Subtitle: When memory seeps into reason, the crack becomes the shape of light.
The previous night, the imperial decree had been issued—the four occupants of Returning Clouds Manor were to enter the palace at dawn for interrogation.
The manor was temporarily sealed, with external guards rotating shifts. The residual glow of the mirror array still flickered faintly in the night air, refusing to die out.
Shen Yuzhu awoke before dawn. His first task was to strategize.
Morning light had not yet broken. A lone lamp was already lit in the study.
He sat alone before the sand table, using a brush to outline the northern border defenses. The tip of his brush traced through the fine sand, delineating tight formations—precise, calm, flawless, just as he had done a thousand times before.
Until that heartbeat struck his marrow.
It wasn't his own heartbeat. The rhythm was strong, warm, carrying the lingering intensity of the battlefield, brutally overlapping with his own pulse.
The brush tip trembled, causing a corner of the formation diagram to skew.
He closed his eyes, concentrating, trying to block out the intrusive sound: "Interference detected. Within controllable parameters."
But the next moment, an image surfaced in his mind—the slight tremor in Chu Hongying's wrist as she gripped her spear last night, the spear tassel brushing her blood-stained fingertips. That single moment's vision disturbed his focus more than ten thousand soldiers and horses ever could.
The brush stalled once more.
"Her existence is the only unsolvable variable in the equation."
He murmured to himself, lifting his gaze to the bronze mirror in the corner. It reflected his still-calm features, only the cold light in his eyes wavering almost imperceptibly.
Lu Wanning pushed the door open, carrying a bowl of freshly decocted medicinal soup.
He rose to take it. The moment his fingertips touched the warm porcelain—
A vision struck.
He saw Chu Hongying trapped in the blazing inferno of Snow Wolf Valley, a Di tribesman's long spear piercing through her shoulder, blood splattering across the snow, burning like crimson plum blossoms. Deep within the firelight, her eyes overlapped perfectly with those of the little girl from the Lu family fire ten years ago.
"Hongying, don't go in..."
The low cry nearly escaped his lips—
Crash!
The teacup slipped from his fingers, shattered porcelain and medicinal liquid splashing across the desk, staining the scrolls.
Lu Wanning frowned. "Lord Shen?"
He looked down at the mess on the floor, his fingertips in his sleeve digging deeply into an old scar. Blood soaked through the fabric, yet he felt no pain. A strange chill raced up along his meridians to his heart, echoing the unusual medicinal energy that had invaded his body the previous night—the cooling effect meant to calm the spirit had now turned into an icy spike, violently clashing with the resonating heartbeat within him. His fingertips trembled; in his daze, he could no longer distinguish whether the pervasive numbness came from the external medicine or the backlash of his inner demons.
The bronze mirror in the corner reflected it all. In the faint light, fine cracks seemed to crawl silently across its surface.
"Reason is a wall," he whispered, as if to himself, "but it cannot block out her voice."
Outside, Gu Changfeng leaned against a corridor pillar, hearing the sound of shattering porcelain.
Lu Wanning pushed the door open and stepped out, a few drops of medicine staining her sleeve.
"Situation?" he asked quietly.
She shook her head. "Worse than I expected. The spiritual connection is too deep, and the medicinal energy is being forced back into his body—if this continues, I fear they will consume each other's hearts."
Gu Changfeng was silent for a moment, then suddenly laughed—a cold, mirthless sound.
"Rational people, once they feel, go madder than anyone."
Lu Wanning glanced at him, her tone flat. "And you? If it truly came to that, would you go mad?"
He looked up at the distant moonlight, his voice very soft. "I've already been mad once."
With that, he turned and left, leaving her staring at the study door, her expression complex.
Lu Wanning cleaned his wound, her movements efficient, her tone heavy:
"The spiritual entanglement is too deep; your five senses are beginning to cross wires.
If you suppress it further, the mild consequence will be disrupted qi and weary spirit,
the severe—your mind and hers will gradually merge, the boundary between you impossible to distinguish."
As she left, she urged, "Rest for a while. We still have to face the imperial court tomorrow."
He replied in a low voice, "The court is but a mirror. I must steady my heart first."
Shen Yuzhu's expression remained normal as he picked up his brush and recorded: "Resonance phenomenon stable."
