Broken... yet whole.

The room was quiet but for the gentle sound of rain outside, a steady, rhythmic hum that soothed the tension in the air. Inside, the dim light of the lantern flickered softly, casting warm shadows across the walls. Feng Jiao Xue sat beside Mo Tianze's bed, her posture poised but with a subtle, quiet tension as her eyes never once strayed from his form.

For three days, she hadn't left his side.

Not even when the fever had raged, burning him with a relentless fury. She had stayed with him through each wave of heat and tremor, soothing him with damp cloths, coaxing his fever down, and regulating the chaotic qi that threatened to consume him. She'd hardly slept, barely eaten, too focused on him, too worried about his state to care for anything else. He was her responsibility. Her promise.

And though she told herself it was nothing more than that, a duty, each moment spent beside him wore away at the wall she had so carefully built around herself.