Meanwhile.
Feng Yizhou stood in his assigned room, unbuttoning his jacket with methodical, controlled movements. The space was clean and surprisingly warm, outfitted with thick blackout curtains and military-grade insulation. But he didn't notice any of it.
He was staring at the image burned into his mind: Wenxiu, smiling sadly as she said Good night, Brother Feng.
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Shouldn't have said all that," he muttered.
But he had meant it.
Someone was waiting for him. He wasn't lying. Her name was Qingran. And even now, even separated by a dozen zones of chaos and blood, his compass pointed only to her.
He sat on the bed, elbows on knees, rubbing at the back of his neck.
But Wenxiu… she hadn't deserved that look in her eyes.
Wenxiu sat in her chamber, watching the candle flicker low. The bitter taste of rejection lingered, but the suffocating heat that used to accompany it, the obsessive want, the shameful hunger, that part was gone.
