"Princess… what are you doing here?" Ruhan said, staring at the lady in a bride's robe as she drank casually from his liquor jar. "Shouldn't you be at the feast? Celebrating your wedding?"
Xiao Zhi took another sip. "What's there to celebrate?" she said bitterly.
Ruhan stilled at the comment.
"You don't look happy," he said, watching her as she tilted the jar back again, as if trying to drown the memory of the day, or whatever followed next.
She didn't respond immediately. Instead, she lifted her head to the night sky.
"Have you ever felt," she began slowly, "like you're in a strange world? In someone else's story… one that isn't yours? And you're just… lost. Not knowing what to do, or what's supposed to happen next?"
For a moment, Ruhan didn't answer. Giving up the hope that he could take his drink back.
Then, almost too softly, he laughed under his breath. A short but painful sound.
"Aren't we all?" he murmured.
She glanced at him, uncertain if he truly knew what she meant.
He lowered his eyes to the ground. "Aren't we all just characters in someone else's story. Some of us… even more literally than others."
She frowned, thinking he was being metaphorical, not literal, like what she had truly meant.
But the words, whatever he meant, felt comforting. As if someone else finally breathed the same strange air she did.
Silence settled between them, but it wasn't empty. It was a strange, heavy kind of quiet. Just two people standing side by side, watching the same moon.
Xiao Zhi exhaled slowly, as if letting go of something she had been holding onto for far too long. For just this moment, she wanted everything to stop. The noise, the expectations, the future rushing toward her, whether she was ready or not.
She let the sound of distant music fade. Let the palace walls disappear. She didn't want to think about the parade, the wedding, or whether or not she could leave this place.
She only wanted to stand here, beneath the quiet night sky, beside the one person who made the world feel less frightening, beside the warmth she hadn't realized she'd been clinging to.
For now, that was enough.
Ruhan didn't speak again. But his presence was steady, like a quiet pillar beside her. The kind of presence one didn't notice the importance of until it was gone.
For a fleeting moment, the world felt still.
Until a voice broke the silence.
"Princess Lian Zhi!"
A maid appeared from the far end of the corridor.
She hurried toward her, nearly breaking into a run before dropping into a stiff bow. "Princess, the bridal chamber is prepared. It is time."
The words cut through the air like a blade. Xiao Zhi's heart dropped. She felt the blood leaving her fingertips.
She knew what those words meant.
The maid waited, but Xiao Zhi didn't move. She couldn't. Nor that she wanted to.
"You should go, Princess," Ruhan finally said quietly.
But his voice… it wasn't steady. There was a weight in it, a heaviness she didn't know how to name.
She turned to him. His jaw was clenched too tightly, his eyes shadowed with something she didn't understand. He looked… torn. Almost pained.
She offered a small, bitter smile before following the maid.
***
Ruhan stayed rooted where he stood, watching her walk away, until the sound of her footsteps disappeared.
A moment later, a shadow appeared from the darkness.
Arkan.
He didn't speak immediately. He didn't need to. The tension rolling off Ruhan was enough to choke the air.
"Are you all right, Your Majesty?" Arkan asked at last.
Ruhan didn't answer.
He stared at the empty corridor where Xiao Zhi disappeared. His hands were clenched at his sides, trembling.
Only after a long moment did he whisper,
"How could I be?"
He inhaled sharply, as if trying to hold himself together. But the restraint finally cracked.
"I just sent her to her death," he said, voice breaking like thin glass.
Arkan's expression didn't change.
But his eyes darkened.
***
Inside the bridal chamber, Xiao Zhi sat stiffly on the edge of the bed, her fingers locked together in her lap. The heavy red veil covered her face. Her palms were cold, and her heartbeat thundered inside her chest.
She was alone.
Completely, terrifyingly alone.
She swallowed hard, trying to steady herself.
This wasn't how she ever imagined a wedding night would feel. Not that she ever spent time imagining it. She had never even had a boyfriend before. She'd been buried in work, too busy drowning in deadlines to think about romance. Her fantasies had extended only as far as the domineering CEO novels she read in her spare time.
And now there she was.
Married to a man she barely knew.
A man whom, until recently, she believed was ruthless. A male lead she had once feared and hated while reading the novel. A character whose personality ended up completely different from what she had imagined. But no matter what he turned out to be, he was not real.
A fictional prince.
Except fiction didn't feel fictional when he was a real man walking toward her in real life.
Her hands turned cold inside her sleeves. What was she supposed to expect? What was supposed to happen? Would he be… rough? Would he be gentle? Would he even speak to her?
Then the door swung open, waking her up from her daze. Her breath quickened.
She couldn't see clearly under the veil, but she could see Kabil's unsteady, stumbling steps.
Xiao Zhi flinched. He was drunk.
He stopped in front of her.
This was the moment, she thought. The groom would lift the veil, acknowledge her, and complete the ceremony.
She waited.
Waited for his hand to reach for the silk.
Waited for something normal, something familiar, something like what she had read in romance novels.
But instead,
SLAP.
Her head snapped to the side, pain exploding across her cheek. The veil shifted with the force, slipping halfway off her face.
Xiao Zhi froze.