When the messenger from Tingxue Pavilion finally placed that heavy wooden box into Xia Lanshi’s hands, Xiao was standing quietly beside him.
His gaze fell upon the distinctive wood grain of the box, and a flicker of profound, inscrutable thought passed through his eyes, dark as a cold pool.
He had seen this box more than a dozen times throughout those long, overlapping years of the past.
There were objects that would invariably appear inside it, as well as details that would change slightly depending on how the situation had developed.
Only the nanmu box itself remained unchanged, like a short nail driven into fate, arriving at the most critical moments.
“Let’s go.” Xia Lanshi’s calm voice pulled him back to reality. “To the study in the main courtyard.”
“Okay.” Xiao came back to himself, and the strange look in his eyes quickly disappeared.
The two walked side by side beneath the covered corridor. The surroundings were utterly silent, save for the wind brushing against the corners of the eaves and raising waves of hollow, mournful howling.
After walking for a while, Xia Lanshi suddenly turned his head toward him, lowering his voice. “Xiao, you actually… knew about this box long ago, didn’t you?”
He had not missed Xiao’s momentary silence just now.
Thinking about it carefully, this was yet another hidden move Xiao had made, subtly guiding their course step by step until they obtained this wooden box.
Xiao’s footsteps paused slightly. Then he casually raised the corner of his eyes and smiled.
“What? Trying to trick me into revealing something? Aren’t you afraid I’ll be punished by the ‘Door’?”
He had only meant it as a half-joking tease.
But when those words reached Xia Lanshi’s ears, his pale-red eyes suddenly tightened, and the warmth in his demeanor instantly turned cold and heavy.
The scene from that time flashed through Xia Lanshi’s mind.
The suffocating helplessness he had felt when Xiao was subjected to the Door’s punishment while lying in a pool of blood made even his fingertips turn cold.
All his life, he had prided himself on leaving nothing unaccounted for in his calculations. But that feeling of being forced to watch helplessly as someone he cared about suffered a forbidden punishment for revealing heavenly secrets, while he could not even lend a hand or shield him from a single calamity…
He absolutely never wanted to experience it a second time.
Sensing the change in the atmosphere beside him, Xiao’s eyes narrowed slightly. He immediately realized that he had misspoken.
He slowed his tone, his voice carrying a rare sincerity and apology.
“Don’t be afraid. I was only joking. I won’t do that again.”
But Xia Lanshi stared fixedly into his eyes.
“I would never try to trick you. Even if some things sound like they are probing for information, if they are things you cannot answer, or things that would cross your boundaries—you are not allowed to answer even a single word.”
The calculation in his expression had disappeared, replaced by undisguised worry.
“…I can’t bear to see you suffer like that. Even less can I bear to see you in pain.”
Such direct, burning concern made Xiao fall silent beneath the corridor for a moment.
A deep tenderness appeared in his eyes. Then the corner of his lips curved upward, and he simply leaned slightly toward Xia Lanshi’s shoulder, whispering half teasingly and half affectionately:
“Lord Changshi is being so caring today… Then may we turn around now and go back to the Eastern Courtyard?”
“No.”
The Xia Lanshi who had been deeply affectionate only a moment ago ruthlessly crushed the suggestion the next instant.
“Business comes first.”
Xiao could not help laughing and could only follow him.
The two continued silently beneath the corridor for a while. As they approached the entrance to the main courtyard, Xiao finally restrained his smile and sighed in a voice barely audible.
“I don’t know whether we’ll ultimately be able to obtain what we want, nor do I know what this thing will bring us.”
There was a trace of helplessness in his voice.
“Where I come from, there’s a saying called the ‘butterfly effect.’ A butterfly flapping its wings can potentially stir up a storm thousands of miles away. In other words, I cannot accurately predict what the entire game will ultimately look like. Any tiny change could trigger an entire chain of reactions.”
Restricted by the Door, he could only play the role of that butterfly, desperately beating his fragile wings in an attempt to preserve everything.
