At midnight, the East Courtyard study of the Northern Frontier Administrative Office.
The swaying lamplight cast uneven shadows across the whitewashed walls.
Xia Lanshi, draped in a thin outer garment, sat alone before the desk, flipping through complicated account books.
Suddenly, a black shadow silently descended from the thick darkness like a ghost and knelt on one knee inside the room.
“Lord Chief Steward.”
The hidden guard lowered his voice and carefully reported the movements he had just observed in the South Courtyard.
Xia Lanshi’s fingers paused slightly as he turned through the account book, his eyes flickering between light and shadow beneath the lamp.
After a moment, he gently closed the account book and said in a voice as calm as still water, “It’s fine. Let him go.”
“Yes.”
The hidden guard accepted the order and once again disappeared into the darkness.
In the empty study, Xia Lanshi did not reopen the account book.
He propped his elbow on the desk, gently rubbing the space between his brows with his fingertips as he gazed thoughtfully out the window.
Dark clouds concealed the moon, like an enormous curtain blocking the faint light of the world and making this long night seem even deeper and more hopeless.
◆◇◆◇◆
Inside the South Courtyard guest room.
Xiao casually draped a cloak over his thin inner garment and walked straight to the door, pushing it open.
Ignoring the astonished gazes of the military physicians and guards stationed beneath the corridor, he was like a lone wolf walking through the dark night, heading without looking back toward the hidden door in the distance of the Administrative Office.
The night wind was like a blade, scraping across his pale face and scattering his dark hair.
Following the silent inner alley, he walked all the way to the back entrance of the Northern Frontier Martyrs’ Shrine.
“Stop! This is an important shrine. Who goes there?”
Seeing an unfamiliar face approaching, the shrine guard placed a hand on his sword hilt and shouted sternly.
Xiao did not speak. He merely raised his left hand expressionlessly.
A black braided cord hung from between his fingers. At its end dangled a cold, silent black key, swaying in the night and reflecting a deathly, icy glimmer.
—The Silver Wolf Bearing the Key!
Upon seeing the secret key personally bestowed by Prince Su, the shrine guard’s expression changed drastically. He immediately stepped respectfully aside and bowed his head to let him pass.
Xiao passed through the ritual storage chamber without obstruction and opened the concealed underground entrance.
He followed the long, deep stone steps downward. Along the way, the hidden sentries concealed in the darkness saw the Silver Wolf Key in his hand and all retreated like ghosts, holding their breath. Not a single person dared to stop him.
At last, he arrived at the third underground level.
It was a vast empty hall. In the center of the pool stood that deep vermilion ancient door, silently upright like a boundary monument separating life and death.
The two shrine guards responsible for guarding the core area saw him and were about to step forward to question him.
“Get out.”
Xiao coldly uttered two words.
He did not even spare them a glance.
Those two words carried a terrifying pressure forged through mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
The two shrine guards felt their hearts shudder under the intimidation. When their eyes fell upon the Silver Wolf Bearing the Key in his hand, they immediately remembered the orders from above:
—Doctor Su and the mysterious guest of the South Courtyard may freely enter and leave this place.
Although they had never seen the guest’s true appearance, the aura before them and the proof in his hand required no further explanation.
The two exchanged a glance and silently withdrew.
In the vast underground chamber, only the sound of water droplets falling into the pool remained.
Xiao crossed the pathway over the pool and arrived before the ancient door.
He placed both hands against its ancient, cold surface, leaned his body against it, and slowly closed his eyes.
“Tell me.”
His voice carried barely suppressed anger because the door had actually allowed that most dangerous enemy into this time and space.
“Where is Sheng Chengxiu?”
The dim underground chamber fell into complete silence.
Yet after a moment, he saw nothing at all.
Only endless darkness.
The door remained as cold and hard as stone, without the slightest response.
The anger in Xiao’s heart grew even stronger. He gritted his teeth and said coldly, “You acknowledge someone like him as your Door Master too?”
The door remained like an old monk in meditation, neither sad nor joyful, offering no response.
Xiao took a deep breath. The wound in his right shoulder throbbed faintly from the surge of emotion.
He knew that becoming angry at a cold and heartless Heavenly Dao Gate was ultimately futile.
