“Ning Xuan, what are you doing? Step aside at once.”
Feng Xuanzhen barked the reprimand, unable to conceal his anxiety. Ning Xuan, however, acted as though he had heard nothing. His gaze never left Feng Xuanyi for even an instant as he repeated with the same expressionless determination, “I ask Your Highness to honor your promise.”
“Has the performance become impossible to continue, or is that the only line you have left? Or perhaps you need me to say something and play along?” Feng Xuanzhe’s lips curved upward as he chuckled. Yet his expression was entirely serious, and every word sent Ning Xuan’s heart plummeting into an abyss.
Ning Xuan turned back in disbelief, feeling as though he had fallen into an ice cellar in an instant. Not even the winter snow, nor his public defiance of Feng Xuanyi moments earlier, had shaken and frightened him as much as this. He did not wish to understand the undisguised contempt and amusement in Feng Xuanzhe’s eyes.
Ignoring Ning Xuan’s astonishment and the pain in his gaze, Feng Xuanzhe stood straight-backed amid the snow, showing neither humiliation nor weakness. “Fifth Brother, your scheme was masterful. I suspected you before, but the thought always passed in an instant. I assumed that even if you were plotting something, you would not act so soon. In the end, I underestimated you. I cannot call this defeat undeserved.”
“Eldest Brother is mistaken. It is not that I acted earlier than you anticipated. I had already begun before you ever thought to anticipate me.” Feng Xuanyi spoke calmly, without the slightest contempt or arrogance, as though he were merely stating a simple fact. Yet those few words revealed an unbridgeable gulf between the two men. “That includes all the officials you believed were supporting you and upon whom you placed such reliance. You thought they watched your every word and action before deciding how to proceed, never realizing that the person they were actually observing was me.”
“Was he also a chess piece you planted beside me?” Feng Xuanzhe’s eyes swept across Ning Xuan, cold and indifferent.
“I never expected him to be of much use. However, the fifty thousand troops outside the city were a gift from Eldest Brother. This younger brother thanks you.”
“You’re welcome.” Feng Xuanzhe showed neither anger nor agitation, neither pride nor impatience. It was as though Feng Xuanyi’s act of pulling the firewood from beneath the cauldron and stabbing him in the back had never entered his eyes, even though that single move had stripped him of every possibility of resisting or recovering and carried the unmistakable intention of eradicating him entirely.
As they spoke, Ning Xuan remained completely bewildered. Everything he had believed he was protecting and holding tightly had vanished like smoke in an instant. For a moment, he could no longer understand what anything he had just done had been for, nor what the two men were now discussing. Why could he not understand? Why did he not dare understand?
“You once said that if you were forced to choose between the throne and me, you would abandon the throne and withdraw into the mountains with me.” Ning Xuan tried his utmost to remain calm and keep himself from appearing too lowly or afraid. Yet why did his voice still carry an almost imperceptible tremor? Was it because the weather was too cold, or because the wind and snow were powerful enough to distort every word as it left his lips?
“You were merely someone else’s chess piece whom I happened to make use of along the way. Naturally, I still had to maintain appearances.”
Something pressed increasingly heavily upon Ning Xuan’s chest and sank little by little. Yet, unexpectedly, it only made him calmer. “So it was all false.”
“What exactly did you believe was real?”
That one sentence erased everything that had passed between them. The decision Ning Xuan had once made, the balance within his heart that had settled completely because of a single answer from Feng Xuanzhe, and every future he had imagined and painted for them—clear mountains and rivers, drifting clouds and wild cranes, a life that was not the most exalted in the world but was surely the most enviable—all of it collapsed and turned to ashes in an instant.
You both said similar things, yet I chose to believe you and ignored him because I thought you understood me. He said he could grant me whatever I desired, but what he promised was power and status. What you offered me was genuine feeling and respect.
“If you mean that promise, I originally thought it might at least make you hesitate and buy me more time to deploy my forces. I do not know whether I should praise your loyalty or the depth of your feelings. As expected, my defeat was not unjust. There were so many obvious flaws.” Feng Xuanzhe spoke indifferently, as though he were an uninvolved observer calmly reviewing everything that had happened, summarizing it in passing, and offering a few reflections now that all merit, fault, right, and wrong had become matters of the past.
Again and again, I walked into the same trap. The medicine was unchanged even if the soup was different; only the excuse varied. Yet I fell for it every single time. You truly are brothers—equally calculating and farsighted. I recognized the complexity and manipulation Feng Xuanyi carried as a member of the imperial family, yet I turned a blind eye to the political schemes burdening you, another man born into that same imperial family—schemes that surpassed even his. In the end, I truly no longer know whom I should blame…
“You never trusted me.”
“Neither did you.”
That was true. When Ning Xuan first entered Prince Yi’s Residence, he had guarded against everything and kept himself detached. Though he lived within the mortal world, he had remained aloof from it, refusing to ask about or involve himself in anything. He isolated himself and trusted neither people nor events. Judging others by himself, and unwilling to impose upon others what he himself did not desire—if he trusted no one, how could he demand another’s trust? Besides, to imperial relatives and nobles trapped deep within the abyss of power and desire, the word “trust” was an extravagant and precious luxury. How many emperors lived their entire lives without ever encountering it? A minister heavily relied upon and granted supreme honor and wealth in one moment could be charged with some dispensable crime and swiftly executed in the next, all for the sake of so-called imperial authority, so-called prestige, and that vague, intangible thing called a “hidden threat.”
But what if I later came to trust you? What if, when I asked Feng Xuanyi for freedom, you were the only person I imagined beside me? Would anything have changed? Would you have been willing to give it all up? Would you have…
Too many words lodged in Ning Xuan’s throat, yet he could not speak even one. Helplessness and desolation—he could find no words capable of describing what he felt. The man he had decided to love, the man for whom he had resolved to abandon everything and spend the rest of his life beside, had told him without hesitation that Ning Xuan was merely a chess piece and that he believed he had already performed his role convincingly enough…
There was none of the agony or struggle Ning Xuan had imagined, none of the disbelief or hatred. Even Ning Xuan himself was startled by how calm he felt. Had he never loved Feng Xuanzhe deeply enough? Had the man never occupied any particularly important place in his heart? Was that why Ning Xuan remained unmoved, why it seemed not to matter whether Feng Xuanzhe stayed or disappeared?
Then why had such a vast part of his chest suddenly gone numb—neither cold nor warm, neither painful nor comfortable…?
“Escort my two imperial brothers away.” Feng Xuanyi abruptly spoke, breaking the strange silence lingering between Ning Xuan and Feng Xuanzhe.
Yet something in those words plucked the string within Ning Xuan that had already been stretched to its limit. He kicked the sword hanging beside the saddle. The impact struck the lower end of the scabbard, jolting it violently and sending the blade flying free. Ning Xuan raised his right hand, caught the hilt as it arced steadily into his palm, and turned his wrist. The gleaming edge swept back and pressed through the fur trim against his pale throat. The entire movement flowed seamlessly, as effortless as pouring tea or water, yet in the blink of an eye it drained the color from Feng Xuanyi’s face.
Feng Xuanzhen reacted swiftly, raising one hand to signal the advancing soldiers to stop.
“What do you think you’re doing? Put down the sword!” His expression and voice were both as severe as could be.
“I said to let him leave.” Ning Xuan showed neither arrogance nor agitation, neither servility nor defiance. His face was as still as water, calm and indifferent, as though the object in his hand were not a sword but the romance of wind, flowers, snow, and moonlight—or merely a cup of clear wine.
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