Wu Yiming stood there. Despite the wealth in his teens, now he wore simple, plain, weathered robes of a commoner. Yet, despite the simplicity of his attire, there was no mistaking the quiet authority in his stance, the sharpened edge in his gaze. The careless arrogance of youth had been stripped away and left behind something colder.

"How did you survive all these years, Your Highness?" Zhou Wangshu looked at his reflection in the river and asked the man standing behind him.

Wu Yiming did not answer immediately.

"I died that day," he said, his voice devoid of its former brightness and cheerfulness. "The Wu Yiming you knew drowned in that flood."

"But you are still standi-"

"Are you trying to defend my brother again?"

"That's not what I meant."

Wu Yiming scoffed, folding his arms. "Isn't it?" He stepped closer, his boots sinking slightly into the snow. "You were always so quick to follow him. Always standing at his side, even when he didn't deserve it."

Zhou Wangshu gave him a bitter smile.

'That's not true, when you were alive, I used to follow your every command.'

Taking his silence as an agreement, Wu Yiming continued, "Do you want to know how I survived?" His tone was light, almost mocking. "By sheer accident. A pedestal found me floating in debris. A group of rebels then found me half-dead on the bank of the river."

"They saved me. Strange right? I survived because someone else saved me when my own blood tried to kill me."

Zhou Wangshu didn't answer immediately. His gaze flickered over Wu Yiming,

And then, quietly, he asked, "Where have you been all this time?"

At that, something in Wu Yiming's expression shifted. He tilted his head slightly, as if considering whether to tell him the truth or keep his silence.

But then he smirked. "The rebels."

Zhou Wangshu's breath hitched. His fingers twitched, almost reaching for the sword at his waist before he caught himself. "You—"

"Yes." Wu Yiming's voice was calm. Steady. "For three years, I've been with them. Living among them. Fighting for them."

"You betrayed the empire!" Zhou Wangshu finally turned, his gaze locking onto Wu Yiming. The man before him was not the boy he once followed without question. There was steel in his stance, fire in his eyes.

Wu Yiming laughed, and for a moment, it almost sounded like the boy he used to be. "You say that as if it wasn't the empire that betrayed me first."

Zhou Wangshu took a step forward, and Wu Yiming didn't move back. They were close now, close enough that the winter wind could not slip between them.

"Wang ge, what else was I supposed to do, huh? Crawl back to a palace that had already erased me. Go back to the brother who threw me into the river despite our years of bond?!"

"No, Wangshu. I learned something in those three years—power belongs to those who take it. And I intend to take mine back."

He said as stood straight but the rims of his eyes turned red.

Zhou Wangshu opened his mouth to answer, but no words came.

Wu Yiming watched him, searching his face, then exhaled a quiet, humorless laugh.

"Are you still wanting to stand by his side, Wang ge? Despite knowing he might no— he was the one who burned your grandmother's palace and framed me?!"

"Then tell me, Duke of Canghe—do you even know how your father really died?"

Zhou Wangshu's heart shrank, his pulse a hammering echo in his ears.

He took a step back.

Something in him screamed—stop this.

He had to stop Wu Yiming. Stop him before he said something—before he confirmed something that Zhou Wangshu could never take back.

But Wu Yiming saw it. The hesitation and the fear. His gaze softened, but it did not waver.

"You don't want to hear it, do you?" Wu Yiming murmured, almost pitying. "Because once I say it, you won't be able to pretend anymore."

"Enough," Zhou Wangshu's voice was hoarse. "I don't want to—"

"But you have to."

"Your father the General didn't die by the hands of enemies, he was assassinated, poisoned even before the battle began."

"No," Zhou Wangshu's voice trembled as he weakly tried to stop Wu Yiming.

"You're lying." His voice was barely above a whisper.

Wu Yiming's gaze didn't waver. "Am I?"

Zhou Wangshu's breath hitched as Wu Yiming pulled the letters from his sleeve, the parchment slightly crumpled but unmistakably intact. The seal was broken, but the markings—Zhou Wangshu recognized them instantly.

His fingers twitched, but he did not reach for them.

"They are written in a secret language that only a few within the palace know. Fortunately, my brother taught us this when we were children."

A mirthless smirk tugged at his lips. "He must have never expected that one day it would be used against him."

Silence stretched between them, heavy with the weight of what could not be undone.

"...And the one behind the assassination was my brother and my father, Wang ge. These letters were in my brother's study. I found them right before they drowned me."

Zhou Wangshu's breath trembled.

"You can read them." He stepped forward, holding the letters out between them. "See for yourself. The orders to eliminate your father were given before he even left for battle. They never intended for him to return."

Zhou Wangshu's breath trembled.

"Now," Wu Yiming stepped closer, his voice low but piercing to Zhou Wangshu, "say it. Which side will you stand on?"

Zhou Wangshu stretched out his hand and slowly, he pulled the letters from Wu Yiming's grasp.

Maybe he had always known.

Maybe he had always been suspicious of the emperor.

But Wu Yingyue??

Zhou Wangshu's grip tightened, his nails pressing into the parchment as a storm of emotions surged through him. Rage. Hatred. Betrayal. It crashed over him in waves, relentless and suffocating.

His breath grew ragged, his vision edged with red.

If any of this was true—

If even a single word in these letters was real—

He would kill him.

He would kill Wu Yingyue with his own hands.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The night was deep, the cold settling in like an unseen mist. A single lantern flickered in the quiet chamber, its dim glow casting long shadows against the walls.

Wu Yingyue sat before a large canvas, his brush moving in slow, deliberate strokes. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing the pale skin of his wrist,

now marred with a fresh, shallow cut.

Droplets of blood spattered onto the wooden floor.

He dipped the brush back into the pool of red mingling with ink and dragged it across the canvas, stroke by stroke, he painted contours of Zhou Wangshu's face once more.

Wu Yingyue sat motionless, his brush hovering over the canvas. The image of Zhou Wangshu stared back at him, not yet complete, yet already haunting in its likeness. His hand trembled, a single drop of blood rolled from his wrist, landing onto the canvas. The red bloomed like a wound over Zhou Wangshu's painted throat.

A laugh, quiet and breathless, escaped his lips.

The candlelight flickered, revealing the countless portraits lining the walls.

Old. Faded. Some frayed at the edges, as if handled too many times. Some barely preserved, their ink beginning to bleed into the silk. But each one bore the same face—

Zhou Wangshu.

A boy standing beneath plum blossoms. A young man, gaze sharp with ambition, robes flowing like a prince of the heavens.

Zhou Wangshu at ten, at fifteen, at eighteen.

They had been here for years. Preserved, untouched, yet ever-present.

The candlelight wavered. Shadows stretched long against the walls.

And for a moment, it seemed as though the countless painted eyes were watching him.