Again and again, he placed his hand upon the door.
He tried to observe Sheng Chengxiu’s whereabouts through the door, trying to find Great Sheng’s lost “Door Key.”
Once.
There was no image.
A second time.
There was no response.
A third time.
A fourth time.
A fifth time.
……
Time continued to pass through the void.
Until, in the end.
Every observation of cause and effect sank into the sea like a mud ox, disappearing into illusion.
—Bang!
The last trace of his patience finally ran out.
Xiao angrily swung his fist and slammed it hard against the door.
Then he gave a low laugh.
The laughter was mixed with anger, yet concealed within it was deep sorrow and unwillingness.
“Even you… have given up on me?”
The ancient door merely emitted a muffled tremor before once again returning to deathly silence.
The temperature in the underground ancient-door space was as cold as an ice cellar. Xiao was wearing only a thin inner garment, and the cloak he had casually thrown over himself could not possibly withstand the chill that seeped into his bones.
Combined with the fact that he was still seriously injured and had repeatedly performed observations while undergoing violent emotional fluctuations, he had completely exhausted his strength.
At last, he could no longer hold himself up. He simply slid down along the cold door and sat dejectedly on the floor, leaning against it.
“What exactly do you want me to do…”
He raised his head, exhausted, and closed his eyes.
“Or… is this place already hell?”
Right now, there were only two paths of certain death before him.
One was to continue barely clinging to life, then watch helplessly as cause and effect collapsed and everyone followed this time and space toward destruction.
The other was to end himself, activate the Gatekeeper’s ultimate destiny, and return all karmic burdens to nothingness.
Either path meant eternal ruin.
To end everything meant that every bond he possessed in this world would return to zero.
He would once again have to watch those living, vivid faces become strangers and once again endure the ultimate agony of “parting from those one loves.”
That loneliness of having his very existence completely stripped away by time was a torment that frightened him even more than death.
After living for so long and experiencing countless trials between life and death, this was the first time he had not known how to choose amid the web of cause and effect.
At that moment, a set of footsteps, extremely light yet incomparably familiar, broke through the deathly silence of the underground chamber.
“Wait outside.”
Someone spoke gently.
Xiao slightly raised his eyes.
A snow-white figure slowly walked into the dim space.
That cool and elegant bearing was like an exiled immortal descended into the mortal world.
Xia Lanshi emerged from the darkness, a thick fox-fur cloak draped over his arm.
He walked to Xiao’s side and looked down at him. In those thin, red-tinted eyes, anger and heartache intertwined.
“Are you satisfied now? You’ve treated the life Doctor Su worked so hard to save so carelessly, and wasted the body that only recovered because Doctor Su gave you his blood.”
Xiao turned his face away and remained silent.
Xia Lanshi helplessly sighed softly, crouched down, and wrapped the cloak tightly around Xiao.
Then, completely disregarding the coldness of the ground, he sat down directly beside him.
“It’s colder here than aboveground. Your body is still weak. If you want to come here, you can, but you need to keep yourself warm.”
His tone softened.
Then his words suddenly shifted.
“I heard you speaking to the door just now. You wanted to observe Sheng Chengxiu’s whereabouts through the door?”
“…Yes.”
“Doctor Su and His Highness already tried that long ago, but it was useless.”
Xia Lanshi calmly stated the facts.
“They couldn’t see where Sheng Chengxiu or the Door Key had gone either.”
Xiao’s back stiffened slightly.
“I’ve always been wondering what the conditions for becoming a Door Master actually are.”
Xia Lanshi gazed at the dark water before them and slowly said, “I originally thought that one had to possess imperial blood, be able to resonate with the Door Key, and possess the qualities of an emperor in order to become the Door Master. But now that Sheng Chengxiu has also become a Door Master, I’m no longer so certain.”
“The door can be inexplicable sometimes.”
Xiao spoke in a low voice, his voice hoarse.
“But when you get to the root of it, everything is still connected to ‘cause and effect.’”
He had thought about this question countless times long ago. In the end, the only answer he had ever reached was this unpredictable cause and effect.
“Cause and effect…”
A faint flicker passed through Xia Lanshi’s eyes.
