The morning light was a harsh intrusion. It poured through the window, a silver-white flood that seemed to swallow the room whole. Shu Yao's eyes fluttered open, disoriented, as if he had awakened from a sleep that was not meant for him. The remnants of the sleeping pills still clung to his mind, thick and hazy, but their effects were beginning to wane, and with each passing moment, the world around him sharpened in a way he never wanted.
His body felt like it had been rearranged in the dark hours—heavy, brittle, wrecked.
He could still feel the lingering touch of dreams, like fine strands of silk tangled in his soul, a sensation of something that once was, but now lay broken, undone. His chest tightened as memories of the nightmare surged forward, overwhelming him with their violence.
He could still hear Bai Qi's voice.
But it wasn't the soft whisper of affection he had always heard in his dreams. No, this time it had been different. The voice was sharp, cold, wrapped in something he could not name. It had cut through him like a shard of ice, leaving a wound that refused to heal.
Bai Qi had always been kind to him. Even in the strange, surreal world of his nightmares, Bai Qi had always been a constant—a protector, a lover. With Qing Yue by his side, the love between them had always been clear, like a story written in the stars. Shu Yao had always been the observer—the quiet shadow in their world—content to watch, to smile, to love them from afar, never once daring to step into the narrative.
But this time, something had shifted. Something had broken.
Shu Yao's breath hitched, and his heart began to race. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to push the memory away, but it came rushing back, relentless as a tide. He had seen Bai Qi—his Bai Qi, the one he had always loved, the one he had always trusted—but not as the man he knew. This time, Bai Qi had been different. So different.
His words had been laced with cruelty, his eyes cold with something darker, something terrifying. The familiar warmth in his gaze had been replaced by something Shu Yao couldn't understand. Fear had curled in his chest, tight and unforgiving, as he watched this stranger who wore Bai Qi's face. And then the voice… that voice.
"Why couldn't you just disappear, Shu Yao?"
Shu Yao's breath caught in his throat, the words ringing in his ears like an echo he couldn't silence. His chest constricted painfully, a physical ache in the place where his heart used to be. He didn't know why Bai Qi had said those things to him. He hadn't done anything wrong. He hadn't done anything at all.
And yet, in that moment, it felt like his very existence had become a crime. A sin too great to bear.
His fingers dug into the sheets, as though he could ground himself in the physical world, as though he could stop his soul from slipping away into the nightmare again. The suffocating weight of it threatened to pull him under. He could still feel the sting of Bai Qi's gaze, the cold, sharp sting that had sliced through him like a blade.
But why?
Why did it hurt so much?
Why had the kindness in Bai Qi's eyes turned to ice? Why had the love between them, which had always felt like something soft and gentle, twisted into something dark?
The room around Shu Yao began to feel smaller, suffocating. The daylight was no comfort. It only made the truth feel colder, sharper, more real. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't escape the pain of what he had seen, of what had been said. His pulse raced, a thunderous roar in his ears.
His mind was fractured, caught between the warmth of Bai Qi's past affection and the cold, cruel figure he had seen in his nightmare.
"I didn't do anything wrong," Shu Yao whispered, his voice barely audible, lost in the silence of his room. He repeated the words like a prayer, hoping that somehow, saying them would make it true.
But it didn't.
The ache in his chest only grew deeper, pressing against him with the weight of the impossible. He had been nothing but an observer—silent, distant, and yet, somewhere, deep inside, he had hoped. Hoped that one day, Bai Qi would see him. See past the shadows, past the broken pieces of his own soul, and love him the way he had always loved them.
But now, that hope felt foolish. Foolish and lost, drowned in the weight of the nightmare.
Shu Yao closed his eyes again, his body trembling with the quiet devastation that gripped him. The daylight had offered no reprieve, no solace, and now his own mind was betraying him, replaying the haunting image of Bai Qi's cruel gaze over and over, like a shattered record stuck on a single, broken note.
His chest felt tight, constricted—like the very air had been sucked from the room, leaving only the crushing weight of his loneliness. The world outside continued as it always had, but for Shu Yao, it felt as though time had stopped, the moment hanging frozen in place, suspended by the crushing gravity of his own pain.
Bai Qi's love had always been the thing that kept him afloat, the one thing that had made sense in the chaotic, broken mess of his existence. But now, it felt like the very thing that was destroying him.
"Why did you say that, Bai Qi?" Shu Yao whispered, his voice breaking on the name. "What happened to you? What actually happened to you?"
But there was no answer. Only the silence, thick and unyielding, stretching on for an eternity.
And in that silence, Shu Yao realized something that he had never fully understood before.
He had always been watching. Always been waiting. But now, in the stillness of the room, he felt a deep, raw yearning—an aching desire to be more than just a shadow in their world.
To be seen.
To be loved.
But that love… that love now felt like a distant memory, like a dream slipping through his fingers as the world continued to turn without him.
And so, he lay there in the quiet, waiting for something he wasn't sure would ever come. Waiting for the nightmare to end.
But deep down, he feared it never would.
On the other side of the city, where the skies wore a colder shade of grey and marble buildings whispered secrets into the wind, a different kind of storm was forming—tailored not from thunder but from silk, pressed fabric, and power stitched into seams.
The grand dressing hall of the Rothenberg estate was a stage, and Bai Qi stood at its center like a sculpture come to life. Tall—unnaturally tall at 194 centimeters—he towered over the flurry of attendants swarming around him like purposeful insects, each armed with pins, lint brushes, steaming irons, and reverence. He did not flinch. Did not move. He simply stood there, letting the chaos orbit him like he was the axis of something ancient.