But with countless variables, on this chessboard that was almost a dead end, all he could do was deal with each move as it came.
He looked toward Xia Lanshi, a mysterious smile appearing on his face.
“But there are some things you have the right to know.”
Xia Lanshi did not ask any further.
He knew that when the box was opened, some secrets would reveal themselves.
When they entered the study in the main courtyard, Xiao Yuan was standing before the screen with Su Muchen, speaking to him in a low voice.
When the two lifted the curtain and entered, with Xia Lanshi carrying the ancient, solemn-looking wooden box in his arms, Xiao Yuan stopped speaking.
“What is that box?”
“It was sent from the capital by the most secretive network of Tingxue Pavilion, under the Grand Tutor’s orders.”
Xia Lanshi stepped forward and gently placed the nanmu box in the center of the desk.
Su Muchen curiously came closer and bent down slightly to examine it carefully.
“What a strange design… There’s no keyhole, no clasp, and I can’t even see a crack where the lid could be pried loose.”
“This is a mechanism box specially made by the Xia family, intended for concealing the highest-level confidential items. Inside are extremely fine iron-guiding stones, tinder, and various special powders. If it isn’t unlocked by pressing the designated positions according to the required Five Elements sequence—or if someone tries to force it open with brute strength—the hidden fire inside will ignite in the blink of an eye, burning everything within into ashes.”
Su Muchen was startled. The finger he had halfway extended immediately withdrew without a sound, and he blinked innocently.
“That ruthless?”
“This was a teaching tool Grand Tutor Xia often used in the past to train one’s temperament and sensitivity.”
A faint trace of nostalgia and self-mockery appeared in Xia Lanshi’s eyes.
“When I was eleven, I burned at least four or five boxes like this in the Grand Tutor’s study before I learned how to feel out the hidden mechanisms.”
Xiao Yuan glanced at him, one eyebrow lifting slightly.
“The Grand Tutor even taught you something like this?”
Xia Lanshi smiled faintly.
“The Grand Tutor said that someone from the Xia family would need it someday.”
As he spoke, his slender fingers hovered beside the box, positioned at the four corresponding points: Qian, Kan, Gen, and Zhen.
The force of his fingertips was barely perceptible. He tapped and pressed lightly according to a rhythm of three deep presses and two shallow ones, then pushed his middle finger firmly inward against a concealed relief on one side.
With a tiny, crisp click, the seamless nanmu lid actually split open from the center like the petals of a lotus.
There was no smoke or fire, only the faint fragrance of aged agarwood spreading through the room.
Xia Lanshi took out the objects inside one by one and arranged them across the desk:
Half of a broken jade bi.
A neatly folded note.
An old, yellowed letter.
A spring-green jade hairpin of exceptionally deep color.
An ancient bronze key covered in green patina.
Five objects lay quietly on the desk.
Not one of them looked like a weapon capable of changing the course of the world.
And yet every single one had been sent with such solemn care from the capital—a capital that devoured people—to the Northern Border.
Xiao Yuan swept his gaze over them and reached for the note. The handwriting belonged unmistakably to Grand Tutor Xia.
“‘The root remains; half the jade remains unlost. When spring arrives, the northern wind will rise again.’”
The darkness in Xiao Yuan’s eyes deepened.
“It seems the political winds in the capital are even more perilous than we anticipated.”
“‘The root remains… half the jade remains unlost’?” Xia Lanshi murmured the coded message twice.
His gaze fell upon the broken half of jade beneath it. He picked it up and examined it.
At the edge of the broken jade was half of a neatly formed seal-script character.
“This is the clan jade carried personally by the heads of each Xia branch. Apart from death or the destruction of the clan, they never part with it.”
Xia Lanshi gently rubbed the surface of the jade with his fingertip as he looked at the character.
Only half of the character “Jian” remained on the jade.
“This is… Xia Zhongqian’s jade.”
Xiao Yuan noticed something unusual about the broken edge.
