That night, Wei Haoyu finds himself unable to sleep. Slumber escaping him.
He sits on the polished floor of his private hall, the same floor where he had once drank wine with lesser cultivators, laughing at their shallow ambition.
Now he sits in silence, robe discarded, sword resting naked across his knees — the blade's reflection mocking him with each trembling breath.
He tries to gather his Qi into his core.
Tries to purify it, as his master taught him.
Tries to burn away the echo of her presence — the taste of iron and shadow that clings to his bones. The feeling of death.
It does not obey him.
The spiritual fire sparks and flickers — then gutters out, slipping between his fingers like split oil.
He can feel her words inside his marrow: You chain your darkness.
He hates that she is right. Hates that she knows she is right.
Hours pass. Incense coils in the brazier, smothered by the cold. His knees ache against the floor. His fingers cramp around the sword hilt.
He remembers his father's voice: Control is everything, Haoyu. Without it, you are no better than the animals.
Animals... Hauyo often wondered if his father meant cultivators like him. Ones who didn't choose the darkness they were born with?
He imagines Feng Haoran's laugh echoing behind that memory — soft, delighted, almost amused at his outburst.
Maybe Haoyu is hallucinating, because the shadows in the corners of the hall seem to lean closer, curious, hungry.
---
At dawn, Haoyu staggers to his feet. He pulls the chair — that cursed, stolen chair — into the center of the hall.
He stares at it for a long moment.
The wood had been unremarkable. A woman's furniture. A trophy. A relic. Now a reminder. It was stained.
He lifts his sword.
The first cut is clumsy. The blade bites too shallow. He adjusts, breathes, then swings again.
Wood splinters. Dust drifts.
He hacks at it like a man hacking off a gangrenous limb. Over and over, until the fine carvings are nothing but raw edges.
Sweat dripping down his back. His hair clings to his face. His throat burns from panting. His eyes darkened with an energy he was afraid to define.
When he is done, there is nothing left of the chair but ragged shards.
Yet in the ruin, he sees her smile.
A promise: "You can destroy the chair. But the seat it gave me in your mind — you cannot unmake that."
---
Haoyu drops his sword. The clang is dull, unimpressive.
He wants to scream.
He does not.
He kneels. He gathers the splinters in trembling hands — hands that know how to kill but not how to cleanse. He feeds them to the brazier, piece by piece, watching the wood hiss and pop as it burns.
In the thin morning light, the smoke curls around him — thick with the scent of resin and something older, something bitter.
He breathes it in. He should feel lighter.
He does not.
And Haoyu cannot imagine how this woman had rattled his heart this much.
---
When the sun rises fully, Haoyu dresses in immaculate robes
He paints his face in the mirror — a touch of jade pigment at his brow, as his sect requires.
The man staring back looks composed.
Clean.
But his wrist still trembles when he knots his sash.
And behind his eyes, a door rattles, locked but not silent.