When consciousness fully returned, Li Shuang's rationality refused to allow Jin'an to share her bed. She spread blankets across the floor and settled there herself, surrendering the bed to him.
Yet morning light found her elsewhere—cradled in his arms atop the bed, held with the tender possessiveness of something precious and precarious.
At her slight movement, his embrace tightened instinctively.
Li Shuang stilled, resigned to her position, and studied the sky beyond the window. Dawn had already stained the heavens crimson, yet Jin'an remained in his adult form. Wu Yin's words from yesterday rang true, then.
Proximity affected everything. The closer they were, the more keenly he sensed her qi, the more it disrupted his transformations.
Which meant... to restore Jin'an to normalcy, would they need to...
"You're awake." His voice emerged low and sleep-rough against her ear. He held her from behind, his breath falling warm and faintly humid against the shell of her ear, igniting a flush across Li Shuang's face at the intimacy of their entangled position.
She extracted herself from his embrace immediately, sitting upright and rubbing at her ear as though she could erase the phantom warmth of his breath.
She didn't question how they'd ended up sleeping together, nor did she linger on the night's events. Li Shuang understood that interrogation would only breed awkwardness—though naturally, Jin'an would feel no such discomfort. She would bear that burden alone.
"Ahem." She cleared her throat with deliberate purpose. "I need to step out briefly. Instructions for the troops below the mountain."
Even as she spoke, she reached the doorway and glanced back reflexively to find Jin'an already transformed—a child once more, drowning in clothes that hung like blankets from his small frame.
His gaze hadn't wavered from her. Li Shuang paused mid-step. "I'll return within half an hour at most. Don't simply wait—occupy yourself with something."
"Alright."
Only then did Li Shuang's shoulders ease as she departed.
She had borrowed writing materials from Wu Yin and was midway through drafting the partial troop withdrawal plans when someone from Wu Ling Sect escorted a visitor up the mountain.
"General."
The arrival struck Li Shuang like an unexpected blow. "Qin Lan?" She studied the travel-worn figure before her with undisguised surprise. "Why aren't you stationed at Long Wind Camp? The Western Rong..."
Qin Lan held Li Shuang's gaze for a prolonged moment before lowering his eyes, dispensing with pleasantries to state flatly: "Indeed, it concerns the Western Rong."
Li Shuang's expression hardened instantly. Qin Lan continued, "The Western Rong king died suddenly last month. The crown prince hasn't ascended the throne; instead, the king's brother, the Duke of Shu Gan, has claimed it. The Western Rong has changed hands."
The words landed like stones in still water. Li Shuang knew the Western Rong court's internal dynamics intimately.
The Western Rong queen possessed a temperament of iron and fire, permitting no other woman to bear the king's children. Yet she had produced only two sons—the elder simple-minded and incapable of shouldering greatness, the younger too young to bear such weight. The king's brothers had circled the throne like wolves for years. The court had long since become a tangled nest of power struggles.
Now, with the Western Rong king's sudden death and the young prince bypassed, the king's third brother, the Duke of Shu Gan, had seized the throne. What truly transpired in those shadows was known only to those who'd walked through them.
"How does the new Western Rong emperor regard our Great Jin?"
"Duke Shu Gan Dai Qin is now the new king. Compared to the former king's warlike nature, he seems..."
A sharp crack fractured their conversation. Li Shuang and Qin Lan turned as one to find little Jin'an standing in the doorway, the cup he'd been carrying now shattered across the ground in glittering fragments.
His expression had gone peculiarly distant, and unusually, his gaze wasn't fixed on Li Shuang but rather stared blankly into middle space, as though peering through the present into something far beyond. After a long, suspended moment, his eyes regained their focus—but settled on Qin Lan instead.
He remained silent, his expression unsettlingly strange. Li Shuang's brow creased with concern. "Jin'an?" She spoke his name like an anchor, seemingly drawing him back to shore. "Why did you come?"
"You said to do what I wanted to do..." His manner carried more listlessness than usual. But he needn't finish—Li Shuang grasped his meaning perfectly.
She'd told him to occupy himself as he wished, and what he wished for most was proximity to her, so he'd brought tea.
Li Shuang felt simultaneously helpless and secretly warmed by his dependence.
Qin Lan's eyebrow lifted upon noticing Jin'an. "General, this child..."
"It's a long story." Unable to unravel Jin'an's situation for Qin Lan in this moment, Li Shuang deflected smoothly. "Let's discuss why you sought me out. Has the new Western Rong king made any moves?"
"The new king Dai Qin has dispatched envoys to the capital, expressing Western Rong's willingness to sign a ten-year peace treaty. However, the envoys insist on meeting with you personally, General."
"Must see me?" Puzzlement flickered across Li Shuang's features. Since the envoys had already reached the capital, couldn't they settle the peace treaty with Si Ma Yang? Why did they require her presence specifically?
While Li Shuang focused on this question, Jin'an unexpectedly interjected, asking Qin Lan: "Say again, what is the new Western Rong king's name?"
Qin Lan found the child stranger than during their encounter in the Northern Frontier, though he couldn't articulate precisely how. He answered regardless: "The former Duke of Shu Gan, Dai Qin, the former king's third brother."
Jin'an fell silent, staring ahead with hollow focus.
Li Shuang registered his strange behavior immediately. She crouched down, gripping his shoulders gently but firmly to draw his attention back to her. "What's wrong? Do you know Duke Shu Gan Dai Qin?"
Jin'an required considerable time before his gaze returned to Li Shuang's face. "No, I don't know him."
With Qin Lan still present, Li Shuang withheld further questions. At that moment, Wu Yin materialized in the doorway. "Ah, here you are." He beckoned to Jin'an. "Come, let me examine you."
Jin'an drifted away with Wu Yin in a daze, leaving Li Shuang frowning and Qin Lan standing amid the room's suddenly heavy silence.
"General," Qin Lan called to her. "I know you came here to save that mysterious person. He's not here, yet why is Jin'an present?"
Li Shuang shook her head, pulling herself back from spiraling thoughts and redirecting: "Never mind that. When will the Western Rong envoys enter the capital?"
"I escorted the Western Rong envoys to the capital, then received imperial orders to fetch you back. His Majesty places tremendous importance on the peace treaty. General... you may need to depart immediately."
Li Shuang's gaze returned to the paper on the table. She had envisioned staying longer at Wu Ling Sect—granting Jin'an more time to stabilize emotionally, more hope of returning to normalcy. But now it seemed her borrowed time had shortened even further.
"We can't leave today," Li Shuang said. "Tomorrow... the day after. Have the main army return first, and I'll ride hard to catch up with them the day after tomorrow."
Qin Lan remained silent for an extended moment. "General, what are you waiting for... the mysterious person?"
Li Shuang understood perfectly that in these two days, Jin'an couldn't suddenly return to normal, recover his fractured memories, or transform into an ordinary person again. But she also knew that once she returned to the capital, she would have to stand before Jin'an and articulate the unbearable—that henceforth, the palace walls would rise like barriers erected by ancient sorcerers: he couldn't enter, she couldn't leave. He would have to either depart or keep vigil beyond those walls, forever separate.
She couldn't imagine forming such words for Jin'an, nor could she envision his expression when she did.
It would probably mirror that time when she told him to wait, and he simply... kept waiting.
Only this time, once she entered the palace, Jin'an would likely never see her again.
"Yes..." Li Shuang said. "Let's wait two days, just these two days."
She hoped these two days would stretch longer than any time before.
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