“It wasn’t accidentally dropped and broken. The break is clean, but there are faint marks of impact from external force. The person who possessed it broke it with his own hands.”
Neither of them noticed that the moment Xiao, standing one step away, saw the broken piece of jade, his gaze paused slightly.
He stared at the half-piece of jade, his fingertips tightening imperceptibly for an instant.
That yellowed old letter, that bronze key from the ancestral shrine, that spring-green jade hairpin… all of them had appeared inside this box countless times throughout the cycles of time he had experienced.
Only this half-piece of jade—
was different from what he remembered.
He did not think about it any further. He simply pushed that ripple of emotion back into the depths of his heart and continued quietly observing without revealing anything.
“There is only the right half of the jade,” Xiao Yuan said, looking toward Xia Lanshi.
Xia Lanshi’s mind raced as he analyzed every word.
“If he only wanted to leave behind evidence, he could have hidden a letter or account books. Yet Xia Zhongqian deliberately left behind half of the clan jade. That means… the other half isn’t hidden somewhere. It is on someone.”
“Since he explicitly wrote ‘half the jade remains unlost’… Xia Zhongqian must have sent the most important person who knew the truth away at the very last moment, when Sheng Yuanli’s executioner’s blade was about to fall. Only when the two halves of the jade are reunited can the truth be recovered.”
Su Muchen frowned from the side.
“But Dasheng is vast. Even if we know this person is alive, where are we supposed to search for one needle in such a huge haystack?”
“No. The direction is here.”
Xia Lanshi’s slender index finger pressed firmly against the latter half of the note: “When spring arrives, the northern wind will rise again.”
“Spring does not speak of the north,” he said quietly.
“When spring comes, the eastern wind melts the ice and all things revive. If someone deliberately writes ‘the northern wind will rise again,’ then they aren’t talking about the season.”
Xiao Yuan’s dark eyes brightened as he immediately caught onto the idea.
“The northern wind doesn’t blow in spring. It isn’t referring to the season—it is pointing to a ‘direction’ and a ‘movement’!”
“Exactly.”
Xia Lanshi nodded, a clear light appearing in his eyes.
“From south to north is what ‘rise’ refers to. This sentence is hinting to us that the person carrying the other half of the clan jade is not in the capital, nor in Jiangnan, but has come toward the ‘Northern Border.’”
“He’s come to the Northern Border?” Su Muchen was startled. “The number of residents and refugees around Linbei City keeps increasing. If he doesn’t reveal himself, how are we supposed to find him?”
“Perhaps that person hasn’t arrived yet. Because of the difference in timing.”
Xia Lanshi analyzed calmly.
“This wooden box was sent here through Tingxue Pavilion’s most concealed and fastest channel. It took only seven days and seven nights. An ordinary person couldn’t accomplish that.”
The capital was more than five thousand li from the Northern Border. An ordinary person would need one or two months, or even longer, to make the journey.
“Xia Zhongqian was extremely cautious. He would certainly have ordered this person not to reveal himself and not to leave any conspicuous traces.”
Xia Lanshi raised his head and looked toward Xiao Yuan, his voice carrying the certainty of someone who had grasped the entire situation.
“Your Highness, if Sheng Yuanli is killing witnesses in the capital, then he may likewise have hidden agents and spies in the Northern Border. Since Xia Zhongqian managed to send this person to the Northern Border right under Sheng Yuanli’s nose, he must have used the safest possible method—”
“If I were Xia Zhongqian, I would certainly order this person to change his appearance and identity so Sheng Yuanli’s people could not recognize him. I would only have him blend into the place with the most people and the least conspicuous presence. He would not stay at inns or government-run temples that require travel documents. He couldn’t even stay at an inn.”
Xia Lanshi looked toward Xiao Yuan.
“He wouldn’t be hidden somewhere Sheng Yuanli could search. He would only be mixed into one place.”
Xiao Yuan answered without hesitation.
“Refugees.”
Their eyes met, and the tacit understanding forged through years of living and dying together clicked perfectly into place without a word.
