
The windowless chamber held only the candle flame as a living thing.
Shen Yuzhu sat alone in the dark, the remnants of the Heart-Calming Elixir hissing through his veins. It was the Night Crow Bureau's poison, a contract where he had traded his rationality for her safety.
Lu Wanning's delicate hands held the needle as the "Spirit Resonance Guide" medicinal furnace steamed with a thin mist. The Northern Di medicine gifted by Helian Sha sat quietly on the table, its vial dark as congealed blood.
"This medicine... did not come from Helian Sha's hand." The silver needle probed the residual liquid, the purple qi twining around its tip writhing as if alive. "The Night Crow Bureau switched it. The traces are as perfect as the original."
Her fingertip lightly tapped an ancient text. "This is Mirror Toxin. It does not harm the flesh, but devours the mind. It weaves memories and fears into inescapable traps of logic, until every fear becomes logic, and every memory—its own cage."
The candlelight flickered in the depths of Shen Yuzhu's unreadable eyes. He saw Chu Hongying enduring the backlash when the mirror array fully activated, saw her tight-pressed lips and straight spine.
His fingertip touched the cold vial, curling back almost imperceptibly.
"If this poison can lessen her suffering by even a fraction," his voice was like shattered jade, "I will drink it."
—Outside the capital, at Yanhui Terrace. The night rain had just ceased, the Seventh Prince's plain cloak glowing coldly under the dying lantern light.
Helian Sha emerged from the shadows, like a Northern Di wind wrapped around a blade of snow. His voice carried the brittle edge of frost, the kind that cracked before it cut.
"The medicine has entered the manor."
"Mirror Toxin?"
"The Night Crow Bureau interfered." Helian Sha lifted his gaze. "You are not the only one moving pieces on the capital's board."
The Seventh Prince lightly tapped the table three times. "The Night Crow Bureau wants to summon back the Master of Rationality. You only need to test that bloodline." He picked up a cup of cold tea. "If Chu Hongying dies, this game loses its flavor."
"No one can control Mirror Toxin."
"Nor can any heart withstand awakening from such a potent poison." The Seventh Prince's smile was as warm and sharp as a blade. "What I want to see is... who wakes up first."
Helian Sha was silent for a long time, finally letting out a low laugh, his voice so cold it was almost devoid of emotion. "Saving one person is harder than destroying a nation."
"Destroy?" The Seventh Prince looked down as the tea vapor dissipated. "The old snow must melt for the new wind to rise."
The moment the medicinal liquid touched his throat, the blood vessels in Shen Yuzhu's eyes fractured violently.
The air frosted over. The candle flame stretched into a bizarre, straight line. The world decomposed within absolute rationality—the wood grain, breath, light and shadow, all transformed into icy mathematical symbols.
Time thickened, each heartbeat dragging like a blade through frost.
Then, utter silence.
He stood on an endless snow plain, watching his own hand steadily raise the poison, offering it to Chu Hongying, who was bound by invisible chains.
"Put it down!" He roared from the depths of his consciousness, but rationality coldly replied: This is the optimal solution. Let her be free.
She raised her head and drank the poison, her smile as gentle as spring water melting ice.
"I have calculated every strategy under heaven..." He knelt in the white hell, "...yet I could not calculate that I would be the poison that tears through you."
—In the confined quarters, Chu Hongying jolted awake from her couch.
The blood lock brand burned like a hot iron. The boundary between dream and reality tore apart in a bloody light. She heard his heartbeat shattering, piece by piece.
Without hesitation, she forced her way against the torrent of resonance, like a sharp blade cleaving through despair.
"Shen Yuzhu!" Her furious roar shattered the void. Her voice cut through the void like steel against the edge of dawn.
"My life is mine to command—
not by Heaven's will,
and never by this illusion of yours!"
A shattering ring echoed. The white hell shattered into a billion mirror shards. Her figure was the only light, blazing as it burned away the abyss.
She looked at him kneeling on the ground and murmured softly, as if making a vow to herself:
"I am no one's antidote, nor anyone's illusion."
"If you can wake from this poison... then that will be the battle I have truly won."
Her consciousness was swallowed by the light, but a final thought-whisper drifted into his ear—
"Never again... use me as your sin."
