Chapter LVII: I’m so proud of you

She didn't want to move.

No, she refused to move.

But her body was already betraying her.

The first step came quietly, almost gently. The heel of her foot lifted from the ground with a softness that mocked her desperation. It made no sound, as if even the earth beneath her had accepted her fate. Her toes pressed forward, graceful and light, as though she were dancing—though the only rhythm she heard was the thunder of her own heart, pounding in horror.

Then the next step came.

And the next.

And she realized she wasn't in control.

Not of her body. Not even of her breath.

Inside, she was screaming. She told herself to stop, to fall, to collapse. Bite your tongue. Dig your nails into your skin. Drop to your knees and sob. Anything to resist the pull—but her limbs betrayed her with the elegance of a doll in a practiced performance.

Anyone watching would think she was calm. Anyone watching would think she approached him willingly, lovingly.

But she was drowning.

She didn't even know when her hands had begun to tremble—or if they did at all. She only knew that her body was moving, fluid and slow, step by step toward him.

Towards Yanwei.

And he didn't even look at her.

He stood with that same expression—serene, quiet, almost kind. His posture relaxed, the lines of his figure undisturbed by tension. He looked like a young master at peace. Like a scholar resting beneath the moonlight. Like a man unaware that his very presence had become a tide that washed away reason.

But he knew.

Of course he did.

The air was frozen. The world had gone silent. The others—the outsiders—they stood still like statues, not by choice, but because they couldn't move. Their eyes were locked on him. Some were wide with horror. Others vacant with surrender. None of them understood what they were seeing. They couldn't.

But Yun did.

She knew the warmth that radiated from him wasn't human. She knew that behind the softness of his smile, behind the beauty of his eyes, there was something that was no longer bound by kindness or cruelty. Something that simply was.

And she couldn't stop walking toward it.

Even her breath obeyed him now. Calm. Measured. Obedient. Her panic was caged inside a body that refused to tremble. Her soul scratched at the walls of her flesh, desperate to get out. But all she could do was walk.

Walk toward him.

She wanted to sob. To scream. To spit in his face.

But deeper, buried beneath the terror, was something far more dangerous.

She wanted him to see her.

And that was when she knew: she wasn't just being pulled.

She was falling.

By the time her feet stopped in front of him, she was weightless. Hollow.

Her head bowed, her spine straightened, and her voice rose without her permission.

"I'm here, Master," she said, soft as prayer, gentle as surrender.

She didn't know why she said it.

The words had left her lips before she could stop them. "I'm here, Master."

Not just obedience. Not just surrender. It was almost… tender.

Then—he moved.

No one else could. Not the outsiders, still frozen in place. Not the wind, which had fallen silent. Not even her own breath, which stalled in her throat when he stepped toward her. But he could move. Like a god in a world of statues.

He raised his arms.

For a moment, she thought he might hurt her. That he would press his fingers into her throat, or cup her face with that haunting gentleness only to twist it into something monstrous.

But instead…

He hugged her.

It was slow, almost delicate. One arm wrapped around her waist. The other rested between her shoulder blades. She felt the warmth of his body like it was fire, like it might scorch her, even as it held her so softly she might've mistaken it for love.

The silence in the air cracked.

Not with sound, but with feeling—confusion, dissonance, horror.

This wasn't supposed to be happening. Not in front of the others. Not after what he had done.

She was supposed to be afraid.

And yet—

Her body leaned into the embrace.

A part of her—perhaps the most broken part—ached for it.

His head dipped close to hers, and she could feel his breath against her ear. Not a whisper, not a command—just the simple presence of a being too calm, too powerful, too inhuman.

"I'm proud of you," he murmured.

She shivered. She hated that she did. Hated that her eyes burned with something like relief. Hated that her knees felt weak not from terror—but from something close to gratitude.

He was the one who broke her.

And now he was holding the pieces.

…

They watched.

No one moved. No one dared to blink.

The world had gone silent—not dead, but stilled, like a lamb holding its breath as the knife hovered above its neck.

And in the middle of that stillness… he embraced her.

Yanwei.

That boy—the beautiful, smiling boy—held the girl in his arms with the gentleness of a saint and the grace of a poet. A touch so soft it could've belonged to a lover. A whisper so kind it could've belonged to a god.

It made their skin crawl.

Because they had seen it.

They saw the way her legs trembled when she tried to walk away from him. The way her lips quivered as she said she was "here." They had seen the shattering—how her pride, her fear, her self had been dismantled piece by piece. Not with violence, not with rage.

But with a smile.

And now—now he held her like a savior, like a messiah who had rescued a lamb from the slaughter.

One of them—the burly man—felt bile rise up his throat.

Another—the woman—clutched her chest as if her heart had been caught in a vice. "That's not mercy," she whispered, barely a breath. "That's not comfort. That's not… human."

The skinny man beside her was shaking. "She's not hugging him back," he rasped. "Her body is just—just giving in. Like a corpse twitching when struck by lightning."

It wasn't kindness.

It was horror dressed in white silk. It was a wolf pressing its muzzle to the lamb's cheek, whispering "you're safe now" with blood still staining its teeth.

And worst of all?

The girl clung to him like he was her safety.

That's what made it unbearable. Not the way he broke her. But the way she thanked him for it. The way she trembled in his arms, not from fear—but from the need to be held.

He had shattered her.

Then became the only one who could put her back together.

A demon… wearing the skin of a god.

They could not look away.

They wished they could.