“Exactly.”
Xia Lanshi looked at the surface of the jade in his palm.
“He could be an old man, perhaps even a poor person whose identity has deliberately been ruined; maybe a madman, a mute, or even someone pretending to be a half-dead beggar. Only someone whom even Sheng Yuanli’s spies would consider beneath the effort of kicking could survive the journey across hundreds or thousands of miles of wilderness and reach here alive.”
Xiao Yuan immediately turned his head and coldly ordered the guards outside the tent.
“Go summon Pei Yi and Chi Banyue. Also, send a secret order to Tingxue Pavilion’s Linbei City branch.”
He paused briefly, his gaze sharp as a desert eagle’s.
“From this day onward, everyone traveling from south to north and being dispersed among the various reclamation camps and refugee camps—especially those who are alone and without family, those with disabilities, and those with impaired hearing or speech—must be registered and documented. Do not make a public display of it. Do not use force to capture anyone. Simply send trusted men to examine them one by one under the pretext that the administrative office is conducting compassionate medical rounds and distributing winter provisions and medicine.”
“Your Highness is wise.”
The corner of Xia Lanshi’s lips lifted slightly.
“As long as he reaches this land alive, he will inevitably have a chance to encounter the ‘other half of the jade.’”
Then, when Xiao Yuan reached out to take the old letter, a pale, slender hand moved faster.
Xiao’s fingertips gently pressed down on the thin envelope.
Xiao Yuan raised his eyes to look at him.
In Xiao’s usually calm, cold-pool-like eyes, an extremely complicated light flickered.
He spoke softly.
“This isn’t something concerning the court.”
Xiao Yuan’s brows moved slightly, but he said nothing and silently withdrew his hand.
Su Muchen, watching from the side, was somewhat puzzled.
Then Xia Lanshi reached out, somewhat confused. This time, Xiao did not stop him and quietly withdrew his hand.
Xia Lanshi took out the long-yellowed letter.
When he unfolded it, his eyes habitually went first to the signature at the end.
But the moment he saw it, his fingertips suddenly curled.
That name had lodged like a fishbone in the depths of his memory for so many years.
Back then, he had calculated backward according to his own age, wanting to know only one thing.
He had secretly investigated the two women of suitable age in the Xia family’s branch at that time: one was Xia Zhongqian’s legitimate daughter, Xia Wanlian; the other was his concubine-born daughter, Xia Wanhe.
According to the records, Xia Wanlian had suddenly died of an “acute illness” at only sixteen years old, her entire life dismissed in a few brief words.
Xia Wanhe had married into the Sheng family.
Back then, in the blood-stealing scheme, there had only been one woman in Xia Zhongqian’s branch who could have been his mother.
And now, looking at these words that seemed to weep blood onto the page, it was obvious that she had not died of illness.
This was no family letter.
It was a suicide note.
The ink on the letter had long since dried, yet every line was filled with suppressed despair and tenderness.
———
My dear son,
If this letter has reached your hands, then perhaps Heaven has not yet abandoned us, and there is still someone willing to preserve the final wish of a woman as ill-fated as I.
I do not know what you look like now that you have grown. I did not even have the courage to look at you for long. It was not because I did not love you. If I saw you, I would remember how you came into this suffering world. I am afraid I would not be able to stop my tears, and even more afraid that the tears covering my face would make you mistakenly believe that you were a child no one ever wanted.
My child, your birth was never a sin.
Those who are guilty are the people who turned blood ties and family affection into pieces on a chessboard.
Some traded loyalty for power. Some traded women for wealth and glory. Others sought immortality through blood.
They all spoke constantly of the family, but today I finally understand: if the continuation of a clan requires the sacrifice of its own flesh and blood, then that family has already rotted to its very roots.
I do not know what those people ultimately seek. I only know that they have always been doing things that defy the laws of Heaven, and I was nothing more than a chess piece personally sent into the abyss.
