The night air clung to her skin like silk and frost.
Zhu Zhuqing stood at the edge of the square, where shadows swallowed the cobblestones and the cries from the taverns melted into a low, drunken hum. Her figure was motionless, back pressed lightly against a half-broken wall, catlike eyes fixed on the massive iron gates of the Slaughter Arena.
They had closed hours ago. Yet still, she lingered.
It wasn't the Arena she was watching. It was him.
Gu Kuangren had walked out of those gates drenched in blood. Not his own — at least, not much of it — but in the scarlet remnants of another man's life. The crowd had parted for him as if parted by an invisible blade. Not even the gamblers, drunk with victory and coin, had dared to jeer too loudly.
He walked like a mountain breaking through fog: silent, unstoppable, and terrifyingly real.
Zhu Zhuqing had followed.
Not too close. Never too close.
She told herself it was necessity — observation, not fascination. In a place where monsters clawed for survival, it was wisdom to keep eyes on the sharpest fang. But that was a lie she wrapped herself in, thin as silk, and each step she took behind him unraveled it further.
He had gone to the basin by the well, where moonlight fell soft on the stones. There, Kuangren had washed.
And Zhu Zhuqing had watched.
Watched the way his movements, even in solitude, carried the weight of ritual. He cleansed his blade as if it were sacred. He wrung blood from his hair with the patience of a monk. Every droplet that fell from his hands struck the basin with a sound that lingered too long in her ears.
It was violence — yet also purity.
She had killed men before. Many. She knew the chaos of combat, the stink of blood. But never had she seen someone embrace slaughter as though it were… prayer.
Her claws had flexed unconsciously against the wall.
Now, hours later, he was gone. Vanished into the night like smoke dispersing into the wind. She should have turned away, should have returned to her own quarters in the Arena's outer lodgings. But her body refused to obey the logic in her head.
Her heart beat with quiet fury — not at him, but at herself.
Why am I watching? Why am I still here?
She closed her eyes. The scents of the city pressed in — smoke, rot, sweat, iron. Beneath it all, she swore she could still catch his trace. That faint, metallic tang of blood. It was absurd, and yet it anchored her.
Her mind replayed the fight. Every slash, every calculated movement. Not reckless, though they called him "madman." Not wild. He had chosen each strike, each mutilation, as though teaching a lesson only he understood.
Could I stand against him?
The thought clawed through her like lightning through dry wood. She tried to imagine it: her claws striking, her body weaving in, his sword descending. The vision always ended the same — her blood pooling where Kael's had pooled.
And yet… another image pushed through.
Not of defeat. Not of death. But of standing beside him.
That possibility frightened her more than the first.
A sound broke the silence.
Footsteps.
Zhu Zhuqing tensed, body folding into shadow, every muscle coiled. A drunk staggered past, muttering curses at the dice gods. She let him pass without a glance, but her heart only slowed once his stench faded into the alleys.
She pressed a hand to her chest. Her pulse thundered.
This is weakness, she told herself. To let a man's presence shake me. To watch him when I should be sharpening my claws.
But the denial rang hollow.
The Arena Master's words — she hadn't heard them, but she didn't need to. She knew men like him, the way they twisted lives into threads on a board. She could feel their eyes on Kuangren as surely as she felt her own.
They will test him.
And she would watch.
Not because it was wise. Not because it was survival.
But because, against all her discipline, her training, her cold resolve… something inside her needed to know what he truly was.
A monster to be slain.
Or a storm to stand beside.
So she remained in the shadows, a cat watching the path where the demon had gone, claws unsheathed but heart betraying her.
And for the first time in years, Zhu Zhuqing realized she was afraid of something other than failure.
She was afraid of Gu Kuangren.
Afraid — and drawn.
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