Perspective: Zhuge Hei Lan
The wind rose from the cliff like a living whisper — cold, steady, brushing against my face and tugging at the loose strands of my hair.
I sat on the edge, legs dangling dangerously over the void, and for the first time in a long while… I didn't know what to do.
The ground beneath me was damp, covered in a thin layer of moss and loose shards of stone.
One more step — one slip — and I would follow him.
I looked down.
Nothing.
Only darkness.
Finding this place hadn't been difficult.
Han's pursuers had led me here themselves — without realizing they were already dead the moment they agreed.
They had tried to resist, of course — they always do.
But after a few… sincere demonstrations, and a little of their own blood spilled among the roots, they finally complied.
I promised them a quick death. And in the end, I kept my word.
But now, staring into the abyss before me, I began to regret being so merciful.
They had all said the same thing — every single one of them:
"He jumped."
Simple as that.
Every voice, the same story.
Zhuge Han had leapt.
My brother — the same calm-eyed, quiet-minded man — had chosen the abyss over the blade.
And no matter how I tried to understand it, I couldn't decide whether that was courage or madness.
I closed my eyes and reached out.
I sent my spiritual sense downward, letting my aura spread like a mantle of frost.
It descended… and stopped.
Something was down there — an invisible barrier, dense as the night itself.
My Qi couldn't pass through.
Neither sound, nor wind, nor sense.
It was like trying to see the bottom of a lake made of mirrors: everything came back to me, distorted, hollow.
I couldn't feel Han's Qi.
Not faint, not distant, not dying.
Nothing.
And sometimes, nothing is worse than the certainty of death.
I let my body lean slightly forward, just enough for the wind to brush my skin and remind me how the world can be cruel and beautiful at the same time.
If I jumped now, maybe I'd find him — or maybe I'd vanish with him.
The fall didn't scare me.
But what held me back wasn't fear.
It was duty.
I still had to return.
To warn Su Yeon.
To tell her of the Yuan He Clan's betrayal — of the patriarch who dared strike imperial blood, of the red fire of blood energy burning beneath a father's despair.
My brother might be dead, but the Empire could not remain blind.
I drew a deep breath, and the cold air cut inside like glass.
The wind hissed between the rocks, as if the abyss itself were calling to me.
And for a moment, I wanted to answer.
But I stayed there, unmoving.
Caught between what I owed and what I desired.
Between order and blood.
Between empire and family.
My hand tightened around the folded fan — the cold metal biting against trembling fingers.
I looked once more into the endless dark below.
The cliff gave me only silence in return.
Then it happened — without warning — as if the abyss itself had decided to breathe and, for a single second, exhale what it had swallowed.
I felt it before I saw it: a brutal heat — not the physical kind that burns skin, but something grander, deeper — a fire that couldn't be explained, only witnessed.
It rose from the darkness like a body rising.
First, smoke — thick and crimson.
Then, a column of fire spiraling upward like a dragon tearing free from the depths.
The light was so intense that the clouds split, as if a blade had carved through the sky.
Birds scattered in chaotic circles; the trees bent, not out of fear, but out of recognition — of something far greater than themselves.
I smiled — involuntarily.
That energy — fierce, raw, incandescent — carried within it a faint trace I knew by heart.
Not clear, not strong, but there.
A fragment inside the blaze — calm, blue, unwavering.
It was his essence.
Han's breath.
Alive. At least, for now.
I couldn't tell if it was curse or miracle.
If the darkness had devoured him only to transform him — or if it had been a gate that, by some impossible mercy, had given him back.
None of it mattered at that moment.
One truth rang louder than anything else:
he wasn't dead.
The wind carried the scent of heated iron — and something else, something that smelled like both promise and danger.
My heartbeat quickened — cold and warm at once.
The edge beneath me groaned, reminding me it was stone, not reason.
I didn't hesitate.
In seconds, the decision was made — sharp and clear as steel: Han lived, and I would run as far as I had to to find him.
The fan snapped shut beneath my grip; the hidden blade latched to my wrist — a reminder of duty.
I turned toward the horizon where the patriarch had fled — toward Zhuge Island — and without looking back at the cliff now spitting fire, I leapt into motion.
I didn't run with blind urgency, but with the precision of someone who has a single purpose: to arrive before life turned into legend.
The trees blurred past me; the scent of resin and blood faded behind; the rhythm of my breath merged with the steady beat of my feet against the earth.
I might not understand the darkness, nor be able to save my brother alone.
But we still had one more brother —
the terrifying one, beyond the sea.