If one day you learn the truth of your birth… remember this: you do not need to avenge me.
All my life, I have been manipulated by others. My only wish is for you to live entirely for yourself.
I never gave you a name, because I did not know whether you could safely grow up in this chaotic world. If someday a kind person is willing to give you a name, even half a name, that will be your blessing. You do not need to remember my surname. If you can simply live well, that will be enough.
Mother ultimately did not have the courage to watch you grow up. This is the thing I owe you most in this life.
If some kindhearted person can take my child away from this sea of suffering, please tell him that his mother did not refuse to live. It was only that living… was simply too painful.
If you are willing, please hold this child for me as well, and tell him that his birth was never his fault.
I cannot accompany you as you grow, but there has never been a single day when I regretted bringing you into this world.
If we can continue our mother-and-son bond in the next life, I only wish for you to be born into an ordinary family.
Fly kites in spring. Play in the water on summer nights. Have clothes to keep you warm in the autumn chill, and someone waiting for you to come home through the winter snow.
You need not be born into the family of an emperor, marquis, or noble lord. And even more than that… you need not remember me.
Mother, Xia Wanlian
Final words
———
The candle flame flickered faintly in the silent study, illuminating the yellowed page in alternating light and shadow.
When Xia Lanshi finished reading the letter, the rims of his eyes grew unbearably hot.
He finally understood why Xiao had pressed down on the letter just now, preventing His Highness from touching it.
This was what Xiao truly wanted him to see.
This was not evidence of political intrigue at all.
It was the final words a mother had left for her own flesh and blood.
All his life, he had believed that his birth was nothing more than a filthy, cold political transaction.
Only today did he learn that there had once been a woman in this world who, at the most desperate and painful moment of her life, had still used every ounce of her strength to love him.
She had not died of illness.
She had been one of the victims whose bones were broken and whose cries were swallowed during that far-reaching blood-stealing scheme.
Xia Lanshi carefully pinched the corner of the letter and folded the paper, thin as a cicada’s wing, along its original creases before placing it back inside the envelope.
Then his gaze fell upon the spring-green jade hairpin on the desk.
He gently picked it up. It was cold against his palm.
A half-bloomed magnolia had been intricately carved into the head of the hairpin. The design was fresh and elegant, clearly possessing the gentle, romantic beauty favored by a young woman in the prime of her youth.
His fingertips brushed over the body of the hairpin. At the bottom, he felt an extremely fine indentation.
Upon closer inspection, he saw two engraved characters:
Wanlian.
He held the hairpin and remained silent for a long time.
Xia Zhongqian had locked this suicide note together with the jade hairpin inside the nanmu box not to expose Sheng Yuanli.
Perhaps this was the last small act of atonement he could make as Xia Wanlian’s father before stepping into hell.
As for whether he had ever truly regretted it, Xia Lanshi did not know.
And he did not care.
Xiao Yuan quietly watched Xia Lanshi’s usually cool and composed face, now struggling desperately to suppress his emotions, and understood everything.
These things were not secret documents concerning the political situation.
They belonged to Xia Lanshi’s stolen and erased life.
Xiao Yuan withdrew his scrutinizing gaze, his voice steady and carrying an unmistakable note of protection.
“This is not evidence for the case. It is yours. Keep it yourself.”
“…Thank you, Your Highness.”
Xia Lanshi lowered his head slightly, suppressing the bitterness rising in his throat.
With utmost solemnity, he tucked the letter and the purple-green jade hairpin into his clothing, placing them close against his heart.
At last, only the ancient bronze key covered in green patina remained on the desk.
Xia Lanshi picked it up and carefully examined the head and teeth of the key.
“This isn’t made according to the main clan branch’s standard. It was privately made by a branch family.”
His fingertip traced the tiny patterns on the handle.
Xiao Yuan studied its unusual teeth.
“Can you tell what it was used for?”
“These teeth are extremely unusual. It doesn’t look like a warehouse, nor does it look like a library.”
