“Darling, I’ll return late. If I’m not back by sunset, you know what to do. Keep yourself and Xian Lian safe.”

Cao Anke’s voice was calm, but each word carried weight. His gaze swept the house—each shadow, each flicker of light from the lanterns. His senses were sharp, alert to every shift in the air, every faint whisper of movement. He was a merchant to the world, but few merchants carried themselves like this. His steps barely disturbed the ground, and his eyes saw danger before it struck.

Xiu Yan’s fingers brushed the pendant at her neck, its warmth grounding her. She said nothing but understood the silence between them, the past he’d never fully shared. The long nights he kept, the moments when his gaze turned distant. His hidden life, one she accepted but could never fully grasp.

He stepped closer, pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead. His hand steadied against her cheek, but she felt the subtle tension in his grip—a quiet farewell, just in case.

“Go safely, my husband. I will wait for you,” she said, her voice unwavering.

Xian Lian’s bright giggle cut through the tension. “Baba! Promise to come back home!”

Anke crouched, ruffling her hair. “I will, little one. Be good for your mother.”

“I’m always a good girl!” she beamed, chest-puffing with the certainty only a child could have.

Anke smiled, but his heart clenched. If only the world could leave her innocence untouched. One last glance, he stepped into the darkening dusk, his figure swallowed by the night.

The sun had long vanished, leaving slivers of moonlight to filter through the trees. Anke moved with purpose, his breath steady, his mind focused. Yet something was wrong. The silence gnawed at him, a premonition that gripped his gut. The air, too, still felt suffocating.

His fingers brushed the dagger at his waist—familiar, cold, a steady companion. But it wasn’t enough. Not against what was coming. The weight of his family—his promises—pressed on him, an invisible burden that made every step heavier.

A shift in the wind.

A whisper of steel.

Before his mind could catch up, Anke's body reacted. The first strike came fast, but he ducked just in time, the blade grazing the air where his head had been. The next was quicker, a sharp slice across his side. Each blow wasn't just a fight—it was a reminder of what he stood to lose: his family, his life.

His dagger flashed in the moonlight, each movement fluid, precise. But his thoughts kept drifting to Xiu Yan, to their daughter. Survival was no longer just about him—it was about them.

The first assailant staggered back, clutching his throat. Anke barely registered the kill, his mind scattered with memories and unfulfilled promises. More shadows gathered—four now. His breath was steady, his muscles were screaming, and he fought through the pain. But it was Xiu Yan he feared for, and he couldn’t stop.

One attacker lunged. Anke sidestepped, twisting the man’s wrist with a sharp crack, sending the sword flying. A quick thrust of his dagger silenced him. Another came, spear aimed for his ribs. Anke spun, kicking the man to the ground. His movements were automatic, the fight blurring together as his body grew heavier.

A third assailant charged, but Anke was faster. His dagger flew, embedding deep into the man's throat. One remained.

This one didn’t charge. His cold eyes studied Anke, calculating.

Anke’s grip tightened. His heart raced, not from the fight, but from the fear of what would happen if he lost. The stranger’s voice cut through the air.

“You’re not a merchant.”

Anke stayed silent, his mind consumed with his promise to protect Xiu Yan. The stranger’s predatory gleam didn’t go unnoticed.

“I’m looking for someone. The Crown Princess.”

The words hit Anke like a blow to the chest. His blood turned to ice.

The stranger smirked dark satisfaction in his expression. “Where is she?”

Anke’s silence felt like a betrayal, but revealing the truth could cost him everything. It wasn’t just his life—it was hers, their daughter’s.

The stranger’s patience thinned. “Zhang Lei Hong wants you gone,” he said, raising his sword. “Let’s finish this.”

The attack came without warning. Anke parried the first blow, steel ringing in his ears. His limbs were slower now, breaths quick and ragged. Memories of Xiu Yan and their daughter filled his thoughts.

Another strike. The blade grazed his ribs, pain flaring, but the worst ache was the thought of leaving them behind.

Xiu Yan... Her face, her warmth. Anke clung to the memory, but his strength was fading. His grip slipped, his knees buckling under him.

A boot pressed into his chest, forcing him down. The assassin's blade hovered above him, gleaming cold in the dim light.

"You don’t deserve her," the man hissed. "If she bore any of your children, I’ll make sure they die with you."

