That night, Lin Yue returned to the temporary palace quarters assigned to her — a room larger than her entire apartment in the modern world, filled with floating lanterns that hummed with defensive arrays.
She should've felt safe.
She didn't.
Her cultivation channels still tingled from the resonance earlier. Her soul felt… different. Stretched and stitched with a thread that didn't belong to mortals.
She crawled into bed and whispered:
"I want one day without drama."
The universe heard her request.
And said: lol no.
A whisper of metal sliced through the air.
Lin Yue rolled instinctively.
A blade stabbed into her pillow where her head had been.
Dark-robed assassins emerged from the shadows, masks glinting.
"Kill the Emperor's new weakness," one hissed.
Lin Yue froze. "Weakness?! I'm literally the opposite of—"
Another dagger flew.
She dodged and hurled the nearest object — a decorative jade lamp — at the assassin. It shattered uselessly.
"Can we talk about this?" she tried.
"No."
Predictable.
A blade slashed toward her throat—
—when the moon exploded.
Silver light detonated through the room, tearing assassins off their feet. The palace trembled. Reality flickered like a candle.
And then a voice — cold enough to freeze time itself — spoke from behind her.
"You touched what is mine."
Xuan Mo entered the room like a walking apocalypse.
No doors.No footsteps.Just pure, terrifying presence.
His eyes glowed with eclipsed moonlight — darker, deeper, more violent than she'd ever seen.
The assassins lunged.
Xuan Mo raised a hand.
One gesture.
A single, bored flick of his fingers.
And the assassins disintegrated into glittering silver ash.
Lin Yue stared, breathless. "You… killed them."
"Correct," he said calmly.
"You just— turned them into— into moon dust!?"
"They attacked you."
"That's your whole justification??"
Xuan Mo stepped closer.
"You are under my protection."
"Protection?" she echoed. "Or possession?"
"Both," he said simply.
Her pulse skittered.
She hated how that word hit her. She hated it even more because she wasn't sure if she hated it for the right reasons.
Xuan Mo lifted her wrist gently. His touch was cold, but careful. Too careful.
"You are injured."
"It's a scratch."
"It is unacceptable."
He brushed a thumb over her skin.
Moonlight seeped into the cut, healing it instantly.
Her breath caught.
He looked at her — truly looked — and the air tightened between them.
"Lin Yue," he said softly, "if you had died tonight, this world would not have survived my grief."
Her heart stopped.
She hated how that affected her.
She hated how sincere it sounded.
She hated—
Everything, basically.
"Please," she whispered, "don't say things like that."
"Why?" he asked.
"Because," she croaked, "I don't know what to do with them."
A pause.
Then:
"Learn."