Xia Lanshi frowned deeply, rubbing the mottled bronze rust with his fingertips.
“It resembles some old lock that was abandoned long ago and rarely opened. And the specifications of this key date back at least twenty years.”
At this point, Xia Lanshi suddenly stopped.
His gaze rapidly swept over the half-piece of jade on the desk, the suicide note and purple hairpin in his arms. A flash of clarity suddenly illuminated his eyes.
The several objects inside this box…
They were not scattered clues at all.
They were a chain of locks, each link connected to the next.
“The half-jade is meant to help us find the person who was sent away among the vast sea of humanity. The letter and the purple hairpin are meant to verify that person’s identity and prove that my mother was wronged. And this twenty-year-old bronze key…”
His voice lowered.
“It is the threshold to opening the final layer of the truth. Only after gathering everything can we expose Sheng Yuanli.”
And these were the final acts of resistance Xia Zhongqian had launched against Sheng Yuanli while trapped in a desperate situation.
Xiao Yuan’s gaze deepened as he immediately followed Xia Lanshi’s deduction.
“Where did Xia Zhongqian hide the real ironclad evidence?”
“There’s no way to know yet. But… that place must be in the capital. It must be somewhere that Sheng Yuanli could never discover even after searching every branch residence and old manor.”
Xia Lanshi lowered his voice and murmured:
“And it must be somewhere Xia Zhongqian had the ability to hide something, but Sheng Yuanli would never dare to search openly.”
Xiao Yuan’s gaze was deep, the corners of his lips forming a cold, severe line.
“In other words… sooner or later, we still have to return to the capital.”
The night had grown deep.
The half-piece of jade and the ancient key lay silently beside the nanmu box. They appeared lifeless, yet in that stagnant abyss, they had violently dropped a heavy stone into the depths.
And the other end of that thread was still buried deep within the capital, waiting for someone to return and uncover it with their own hands.
◇◆◇◆◇
After Xia Lanshi and Xiao’s footsteps had completely disappeared into the night, the study once again fell silent.
But Su Muchen remained where he was.
The faint light of the half-burned candle illuminated the side of his face, revealing his tightly furrowed brows and the dark currents churning beneath his eyes.
Ever since entering Dasheng, he had vaguely sensed that Xiao was hiding another unspeakable secret.
At first, he had only been surprised by Xiao’s understanding of the political situation in Dasheng.
That knowledge was clearly more than simply possessing lists of officials and their biographies.
He could accurately identify every person’s greed, fear, and next calculation.
Xiao had paid an extremely enormous price to come to Dasheng. In theory, he should not have possessed such a profound understanding of the place.
Su Muchen had initially thought that perhaps Xiao had secretly built an unknown intelligence network with connections reaching everywhere.
But that seemingly reasonable deduction was completely shattered by the nanmu box tonight.
That yellowed old letter had been tightly sealed inside the mechanism box all this time.
Before Xia Lanshi personally unfolded it, there was no reason anyone present should have known what was inside.
And yet Xiao had pressed down on the envelope immediately and confidently said:
“This isn’t something concerning the political situation.”
That meant Xiao clearly knew that it belonged to Xia Lanshi’s past.
Yet what truly sent a chill racing up Su Muchen’s spine was not Xiao’s “foreknowledge.”
It was Xiao Yuan and Xia Lanshi’s reaction.
In that instant, neither of them had questioned Xiao’s actions in the slightest.
That chilling tacit understanding was almost as though… they had already accepted that Xiao knowing all of this was the most “normal” thing in the world.
In the entire room, he was the only one who felt that something was wrong.
“Mu’an?”
Xiao Yuan’s deep voice broke the silence.
Only then did Su Muchen come back to himself, staring at him for a long moment.
“What’s wrong?” Xiao Yuan asked.
Su Muchen suddenly returned to his senses and looked up at Xiao Yuan.
He stared at him for a long while.
The clues that had been frantically intertwining in his mind finally forced him to speak.
“Jingyuan… did you know something all along?”