The night deepened, the rain ceased.
Shen Yuzhu woke with ragged gasps, the cold sweat on his brow not yet dry.
The first thing he saw was the cup of warm water Chu Hongying offered, and her eyes, clear and bright like stars.
She didn't speak immediately, only looked at him quietly. Her gaze held no blame, no pity, only a kind of steadfast reality—
"Next time," she said, her tone faint yet more real than any sob, her voice carrying the quiet weight of someone who'd already bled for the truth, "if you dare drink poison on your own again, I will break your hands myself."
She gently placed the cup in his hand. The firelight danced in her palm, illuminating the fragile yet tenacious connection between them.
After a moment, she asked softly, "Does it still hurt?"
He shook his head, his voice so hoarse it was almost inaudible. "No."
Outside the window, the rain had finally stopped completely. The candles in the Imperial Hospital were extinguished one by one, leaving only a single wick burning on the table.
He looked at the flame and suddenly murmured,
"If there were a place... unafraid of schemes, that could heal hearts... How good that would be."
Chu Hongying looked at him, offering no reply, only quietly tightening her grip on his hand.
(This single thought became the embryo of the later 'Wind-Stead Hall'.)
At the same time, in the outer room, the candlelight was faint.
Gu Changfeng stood outside the door, hearing the suppressed breathing from within the room, now calmed, yet he lingered.
Lu Wanning packed her medical tools, the silver needle in her hand still trembling slightly.
"The Mirror Toxin has dispersed, but the wound remains," she said softly. "It's just... this kind of poison, if broken by affection... the price is often heavier."
Gu Changfeng tilted his head, his gaze resting on her profile.
"You're afraid she will be diminished?"
"No." She lowered her eyes. "I'm afraid she will wake too quickly."
He was silent for a long moment.
"He bears the sky, she shoulders her fate.
You and I—we can only watch."
"If all we do is watch, then are we even human?" Her tone was light, yet carried a faint tremor.
Gu Changfeng was taken aback.
Lu Wanning straightened her back again, her eyes clear and cool as water. "They use resonance to save each other. We, too, should have a way to save this world."
Her fingertips brushed over the layer of frost that had formed on the medicine vial, and she added quietly, "Let it start from here."
Gu Changfeng watched her for a long time, then suddenly let out a soft sigh. "Your words are harder to dissolve than any poison."
She looked back, the corner of her mouth lifting slightly.
"A healer's words should carry poison—
otherwise, who would ever swallow the truth?"
He chuckled softly, lifting his eyes to the barred window. "Then, we should have a name."
"The ways of the world are like the wind... I shall hold my own measure." She replied calmly. "—'Wind-Stead Hall.' What do you think?"
The corner of Gu Changfeng's mouth lifted in a faint, almost imperceptible smile. "As you wish."
The candle flame flickered, his gaze softening for an instant—
"But every hall needs someone to hold up its roof… or else it collapses the moment it breathes."
The next day, dawn.
Grey light seeped through the window lattice, falling upon the still-damp ink stains on the desk.
Shen Yuzhu had been sitting in silence for a long time, the echoes of last night's battle—the illusory poison, her call—still lingering in his ears.
There was no letter on the desk, only an object: a single black crow feather, lying quietly beside the inkstone.
He lowered his gaze, his fingertip pausing at the feather's tip.
Carved upon it was a fine, knife-thin mark—a sigil he himself had established back in his days with the Night Crow Bureau.
—"Those who bear a fateful debt must face final judgment by their Master's own hand."
He contemplated that mark, his expression serene, yet it was as if he were being silently cleaved open by a blade.
The candle burned out in the silence, leaving only a wisp of thin smoke that slowly crept up the window frame.
He exhaled slowly, the scent of ash lingering like memory.
At the same time, in the West Wing.
The blood lock on Chu Hongying's arm throbbed faintly, as if carrying an echo. She lifted her head, a complex light flashing in her eyes.
"So resonance... it isn't just for saving others," she murmured.
"It can also make one... less alone."
The light outside grew brighter, like some form of judgment awakening.
His finger lightly stroked the carved mark, the corner of his mouth lifting in a soundless motion:
"The Night Crow Bureau's decree—
Opened by my hand, ended by my hand."