Anke’s hand jerked toward the dagger he had dropped, but his limbs were slow, heavy, and unresponsive. Darkness crept in around him, suffocating. In the haze of his fading consciousness, one image pierced through the fog—Xiu Yan’s face, soft with love, as she whispered, “I will wait for you.”

The assassin’s blade descended.

Time stretched. The cold steel bit into his flesh, but in that fleeting moment, Anke’s thoughts were not of pain or death. They were of her—the life they would never have. The world around him blurred, the weight of silence pressing in.

Xiu Yan stood by the window, her chest tight, an uneasy feeling settling over her. The night felt wrong—unnatural. Her gaze drifted to the hidden safe room where Xian Lian slept, and the silence pressed down on her like an invisible weight. A quiet prayer for Anke’s safety slipped from her lips, but something twisted inside her. The calm in the air felt like the world holding its breath before a storm.

The hairs on her neck prickled. A creeping chill crawled up her spine, suffocating in its stillness. Outside, the wind rustled faintly—hollow, distant. Her pulse quickened, a knot of dread tightening in her stomach. Something was wrong.

Then it came—a tap, too soft, too precise. A whisper of movement from the roof, carrying the weight of imminent danger. A cold, bone-deep chill settled deep within her. Instinctively, she stepped back, her breath catching in her throat. Every muscle screamed to run, but there was nowhere to hide.

With trembling legs, she moved toward the master room, each step slow, as though the ground beneath her feet were shifting. Her hand found the hilt of her sword, grounding her, though it did little to ease the fear gnawing at her. Every creak of the floorboards seemed too loud in the suffocating silence.

Then the door crashed open.

A shadow filled the doorway, tall and menacing. The moment he appeared, her body froze—every instinct screamed—the assassin from Joseon.

He moved with terrifying speed, a blur of lethal intent. She barely had time to react before he was on her, disarming her with brutal efficiency. His grip on her wrists was like iron, suffocating, rendering her powerless. Panic surged in her chest as she struggled, but it was as if she were fighting against a stone wall. Her breath came in shallow gasps, the fear rising in her throat like bile, yet she fought with everything she had, even as the terror continued to crawl up her spine.

"Let me go!" Xiu Yan gasped, desperation seeping into her voice. But his grip tightened, unyielding.

Hyun Yeol slowly removed his mask, revealing his face. The shock hit her like a blow. Yi Hyun Yeol. The King of Joseon.

Her breath hitched. "Your Majesty..." The name "Hae-ju" surfaced like a ghost—sharp and bitter. She had escaped that life, but now it loomed before her, a trap closing in.

A twisted smile curled on his lips, as though savoring a victory long anticipated. "You remember me. Good. You were never his. I’ve come to rescue you."

Xiu Yan's breath caught, but she forced herself to speak, her voice trembling, yet steady. "Where is my husband?" The question hung in the air, a thread connecting her to the life she refused to lose.

Hyun Yeol’s smile faltered, and something darker passed behind his eyes—a shadow that deepened with every second. His grip tightened around her wrists, the pressure a cruel reminder of how little control she had left.

"What husband?" His voice dropped to a low growl, heavy with possession. Each word slid into her like ice. "You’re mine. Always have been."

His words were poison, spreading like fire through her veins, igniting something both foreign and terrifying within her. Hyun Yeol’s gaze burned with obsessive certainty, as if he could burn her soul with just his eyes. The life she had built, the marriage she had fought for—he dismissed them as fleeting illusions. She would be his again, body and soul, as if her escape had been nothing but a temporary pause in his plans.

"You’ll never be his," he hissed, the promise of it chilling her to the bone. "Only I can make you whole."

A shudder ran through Xiu Yan’s chest, a mixture of fury and helplessness that pressed against her ribs. She clenched her jaw, but her voice shook as she spat, "Leave me alone." His presence was a suffocating weight, crushing her will to fight back.

Hyun Yeol released her wrists, just enough to twist her body against him. His fingers brushed her neck, cold as death itself, sending a tremor down her spine.

“Remember when we almost...” His voice softened, but there was no warmth in it. It was cruel, nostalgic—his words a slow, deliberate poison. “Before your brother-in-law stopped us? We could’ve been happy together.”

The memories clawed at her from the shadows of her mind, suffocating her with their weight. She tried to shove them away, to lock them in a cage, but they slipped free, dragging her back to a past she had fought so hard to forget. Her breath came in ragged bursts. Trapped. Physically, mentally, emotionally.

"Let go..." Her voice faltered, a tremor of something more fragile than fear slipping into her words. She couldn’t stop it, couldn’t keep the break from showing.

