After Ren Lin’s encouragement, the prince looked away, reflecting on himself.

  His gaze then traveled back to her.

  “Your poem… I have never read something like that. It wasn’t deliberate or thoughtful. It was just guilt splattered on a page.”

  “Should I take it as an insult?” She said playfully.

  “Didn’t you see how I bawled my eyes out after reading it?” A chuckle came from him.

  Her lips formed a grin. “Next time I will hand you a tissue before letting you see my poems.”

  Knock.

  The sound cut through the moment, like a stick hitting the floor.

  They both turned.

  Lai Tan stood at the doorway with his ever-bored expression. “Should I leave you two to your bantering?”

  “Maybe,” Ren Lin replied, arching a brow.

  However, Feiyun Xing put on a calm face and pushed the blanket off.

  “Anyway,” Lai Tan continued, limping further in. “I thought I’d give you two your privacy before delivering the unpleasant news. We’ve recovered your sister’s corpse.”

  The prince inhaled through his nose, slow and deep. A pause followed. Then, a soft sigh.

  “Thank you,” he said, quietly. Next, turning to Ren Lin with an earnest gaze. “And… thank you as well. For letting me sleep here.”

  “You don’t need to thank me; it was my pleasure to help.”

  Standing now, slow and stiff, the exhaustion still clung to his limbs. “Still,” the prince said, “I must have caused trouble. Is there a way I can make up for it?”

  Ren Lin tilted her head, thoughtful. Her eyes didn’t leave his face. “Hmm,” she murmured, as if truly pondering it. “Yes. You can visit me sometime. When you feel like yourself again.” Her voice danced lightly on the words, teasing, but beneath it, there was something else—something that lingered.

  Feiyun Xing gave a small, tired smile, unsure whether it was her charm or his own unraveling that moved him to return it. “I’ll… consider it.”

  “Do.” She almost purred.

  From the doorway, Lai Tan raised an eyebrow. “Shall I expect a wedding invitation?”

  Ren Lin laughed, gazing at the blade of Feiyun Xing.

  Feiyun Xing reached for his sword, buckling it again at his side. “Let us go,” he said to Lai Tan, but his voice had changed—less formal, less guarded.

  Pausing at the door, he glanced back once. Ren Lin stood there still, watching. And he, for a second, seemed anchored again by her presence.

  Outside, the afternoon light, and the weight of his sister’s death still waited for him—but for now, just for a moment, it felt… manageable.

  The ride back to the palace was wordless.

  Horses moved beneath them, the steady rhythm of hooves on stone an odd kind of lullaby, though neither man was soothed by it. The city passed by them in a blur of brick and wood. Vendors still called out wares. Children still darted through streets. Somewhere, a butcher cursed at a spilled basket of organs. Life carried on with its usual, uncaring cruelty.

  Feiyun Xing’s face was pale beneath the sun, shadowed beneath the weight of sorrow not yet buried. His fingers tightened on the reins when the palace gates came into view—he lost the last feeling of home.

  Inside the courtyard, servants waited in uneasy rows, their faces full of empathy—not for the princess, but for him. Yet it wasn’t sincerity that filled their eyes; calculation did. The world of the court was a place where sorrow was a currency, traded and wagered by those who are desperate for privilege.

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  And there—beneath a dark cloth canopy—lay the body of Feiyun Qingru.

  A stillness clung to her in death that she had never possessed in life. Feiyun Xing dismounted and walked the final steps alone, each pace feeling like a thousand.

  She was dressed in white. Her hair was combed, the blood scrubbed away. But none of it could hide the emptiness in her face. It wasn’t the absence of life that struck him most—it was the absence of her. That spark, that hunger for mischief and reckless joy that made her sometimes unbearable, but that was the fun of it, wasn’t it? She only showed her true side to him.

  “Seems like… that final goodnight wasn’t a joke.” Whispering, Feiyun Xing knelt beside her.

  His hand hovered over hers without touching it. He’d promised he would protect her. The ache lodged in his throat, beyond words. All he could do now was arrange a fitting funeral.

  At this sight, how could his heart not break?

  But this breaking was what Ren Lin needed and used. To rebuild a thing, one needs to destroy it first. She was just starting with her plan.

  Even after days passed, the scent of wet earth clung to him—petrichor and mud thick in his nostrils, like a ghost only he could smell. It wasn’t just soaked dirt. It was his dead sister.