In an instant, his mind flashed through all the fated entanglements between Su Muchen and Xiao Yuan, as well as the enormous impact Su Muchen’s arrival had had on Xiao Yuan’s entire “plan.”
He suddenly understood the connection.
“Then, in other words, Sheng Chengxiu came to Great Sheng because of some extremely deep connection of cause and effect?”
“I don’t know. Only the door knows.”
Xiao’s gaze suddenly became sinister.
“I only know that the Sheng clan persecuted the Su clan for hundreds of years. Generation after generation, they refused to let us go! If it weren’t for them…”
He stopped halfway and suddenly turned his head toward Xia Lanshi.
In that instant, certain brutal memories buried deep within his mind resurfaced. A trace of heart-wrenching despair flashed through his eyes, and he abruptly turned his head away.
“If we destroy all those records and eliminate all those people… perhaps this evil bond that has stretched across hundreds of years could finally be ended…”
Xiao’s voice carried the resolve of mutual destruction.
“Absolutely not.”
Xia Lanshi suddenly spoke, his tone decisive.
Xiao looked at him in astonishment.
“Your duty is not to kill someone or destroy something in order to forcibly bring all of this to an end.”
Xia Lanshi’s gaze was clear and unwavering, like that of a wise man who had seen through illusion.
“You are the Gatekeeper. Your destiny is to protect and maintain balance.”
Yet Xiao merely looked at him.
Those eyes, deep as a pool, remained as still as dead water.
He shook his head and pulled out an illusory smile.
“You don’t understand…”
He said those words again.
“There was someone… He did everything he could and everything he shouldn’t have done. He killed everyone he could kill and everyone he shouldn’t have killed.”
“And in the end…”
“Everything was nothing but a bubble. He couldn’t keep anything, and he couldn’t protect anything…”
His voice grew lower and lower, filled with the helplessness of someone crushed completely beneath fate.
He looked at Xia Lanshi, his eyes seeming to gaze across the distant boundaries of time and space toward an old acquaintance from the past.
“If even you… cannot be protected, then what use is there in guarding a single door?”
“It is because I am incapable that you…”
“Don’t concern yourself with me anymore. I’m not worth this from you.”
Xia Lanshi simply sat there.
Silently.
He said nothing.
In the underground ancient-door chamber, only the faint, slow sound of water flowing in the pool remained.
Because he knew that any lighthearted comfort would be far too pale in the face of suffering that had crossed time and space.
Only Xiao himself had truly tasted that kind of pain—the pain of being trapped in an endless hell.
No outsider had any right to condemn his extremity or casually tell him to let go.
And Xia Lanshi was also an outsider.
But Xia Lanshi would not be that kind of outsider.
He reached out both hands.
Ignoring Xiao’s resistance, he firmly yet gently enclosed Xiao’s cold hands within his own.
“These hands have already been stained with enough blood. It is time to let go.”
He spoke with the same firm gaze he had possessed from the very beginning, his voice without the slightest hesitation.
Despairing waves churned within Xiao’s eyes.
He gritted his teeth.
“If I don’t do it, it will never end!”
“This game has not yet reached its final move. No one can know what the result will be.”
“Not you, nor me.”
Xiao’s body trembled slightly.
He stared at him blankly.
“If there are things you cannot say, then you don’t have to say them. I’ll investigate.”
“If there are things you cannot do, I’ll do them.”
“If there are people you cannot kill, I will judge them for you.”
“If there are sins you cannot bear, I will bear them for you.”
Xia Lanshi lifted Xiao’s hand and gently pressed that cold palm against his own slightly cool cheek.
In those eyes that were always filled with calculation and schemes, all the elaborate plotting had now disappeared.
Only undisguised devotion and an almost martyr-like madness remained.
He spoke each word clearly:
“Xiao, whatever you choose, I will accompany you.”
“If there truly is an endless hell, I will descend into it with you.”
“Whether it means bearing infamy and falling into darkness, or falling into eternal ruin, I will not let you face it alone.”
“This time, no matter how distant the road to the Yellow Springs, no matter how fierce the waters of the River of Forgetfulness, even amid the karmic flames of the Manzhushahua, I will be there with you.”
“But at least… not today.”
He raised his head and gazed into Xiao’s deep eyes.