The ink spread, bleeding through the paper. On the reverse side, faintly visible, were two hastily scrawled characters—
"Protect Her."
Lu Wanning packed her medicine chest, giving him a deep look before she left:
"Shen Yuzhu, are you protecting her, or are you protecting that unshakeable altar of reason in your heart?"
The door closed softly, the sound like a snapped string.
In the courtyard, Chu Hongying practiced with her spear, cutting through the wind.
A sharp pain suddenly pierced her heart. The blood oath mark burned hot, her vision blurring—
She actually saw: Shen Yuzhu standing alone amidst a floor of shattered porcelain, head bowed, silent, his sleeves stained with blood.
She leaned on her spear, catching her breath, and whispered to herself:
"Your heartbeat... why does it carry the scent of blood?"
This was the first time she actively "saw" his condition.
The resonance had shifted from passive endurance to a two-way flow.
The bronze mirror under the eaves gleamed faintly. In its reflection, their two shadows briefly merged into one in the dawn light.
The afternoon atmosphere in the manor was tense.
Lu Wanning organized her medical tools; Gu Changfeng sharpened his blade outside the hall.
"If tomorrow's interrogation goes wrong, the decree will burn through the entire border army," he said quietly.
"So you're waiting for Shen Yuzhu," Wanning's tone was calm. "Waiting for him to stabilize, waiting for him to become the symbol of reason."
Gu Changfeng snorted. "Reason? If he continues like this, all that will be left is madness."
She closed her medicine box, her expression cool. "Then we will hold steady for him for a while."
They looked at each other in silence. The only sound was the faint noise of pieces being placed on a sand table in the distance.
In the afternoon, he tried to use sand table strategy to suppress his mind, but was pulled again by the increasingly distinct heartbeat.
Memories flooded back—the flames of Snow Wolf Valley reignited.
His younger self knelt in the deep snow, clutching a half-charred map in his arms. Within the towering wall of fire, a young girl's figure was being consumed by the raging flames... It was unmistakably Chu Hongying.
He reached out to save her, but the flames suddenly surged, forming a wall of light that separated life from death.
The light wall trembled, like a beating heart, reflecting his face—calm, pale, cracking right down the middle.
He woke from the nightmare, his inner robe soaked with cold sweat.
The sand table on his desk collapsed silently into dust, as if scorched by fire.
Night fell. He sat alone before the Go board, trying to rebuild his fortress of reason with black and white stones.
The sound of placing pieces was crisp and cold, just like his usual state of mind.
Suddenly, a low caw came from outside the window.
His finger paused mid-air.—It was the Night Crows Division's contact signal.
A memory surfaced: Three years ago, he had personally engraved the first iron rule for the Night Crows Division—
"Emotion is illusion; reason is the blade."
Now, he whispered mockingly to the empty air:
"It turns out the blade can also wound its master."
A black crow feather drifted soundlessly onto the windowsill.
The Night Crows Division had already noticed his anomaly.
Deep in the night, the candle flame flickered.
He extinguished the dying candle and stood alone in the darkness.
Her heartbeat still pulsed in his veins, clear, warm, undeniable.
The cracked mirror opposite reflected his face—clearly still that rational countenance, yet the corners of his lips held a faint, bitter smile.
"He once thought reason was a lamp illuminating the lost path.
Only now did he realize—the shadow under the lamp was his own true self, which he dared not face."
The mirror's light vanished; the crow's shadow flew far away.
Outside the window, mist rose. The wind carried a faint, distinct echo of spear practice, clear and resolute, beating against his long night.
—It was Chu Hongying, still practicing with her spear under the moon.
Footsteps sounded outside the courtyard gate. Gu Changfeng stood clad in armor, watching the study's lamplight.
"Reason will be judged," he murmured, "I only hope the human heart can endure this trial."
Lu Wanning looked back, seeing only the flash of blade light at his fingertips in the morning mist—a warning to himself, and to his comrades.
Dawn broke through the fog, three drumbeats sounded.
The hour of judgment had arrived.
Lu Wanning draped on her outer robe, saying quietly, "It's time to go."
Shen Yuzhu's fingertips were still stained with ink, his gaze calm—
"Reason itself will stand trial."