  Stalked by memory, burdened by what he couldn’t prevent. Even after the funeral, the final rites, the last glimpse of his sister, that smell stayed with him.

  The funeral was meant to bring closure. Instead, it felt like a performance. His parents' faces—selfish, indifferent—betrayed nothing. Their daughter had died, and still they sat as though at a dull banquet. Feiyun Xing watched them and felt something curdle inside him. Disgust.

  To the outer world they spread news that she died during a mission. Fighting a Third Order while only being First Order herself. Scared of her failing they sent Feiyun Xing, but it was too late.

  He thought laying Feiyun Qingru to rest might silence the rage. Instead, it festered—louder, sharper, and more alive than ever.

  Visiting his sister’s room daily, each question chased the next, restless as flies on rot. For days, they chipped at him:

  “Why am I the only one hurting?”

  “How could they sleep without guilt?”

  “Maybe this is what I get—for caring too much.”

  Each night, the stench lifted. Slowly. From wetness to smoke. From earth to dry wood. What exactly was this smell?

  Only one name came to mind: “Ren Lin”.

  Hair long, flowing around her shoulders like water—smooth waves that shimmered, a deep brown sea bathing in sunlight. In a kingdom of night-dark hair, hers was a rebellion.

  Her eyes were the thing he remembered most. Green—not soft or innocent, but sharp, watchful. Eyes that didn’t merely look at him, but through him.

  And yet, that night, he had not turned away. Letting her see him broken, grieving; soft in the places he’d tried to harden.

  In the days since, distress remained—but now it was braided with something else. Something quieter.

  Longing? Comfort?

  He couldn’t name it.

  How could a mortal sway a prince? But then again—who cared about her background? Feiyun Xing knew her brilliance. Anyone who could write such piercing, beautiful poems held a mind worth listening to. Perhaps she even held the very wisdom he lacked for overcoming loss.

  One thing was clear: he couldn’t stay in his sister’s room forever. The air was stale with memories. His chest felt crushed by the reminders.

  A quiet burn ignited. Not anger. Not sorrow.

  Without a word to his parents—why would he?—he mounted a horse and let the roads take him.

  The cold wind lashed at him like whips, as if it were Qingru scolding him for clinging to the past—turning her memory into a prison.

  The path to Ren Lin’s home was a blurred memory, yet his steps never faltered. When he stopped to ask for directions, he was surprised by how many recognized her name.

  Not just recognition—admiration. She had customers. Influence.

  It made sense, he supposed. Someone like her shouldn’t stay hidden.

  Closer and closer, the familiar, crooked little house slid into view. He dismounted, tied the reins loosely to a fence post, and walked up the narrow path. The door, slightly weather-worn, stood as it had in his memory.

  A gentle knock—once, then again.

  Silence met him.

  Ah—of course. How had he forgotten? Several villagers had mentioned she sold her poems at this hour, out beneath the market canopy.

  He'd hoped, foolishly, that she might be here anyway. That she'd be waiting, as if his sudden need would somehow summon her.

  But she wasn’t.

  Standing there a moment longer, his hand still hovered in the air. Slowly, it dropped to his side.

  Was it arrogant to assume she had been waiting—right here, right now?

  Feiyun Xing thought so.

  Usually, it was others who were waiting for him. He was the prince, after all. Even when he hired others or summoned them, they would make sure to come as fast as possible.

  But now… now he was the one waiting. Not out of command or entitlement, only because he wanted to see someone.

  So, the prince sat down on the worn step outside her door. Leaning back, he exhaled.

  His eyes drifted shut as he took a deep breath in.

  The air was thick with earth—wet soil, smoke from hearth fires, the faint stench of animals and iron. Yet beneath it all, something stirred in him. It wasn’t filth he smelled; it was life—honest, unperfumed, unhidden.

  There was no incense here, no crushed petals or rare spices masking the truth. Only the warmth of bread rising in clay ovens, the musk of wool and woodsmoke, the green bite of wild herbs growing where no one had planted them.

  It was humbler than anything he had known—and somehow richer. A world not curated, but lived in. And in that breath, thick with dirt, labor, and rain, he felt a strange kind of grace. Like exhaling for the first time in years.

  “I was hoping you would come,” a soft voice spoke.

  His gaze traveled up—there she was. Loose, sun-warmed brown hair spilling over her shoulders, and those sharp green eyes. Ren Lin stood before him, more luminous than memory had allowed.