His tone unexpectedly carried a trace of almost pleading humility.
“If you are tired and want to end it… you can.”
“Just promise me one thing. Next time, don’t bear it alone again.”
“Don’t guard yourself against me. Come find me first, all right?”
Xiao looked at him in disbelief.
So… Xia Lanshi knew everything.
That earlier conversation had not been a test.
He had truly seen through everything.
Xia Lanshi suddenly seemed to think of something. He bitterly curled the corner of his lips.
“However… we need to agree on a secret signal first.”
“Because… if the cycle is restarted, next time, I will definitely have forgotten everything about this moment.”
“I’ll forget that you were the person who saved me on that snowy night.”
“I’ll forget everything between us…”
“And I’ll even forget that little snow owl’s name was ‘Snow Night.’”
His voice had already become choked.
His eyes reddened.
Crystalline tears rolled down, striking Xiao’s cold hand and burning with startling warmth.
Looking at him like this and listening to these words, the wall that Xiao had guarded so fiercely, building it higher and higher around his heart, finally collapsed with a thunderous crash.
In the past, even when Xia Lanshi had been at his most miserable and dangerous, he had never lowered himself or abandoned his dignity to beg anyone like this.
Xiao had not only driven himself into a desperate corner.
He had simultaneously stabbed the person who loved him most deeply until he was covered in wounds.
He could endure it no longer.
He suddenly stretched out both arms and pulled Xia Lanshi tightly into his embrace.
He buried his face deeply against the hollow of Xia Lanshi’s neck, his body trembling slightly.
He did not know whether it was because of the cold underground or because the emotions he had suppressed for so long had finally burst their banks.
In a low voice, as though he were crushing his very soul into pieces, he called:
“Huaiyu… you’re such an idiot.”
He had repeatedly forced Xia Lanshi away.
He had even gone so far as to say cruel words and threaten him with violence.
Yet Xia Lanshi had still chased after him.
Every time.
No matter how many cycles and reincarnations there were, no matter whether Xia Lanshi had forgotten everything about their past—
Every time, they would still be irresistibly drawn to one another like moths flying into a flame.
Even the red lotus karmic flames of a burning hell could not destroy this obsessive attachment.
Xia Lanshi leaned against his broad yet faintly trembling embrace, his eyes gradually growing hot.
“I hate it so much…”
“I hate that I don’t remember anything. I hate that I couldn’t see through your suffering sooner.”
“If I remembered, I wouldn’t have let you bear all of this alone in this endless darkness for so long…”
Xiao held him tightly and could not speak for a long time.
It was not that he did not want to speak.
It was that the moment he opened his mouth, that broken voice would betray his emotions.
He would never truly be able to harden his heart enough to reject Xia Lanshi.
Because this person was the only light he could see in this long, endless night of darkness.
Again and again, he guided him forward, as though he wanted to drag him out of this sea of suffering by sacrificing himself.
He had thought that after enduring hundreds of tribulations, he had long since become a walking corpse and had forgotten what tears felt like.
Yet at this moment, a drop of warm moisture quietly slid down his cold cheek and fell onto Xia Lanshi’s collar.
He froze in surprise, thinking it was an illusion.
Then one drop.
And another.
He released his arms and tremblingly raised a hand to touch his cheek.
The moisture on his fingertips confirmed that the pain and love were truly there.
Xia Lanshi reached out and gently wiped away the tears on his face.
He rose slightly, kneeling on the freezing ground, and reverently cupped Xiao’s face in his hands.
Then he gently offered his lips.
The kiss was extremely light, yet incomparably solemn.
It was untouched by worldly desire and carried no lust.
It was simply like a believer offering his entire soul and his next life to his god.
Xiao felt that tiny warmth within this cold and deathly silent space.
It was not particularly hot, but it was the only warmth in his life.
He reached out and tightly wrapped an arm around Xia Lanshi’s waist, slightly deepening the kiss.
But the kiss remained extraordinarily restrained, as though he feared breaking the most fragile piece of glass in this mortal world, handling it with utmost care.
That ancient door, which had been silent for who knew how many years—
For the first time.
Extremely faintly.
It lit up with an almost imperceptible trace of cold white light.