His voice carried a barely perceptible tension.
“Xiao… it seems he already knew the contents of that letter?”
Xiao Yuan was not surprised by his perceptiveness.
In the past, he too had wondered about it countless nights, until Xia Lanshi proposed that chilling hypothesis.
And now, as events had developed, it was no longer a hypothesis.
It was a bloody fact.
“Mu’an, listen to me.”
Xiao Yuan slowly walked toward him, profound gravity and seriousness in his deep gaze.
“We weren’t deliberately hiding it from you. It’s simply that this matter is too unbelievable. Xiao… the amount of time he has actually lived through is far longer than what we know.”
Xiao Yuan paused, as though every word weighed a thousand pounds.
“This isn’t the first time he has experienced these events. That’s why he knows things we don’t. But because he is bound by the Door’s rules, he cannot speak of them openly. Otherwise… he will suffer the Door’s punishment.”
Those words made Su Muchen feel the blood throughout his body turn cold inch by inch.
So that was the true reason the Door’s punishment had been triggered.
At the time, he had not quite understood it.
He had read plenty of bizarre and fantastical novels in the past.
He used to think such things were absurd, until that Door opened and Xiao Yuan appeared before him.
He knew better than anyone that miracles beyond common sense existed in this world.
He and Xiao Yuan had crossed time and space through the Door and now stood together.
And Xiao…
Could it be that he had been crossing through the dead-end cycles of time again and again?!
“Could it be… because of the influence of that ‘Door’? Or…”
Su Muchen murmured, his face turning slightly pale.
Xiao Yuan shook his head.
“I have never seen anything like this recorded in the Miscellaneous Records of the Door left behind by the generations of Gatekeepers. Why this happened… I’m afraid only he himself knows.”
“No wonder…”
After his brief shock, a sudden sense of enlightenment swept through Su Muchen.
All the inconsistencies came together at this moment, forming a complete picture.
As a physician, he finally understood why someone like Xiao, whose mind was strong to an almost terrifying degree, needed to rely on powerful sleeping medication capable of damaging the nervous system.
He understood why Xiao’s mental state so often seemed to hover on the edge of collapse.
If this was not his first time…
Then that meant that in every previous cycle, Xiao might have fought with everything he had, only to watch helplessly as everything descended into destruction, before being forced to start over with all those painful “experiences” carried with him.
Su Muchen suddenly remembered that when Xiao had suffered a mental breakdown before, he had once whispered weakly:
“I failed again…”
That was not despair over a temporary setback.
It was the profound exhaustion of a soul that had endured countless bloody struggles, personally buried hope countless times, and been ground down completely.
His heart clenched violently, as though a blunt knife had torn it open.
How many times had Xiao… repeated a scene like the one just now?
In all those pasts they knew nothing about, how many times had Xiao swallowed the helplessness of a doomed situation all by himself?
He did not even dare think about it.
He suddenly remembered the first time he had met Xiao at Guichen Studio.
Those calm, emotionless eyes.
At that time… what exactly had Xiao been thinking?
In Xiao’s memories, they had already met countless times.
But he remembered none of it anymore…
Seeing Su Muchen’s brows drawn tightly together, Xiao Yuan let out a soft sigh and reached out to take his cold fingers.
“Since he is unable to speak because he is bound by the ‘Door,’ we can only treat this as an unspoken secret.”
Xiao Yuan spoke quietly.
“From now on, don’t take the initiative to ask him about it either. Otherwise, you might trigger the price he has to pay and end up hurting him instead.”
Su Muchen tightly clasped Xiao Yuan’s hand in return, forcing down the ache in his chest, and solemnly nodded.
“Mm. I know where the line is.”
He had never wanted to uncover some secret.
He simply wanted to understand a little more.
Not only because he was a physician.
But because Xiao was like family to him.
He could never stand by and do nothing.
Nor did he want to watch again as that soul, which had carried countless deaths and despair all by itself, continued to fall deeper and deeper into the abyss alone.