The obsidian suit they fastened on him shimmered with an impossible sheen—ink-black, cut sharp enough to slice through wind. Over it, a dark violet vest was being carefully buttoned, every metallic clasp polished to reflect nothing but excellence. One servant crouched to adjust the hem. Another passed along a cufflink like a relay of elegance. And somewhere in the background, a stylist was tying his black wolfcut hair into a sleek, intentional fall—low, noble, yet feral, like a prince raised in a palace of wolves.
The room was full of murmurs. Names, instructions, the hiss of steam, the click of boots on marble. And yet, Bai Qi said nothing. His expression remained unreadable, carved from serenity and ice. He stared at his own reflection in the mirror—a man too young to wear this much pressure, and yet too unreadable not to.
He looked like command made flesh.
And watching from a velvet chaise just beyond the central flurry was George Harold von Rothenberg.
George's legs were crossed with theatrical ease, one hand holding a porcelain cup of espresso he hadn't sipped. His green jade eyes studied every movement, every crease, every fold of fabric laid across his nephew's frame. The tailoring had to be precise. The color scheme—unflawed. This wasn't just a suit; it was a statement. It was the Rothenberg seal in human form. And George was nothing if not the curator of image and precision. Niklas may have been the command behind the curtain, but George was the one pulling the strings in the open daylight.
"He looks exactly as he should," George murmured to himself, not for approval, but as confirmation of control.
One of the stylists adjusted the tie again, fumbling slightly. George raised a brow. The stylist paled.
"Again," George said smoothly. "I don't want 'almost.' I want poetry."
Bai Qi didn't look at him. Didn't need to. He was used to it—the eyes, the control, the meticulous orchestration of his existence. He knew the drill. He stood like a mannequin stitched from pride and stoicism, letting the Rothenberg legacy wrap him tighter and tighter, one tailored stitch at a time.
Another servant stepped forward, offering the final accessory: a brooch the size of a knuckle, engraved with the Rothenberg sigil—a black raven perched upon a dying rose, rimmed in platinum. The servant's hands trembled slightly as he pinned it to Bai Qi's lapel, not daring to breathe too loudly.
And yet still, Bai Qi did not speak. His silence was not empty—it was sharpened. A silence that said: I am used to being prepared for things I didn't ask for.
George rose from his seat, setting the cup down without a sip, and walked slowly toward the scene. His shoes echoed faintly on the polished floor.
"He doesn't just wear the brand," George said softly, as if explaining the moment to the walls themselves. "He is the brand."
Everyone stopped moving when George neared. Even the air seemed to pause, caught between breath and formality. George adjusted Bai Qi's collar with a tenderness that did not quite reach warmth.
"You know your uncle is watching everything," he added in a near-whisper, his hands brushing down the sides of the suit, straightening the already-straight lines. "Niklas will want perfection. But me… I want immortality."
Bai Qi finally met his uncle's eyes in the mirror.
There was no rebellion there.
But there was no loyalty either.
Just a quiet sort of endurance—like a glacier that does not melt under pressure, but simply remembers the weight.
The moment lingered.
Then George smiled, stepping back with the air of a man satisfied by a masterpiece he himself did not paint, but owned. He clapped once, sharp and commanding. "We're done here. Clear the room. Bai Qi will walk in ten."
The staff scattered, silent as shadows vanishing from candlelight. Bai Qi was left alone in the center, the mirror still holding his reflection like a prophecy no one dared to read aloud.
And in that cold silence, under the weight of brocade and name, he did not exhale.
Not yet.
He was dressed like an heir. Trained like a soldier. Painted like a god.
And none of it made him feel more human.
A chime—low, elegant, and deliberate—cut through the golden hush of the Rothenberg hall. Not the kind of sound that begged for attention, but the sort that expected it. George's gaze, already sharpened from years of command cloaked in charm, flicked toward the long lacquered table where the screen of his obsidian phone pulsed faintly.
Niklas.
Of course.
George strode toward it with the poise of a man used to carrying answers in his back pocket. His fingers, slender and unhurried, plucked the device from the polished wood as if it were a goblet in a cathedral.
With a single slide of his thumb, he answered. No greeting. No wasted syllables.
"Everything," he said, his voice smooth as velvet over steel, "is fascinatingly ready."
There was a pause on the other end, brief but thick with authority—the kind only Niklas von Rothenberg could wield without raising his voice. George didn't need to hear the full sentence. He never did. Between them, silence was as fluent as language.
"I oversaw the final suit myself," George continued, one arm tucked behind his back as he paced slowly near the wide window. The sunlight, bruised with morning grey, haloed him in a sepia wash. "Every thread, every pin. His walk will be thunder. His presence—cathedralic."
He glanced toward the far door where Bai Qi stood waiting in stillness, dressed like midnight with a heartbeat. A statue carved from elegance and old blood.
"He's more than prepared," George added, lowering his tone just slightly, "He's inevitable."
Niklas's voice responded at last, low and clipped, a single word that didn't need repetition. George allowed himself the ghost of a smile.
"Very well," he replied, before the call ended in a quiet chime—like the closing of a deal, or the final note in a requiem.
He placed the phone back onto the table without fanfare, as if it were just another tool in a long lineage of instruments used to shape perfection.
And then, adjusting the cuff of his sleeve, George turned toward the gathering momentum behind the doors.
The moment was no longer arriving.
It was already here.