Neither of them noticed.
Only the door knew.
It did not answer.
Neither sorrowful nor joyful.
It simply remained silent.
Quietly.
Eternally.
Standing within the cracks between the three thousand great thousand worlds, silently observing this entanglement of mortal affection that neither could break free from nor escape.
When the kiss ended, Xiao released him, still looking somewhat reluctant to part as he gazed at the person who, even after being wounded by his coldness, still refused to give up on him.
That heart, which had already grown cold and was almost extinguished, seemed to have begun beating again within his chest.
Xia Lanshi gazed back at him.
Within those eyes that had originally been as deep as the bottom of an abyss, a faint light seemed to flicker.
He watched him intently.
Xiao slowly spoke, his voice carrying the relief of someone who had seen through life and death:
“Snow and wind upon the River of Forgetfulness conceal the past,
Alone I guard the cold gate, knowing not the spring.”
Upon hearing this, Xia Lanshi did not hesitate in the slightest.
As though resonating with something deep within his soul, he immediately replied:
“If you ask where the returning traveler shall go,
Huaiyu still awaits the one from the snowy night.”
The two of them understood each other perfectly and said nothing more.
They both knew that if they truly failed this time, this poem would become their “secret signal” when they met again in the next “Endless Dark Night.”
Xiao suddenly spoke again.
“However… you’re cautious by nature, so I should tell you more.”
He thought for a moment, then said, “When you were seventeen, you received a writing brush from Grand Tutor Xia. On the way home, you accidentally broke it. Afraid your teacher would be angry, you stayed up all night and found someone to repair it.”
Xia Lanshi: “…”
Even Xiao Yuan did not know about this.
Then he continued.
“And you actually hate drinking ginger soup. But because everyone says ginger soup is good for your health and can warm the body, you drink it anyway.”
“But you always leave one mouthful at the end, because you truly don’t want to drink anymore.”
Xia Lanshi could not help giving a bitter smile upon hearing this, because it was indeed true.
But Xiao’s next words made it harder and harder for him to hold back his tears.
“The little hand warmer beside your bed is usually placed by your right foot.”
“Every time you finish taking medicine, you always drink three mouthfuls of water.”
“When I gave you the peace talisman, I told you: ‘It cannot protect you from all harm for your entire life, but it can remind you that you were not born destined to die.’”
Tears filled Xia Lanshi’s eyes.
These were indeed things that even people who had spent a long time with him might not know.
Especially that final sentence.
He had never told anyone about it.
It was a secret that belonged only to the two of them.
He raised a hand and wiped away his tears, giving a bitter smile.
“All right, I believe you. Stop. You’re going to reveal all my secrets.”
Because the underground palace was intensely cold, Xia Lanshi had inhaled too much cold air and could not help raising his long sleeve to cover his mouth as he coughed softly several times.
Seeing this, Xiao immediately removed the fox-fur cloak Xia Lanshi had just draped over him and gently placed it over Xia Lanshi’s thin shoulders instead.
“Let’s go back first. I’ll escort you.”
“Okay.”
Xiao escorted Xia Lanshi all the way back to the East Courtyard and watched him enter his room.
The door did not close immediately.
Xia Lanshi turned around, his gaze carefully tracing Xiao’s face, as though examining whether he was still harboring any dangerous thoughts.
Xiao understood his concern and could not help giving a soft laugh.
“I’m not going to run away.”
Then he raised an eyebrow slightly, his tone carrying a trace of long-lost liveliness and ambiguity.
“Or… does Lord Chief Steward want me to stay and keep you company?”
Xia Lanshi shot him an annoyed glance.
“A patient should know his own limits. Don’t be shameless all day.”
With that, he closed the door without the slightest mercy.
Xiao stood outside the tightly closed door for a while, a genuine smile appearing in his eyes.
Then he put the smile away, turned around, and raised his head toward the sky.
The bright moon was breaking through the clouds, spilling its pure moonlight over the land of the Northern Frontier and piercing through the long darkness.
“…Has the moment of ending not yet arrived?”
He murmured softly into the night wind.
He still could not let go so easily.
Only…
Before the true ending arrived, perhaps they could give each other a little more time to think.
What, exactly, was the true answer?