For Feng Xuanyi, seeing him once from afar was already enough. It was painful to leave, nowhere near enough, and there were still countless things he wanted to say. But there would be time in the future. Without lingering any longer, he turned cleanly and decisively, leaving the city with the Shadow Guards who had concealed themselves among the common people from the moment they arrived. Confidence that victory was already within his grasp showed on his face, while the curve of his lips revealed a plan he believed fully under control.
For the sovereign of an entire nation to become a bandit and even take pleasure in it was probably something only Feng Xuanyi could accomplish beneath heaven. Day after day he waited and looked forward to the moment Nalan Xuan would finally appear. Yet when Nalan Xuan truly stood before him, the utterly unmoved gaze in those eyes, still as dead water, frightened Feng Xuanyi more than anything else.
That gaze was icy. Every word, movement, and gesture displayed undisguised disdain and indifference, as though Feng Xuanyi were nothing more than a joke in Nalan Xuan’s eyes. Feng Xuanyi had countless words he wanted to say and innumerable tangled matters between them that needed to be unraveled. Yet when the reunion he had awaited for so long finally arrived, he suddenly discovered just how ignorant and ridiculous he had been.
If every missed opportunity could simply be recovered, then no one would ever learn to treasure what stood before them. By the time Feng Xuanyi finally looked back with regret and realized that Nalan Xuan had been precious to him, that he truly cared, it had already become useless. The price of his awakening had been Nalan Xuan’s absolute resolve at the palace wall.
Even that night, when Nalan Xuan had questioned him in anguish atop the wall, asked whether Feng Xuanyi had ever truly trusted him, received no answer, and finally chosen to leave at the price of his own life, his gaze had not been as cold as it was now. Flames clearly blazed inside his eyes, yet somehow they only made the chill more piercing. This was not the indifference of someone pretending not to care or pretending not to know him. Indifference was merely escape, closing oneself off and separating oneself from the world. Nalan Xuan’s choice, however, was exactly like the man himself: he faced difficulty head-on, defied fate, remained hard and decisive. He would not pretend not to care or act as though they were strangers. He displayed his hatred openly—rage so intense it seemed he wanted to tear Feng Xuanyi apart and swallow him whole, a flame that burned ice-cold.
Under that gaze of resistance and hatred, Feng Xuanyi found himself utterly at a loss. Before Nalan Xuan, he seemed to become an ignorant child, a child who had done something wrong and wanted to make amends but did not know how. He could accept every accusation and every trace of resentment without resisting, because they were true. Perhaps he had possessed his own position at the time, unavoidable reasons for the choices he made, and countless grand explanations about the situation surrounding him, but now he simply remained silent. No one had ever taught him how to express himself, how to love, or how to communicate—least of all how to make the person he loved understand the things he had been forced to do, the words he had never meant, and the helplessness behind them.
He remained silent for a long time. And when he finally found an opportunity to humble himself and quietly ask Nalan Xuan for another chance, Feng Xuanyi suddenly realized that even though he had finally understood his own feelings, the moment those words left his mouth they sounded unbearably pale. Forget Nalan Xuan—even Feng Xuanyi himself thought they sounded like a joke, and not even a joke amusing enough to make a passing stranger stop and laugh.
He wanted Nalan Xuan to believe him and wanted desperately to make him understand, yet the final words spoken atop the palace wall remained in his mind like a curse that refused to fade.
That night Nalan Xuan had asked whether Feng Xuanyi had ever trusted him, and Feng Xuanyi had not answered. As an emperor, there were times when he could not even trust himself, so how could he have trusted another person—especially Nalan Xuan, whom he had known from the very beginning had approached him for some hidden purpose?