“You’ll carry my children now,” he declared, each word dripping with malice. "No one else will touch you."

The words hit her like a blow, each one more suffocating than the last. She wasn’t a woman to be loved; she was a prize to be claimed, a thing to be owned. Nothing more.

An hour later, Hyun Yeol stood with a detached satisfaction, adjusting his robes as though the battle were already won. His eyes lingered on Xiu Yan, still and motionless on the bed. She was no longer a person in his gaze—just a thing to be admired, to be possessed.

But something in the air had changed. He knew it, felt it in the silent space between them. A promise had been broken. The woman he had tried to claim was slipping through his grasp, and he couldn’t quite understand why the victory left such a bitter taste in his mouth.

“You’re still beautiful,” he murmured, his fingers brushing her exposed thigh, icy like death. "If you carried his child, I'd make sure it dies with him. But you’ll give me heirs. You belong to me."

The air grew heavy with his words, suffocating her even in silence.

The weight of his words suffocated the room. His touch was deliberate, possessive, like an unspoken promise etched into her skin.

Then, a shallow breath drew her back from the brink. Fury, long buried, ignited in her chest—hot and fierce. Her eyes snapped open, burning with defiance.

"Die, monster!" Xiu Yan’s scream tore through the air, her voice hoarse with rage and desperation. Her trembling fingers grasped for the sword she’d dropped, but her limbs felt leaden, sluggish. The room swayed around her, her vision dimming at the edges, but she forced herself forward.

Hyun Yeol moved with cruel ease, sidestepping her strike as if it were nothing. She lunged again, reckless and wild, but her strength was failing. The weight of exhaustion dragged at her muscles, sapping what little remained.

A final burst of clarity cut through the haze. If she was going to die, she would not do so cowering. Her hand found the dagger at his belt. The cold steel grounded her, a spark of defiance igniting one last time. She tightened her grip, steadied her breath, and struck for his heart.

Too slow.

Hyun Yeol twisted, and the blade’s edge kissed his side, a shallow wound that barely drew breath from him. But for Xiu Yan, it was as if the last embers of her fire had been snuffed out. Her limbs lost their fight. The dagger slipped from her fingers, tumbling end over end before striking the wooden floor with a sharp, ringing clang. It bounced once, then again, before coming to a shuddering stop, the faint metallic hum lingering in the air like an unspoken farewell.

The cold seeped in, slow but relentless. It numbed her fingers, then her arms, until all that remained was an emptiness in her chest. Her breath faltered, shallow, like a flicker in the dark. Her vision darkened, shadows swallowing the flickering light.

She crumpled, her body folding as if the very air had betrayed her. The floor was unforgiving beneath her, the chill of it seeping through her skin. She gasped, but the air felt thin, distant.

Above her, Hyun Yeol stood motionless, his breath uneven. The iron certainty in his gaze wavered, his fingers twitching at his sides. He had won. Yet, in this moment, he had never felt further from victory.

“Hae-ju…” His voice barely escaped him, a ghost of itself. He knelt beside her, his hands hesitating—uncertain, trembling—as if afraid to touch what he had just destroyed. His mind screamed at him, clawing at the edges of reason. This wasn’t supposed to feel like this. He had spent years weaving fate, carving a path where she would be his, no matter what. Yet now—

She was slipping away. And for the first time, he realized he had never truly held her at all.

Her fading gaze met his. Her lips, pale and bloodless, parted one last time, the words slipping free in a whisper, barely more than a breath.

"You’ll never have me… not in this life… or the next…"

Final. Absolute. A wound that would never heal.

Hyun Yeol’s chest tightened, the weight of her words sinking in with unbearable finality. He reached for her, but the warmth had already left her skin. Her body lay limp in his arms, her defiance outlasting her life.

“No…” The word was strangled, empty. His hands, stained with her warmth, now held only cold silence.

Tears—hot, foreign, unwanted—slipped down his face. His entire world had been built around possessing her, bending fate itself to his will. But now, fate had slipped through his fingers like sand.

He had won. And yet, he had nothing.

Her body lay cold in his arms. The world, once full of obsession, now seemed dark and hollow. For the first time, Hyun Yeol felt truly lost.

"I promise I’ll be good to you... I swear it..." His voice broke, raw and desperate. But Xiu Yan didn’t answer. She was gone, and Hyun Yeol was left alone, trembling, his world shattered by the very grief he had never allowed himself to feel.