Xing Yu's breath came in shallow, unsteady gasps, each one trembling against the cold edge of the blade pressed to his throat. His knees dug into the rubble beneath him, the sharp edges biting through the fabric of his trousers, but he barely registered the pain. All he could see—all he had ever truly seen—was him.
Jian.
The man he had searched for across galaxies, through storms and ruin, through years of aching solitude. The man whose absence had carved a hollow space inside his ribs, a void that no victory, no battle, no fleeting comfort could ever fill.
And now, here he stood.
Alive.
The sword at Xing Yu's throat was steady, its edge kissing his skin with lethal precision. A single bead of golden blood welled from the shallow cut, tracing a slow, burning path down his neck. But he didn't move. Didn't flinch. His eyes remained locked on Jian's face—so cold, so unfamiliar, and yet so devastatingly beautiful that it stole the breath from his lungs.
