Huo Ting Cheng didn't turn, but his silence was a potent admission.
"I am suggesting," Zu Zhi continued, his voice dropping to a more pragmatic tone, "that you take a mild anxiolytic. Not to dull you, but to steady you. To bring the formidable Huo Ting Cheng back online, instead of the terrified man who is currently planning to build a prison out of love."
He gestured subtly to the medical bag he carried. "I have it with me. Let Huo Qi get you some water. You need to be the calm in her storm, not the source of a new one."
The words hung in the air, a stark mirror held up to Huo Ting Cheng's escalating mania. The truth in them was a cold blade, piercing through the heat of his rage.
The fight seemed to drain from his shoulders all at once, leaving behind not calm, but a weary, devastating exhaustion.