He had never imagined that the tables would turn so quickly. Now Feng Xuanyi himself finally experienced the despair and death of the heart that came from desperately seeking someone’s faith only to discover that what he had hoped for was nothing but self-deception. It was the desolation of being betrayed by the person one trusted most, the humiliation of discovering one’s feelings had been one-sided, the bewilderment of losing all hope. Feng Xuanyi had never granted Nalan Xuan even the slightest trust, had never lowered his guard for a single moment, had resisted him at every turn and remained vigilant at all times. So with what identity, and with what right, could he now demand Nalan Xuan’s absolute faith in him?
For one instant, an unprecedented sense of defeat nearly crushed Feng Xuanyi. Yet at the same time, he suddenly learned that the man he had searched for desperately and thought about day and night these past months had been together with his own elder brother, and that the two were even plotting to swallow up two thousand li of his territory. What Feng Xuanyi cared about even more—enough to make him lose all reason—was that Nalan Xuan and Feng Xuanzhe had once shared such a history, a history Feng Xuanyi himself had personally arranged and created, and had even once had a child together!
Rage erupted instantly and consumed every trace of rational thought. The patience with which Feng Xuanyi had intended to resolve their problems calmly, the willingness to endure injury if it meant compensating even slightly for the pain he had once inflicted upon Nalan Xuan—all of it disappeared beneath jealousy. His overwhelming possessiveness broke free of every restraint. Now that he finally understood his own heart, he made an absolute decision: no one else would ever again be allowed into Nalan Xuan’s life.
Nalan Xuan could belong only to Feng Xuanyi. This had nothing to do with Empress Yu or Emperor Huawu. It was simply the most fundamental and primitive desire of one human heart: to possess, to keep entirely for oneself. No one would be permitted to interfere and no one would be allowed to refuse—not even Nalan Xuan himself. Feng Xuanyi could give him all the time and space he needed to grow accustomed to him again, to accept him again, even to fall in love with him once more, but it had to happen somewhere Feng Xuanyi could see him, somewhere he could reach him, somewhere completely within his control. Beneath Feng Xuanyi’s protection, he would personally give the person he loved everything, regardless of the cost. Whatever Nalan Xuan wanted, even if it were the entire realm Feng Xuanyi had spent years struggling and scheming to obtain, what did it matter?
Just as he had come, Feng Xuanyi now hurried nonstop back toward the imperial capital with a single clear goal. He was desperately eager to return, as though every additional moment spent away meant one less measure of hope and one fewer possibility.
The carriage raced forward, and one corner of the curtain lifted slightly. “Where are we now?”
Outside the carriage, one of the Shadow Guards rode alongside at full speed, his expression stern. “Answering Master, we have just crossed the Hua–Xiliang border. We are already back within Hua territory.”
Nothing could stop Feng Xuanyi now. Even the most perfect arrangement would inevitably contain some weakness. Even if Nalan Xuan had personally planned everything, there was no guarantee that no one in Xiliang would undermine him—especially when Feng Xuanyi was willing to offer ten Hua border cities in exchange for their cooperation. No one could resist a bargain that offered nothing but profit.
That was particularly true for a ruler who had stood against Hua for years, struggling repeatedly without gaining the slightest advantage. The pressure upon the Emperor of Xiliang could easily be imagined, as could the urgency with which he needed to provide some result to the officials arguing endlessly at court. If, at such a moment, someone offered a method that would hand him—without sacrificing a single soldier—the kind of “spoils of war” he had been unable to obtain throughout nearly twenty years in the past and could not expect to obtain for at least another ten years in the future, who could possibly refuse? Even if the Emperor of Xiliang himself were proud enough to reject such an offer, would his officials and people willingly allow the opportunity to pass? Expanding the nation’s territory was a dream that never died in the heart of any ruler.
Thus, from the moment Feng Xuanyi decided to exchange ten border cities for the safe withdrawal of all eight of them, he knew victory was still firmly in his grasp. No sovereign, while even the slightest possibility of fighting back remained, would willingly cede territory and submit. Such an act would stain an entire reign and represent the greatest possible humiliation to a ruler.