Chapter Text
Do you know that feeling? When life becomes so quietly perfect that you stop fearing ruin altogether?
When happiness settles around you so gently that you begin to mistake it for permanence?
And then, in the span of a single breath, everything is torn away.
That winter, Lin’an glittered beneath a veil of snow and lantern light. Scarlet silk swayed beneath the eaves, gold tassels turning softly in the wind, and the streets glowed so warmly that the city seemed untouched by the hardships beyond its walls.
It felt impossibly distant from the Capital.
In recent years, the Imperial Court had become a place where every smile concealed calculation, and every banquet carried the scent of bloodless warfare.
Ministers fought with memorials instead of blades, noble factions rose and collapsed overnight, and victories on the frontier often became ammunition for political struggles within the palace itself.
Xie Zheng had long since learned to survive such things.
Fan Changyu never truly belonged in such a world, despite the blood of renowned warriors flowing through her veins.
She understood strategy well enough now, better than many seasoned statesmen, in truth, but there remained something fundamentally ill-suited about her for court politics.
A woman who had once lived by selling pork in a market could master war, but she could never quite learn how to make peace with falsehood.
Perhaps that was why the people loved her.
And why the court feared her.
The Northern Jue campaign earlier that year had only deepened both sentiments.
Changyu’s victory had been overwhelming enough on its own. She had broken the enemy’s advance so thoroughly that allied casualties remained astonishingly low, then secured peace along the border by negotiating directly with surrounding tribes afterward. Where others relied on intimidation, she spoke plainly and won trust with frightening ease.
The frontier troops adored her.
Commoners praised her openly in the streets.
And when the title of Marquise of Qingping was finally conferred upon her, there were more than a few court officials who smiled through gritted teeth while offering congratulations.
Her adoptive father, the Imperial Grand Tutor Tao, however, had looked at her that day with unconcealed pride.
Even the Empress Dowager Mingde seemed weary of dragging the couple endlessly back into political storms. After the campaign, she granted them several months of leave and personally promised to oversee court affairs unless their return became necessary.
It was less a reward than an act of mercy.
So, on the eve of the New Year, they returned to Lin’an.
Zhao Uncle and Aunt Zhao welcomed them with such warmth that even the weary journey faded quickly from memory. Changning arrived, clinging affectionately to Changyu’s arm, while Grand Tutor Tao and the brothers-in-arms from the Blood-Clad Cavalry and the Northwest Pig Butcher Squad filled the residence with noise and laughter until the old estate seemed alive again.
The residence itself no longer resembled the modest home it had once been. Its weathered walls had been rebuilt and strengthened; elegant stone and woodwork now enclosed the outer courtyard. New servants moved busily through polished corridors; a proper armoury had been added for convenience, though neither Xie Zheng nor Changyu ever thought to store their most treasured weapons there.
In their chambers, Changyu’s modao rested opposite Xie Zheng’s halberd, facing one another like silent sentinels.
And at Changyu’s waist hung the twin swords she carried nearly everywhere, even while cooking.
That morning, the kitchens had been full of noise and warmth.
Aunt Zhao, who had somehow become both Changyu’s godmother and unofficial matriarch of the household, stood at the stove directing everyone with the terrifying authority of a seasoned general. Veterans who had once charged cavalry lines without flinching now scrambled to obey her sharp commands, tripping over baskets of vegetables and arguing bitterly over who had been forced to knead dough last time.
Changyu laughed so hard she nearly dropped the cleaver she was using to chop scallions.
Even now, she cooked with weapons at her side.
Most people only saw the finely forged twin blades.
Xie Zheng alone saw the butcher knives they had once been.
Years ago, they had been her father’s butcher knives; the crude, familiar steel that had once been all she possessed against the world, before they shattered during the fight against Shi Hu. Afterwards, Xie Zheng had searched the battlefield himself, gathering each broken fragment from the blood-soaked mud. Later, he had melted and reforged the broken pieces into twin swords without ever telling her beforehand.
That was how he loved her.
Quietly, patiently, with gestures that hid entire oceans of devotion beneath them.
He buried affection inside practical things until it became impossible to separate his love from the shape of her daily life.
When he passed through the kitchen that morning and saw those swords gleaming at her waist while she bickered with Aunt Zhao over seasoning, something in his chest had gone achingly soft.
This, he thought, was peace.
Not treaties or court titles or military victories.
This.
The smell of simmering broth. Changyu’s laughter rising above the noise. Snow gathering softly against the lattice windows while warmth filled every corner of the house.
By the time the feast was laid out, even Grand Tutor Tao’s usual severity had thawed enough for him to accept Aunt Zhao’s repeated offers of wine.
They ate until no one could move.
Then, as the afternoon waned and the first lanterns outside flickered to life, Changyu insisted they all go to the New Year market.
And so they went.
Changyu remained close to Xie Zheng nearly the entire time.
Years of separation had left both of them greedy for ordinary tenderness. Three years of campaigns, of hurried reunions and letters carried across battlefields, had turned even the simple act of holding hands into something precious.
Xie Zheng indulged her in everything that evening.
When she paused at stalls, he carried whatever she bought before she could reach for it herself. When she argued with merchants over prices, he stood beside her listening with helpless amusement, fingers never straying far from hers.
Then Changyu caught sight of honey cakes.
She had been craving them for days.
The honey cake stall stood across the crowded street, nearly swallowed by festivalgoers gathering beneath a towering lantern scaffold erected for the celebrations. Changning immediately volunteered to go with her Jiefu to buy them while Changyu stayed behind with her adoptive father and godparents.
It should have taken only a moment.
Xie Zheng remembered glancing back once while walking away.
Changyu stood beneath the lantern light, laughing over something Zhao Uncle had said, one hand absently resting against the hilt of her sword.
Beautiful.
Alive.
Close enough to reach.
Then the world screamed.
The sound came first—the terrible groan of splintering timber. Xie Zheng turned instinctively.
And watched the towering lantern structure collapse.
For one impossible instant, time seemed to freeze beneath the snowfall.
Countless lanterns shattered as they fell, flames scattering across the snow-dusted street like torn embers. Heavy beams crashed downward into the panicked crowd below. People screamed and fled in every direction as the once-bright festival dissolved instantly into chaos.
But Xie Zheng saw only one thing.
Changyu.
Her head lifted a second too late beneath the falling shadow.
And then the crowd surged violently between them.
“Changyu!”
He was already moving before the last beam struck the ground.
The distance between them had never felt so unbearably far.
By the time he forced his way through the screaming crowd, the scaffold had collapsed entirely. Flames crawled hungrily through splintered timber and torn silk while thick smoke rolled upward into the winter night. Around him, people stumbled through the wreckage in terror, some bleeding, others crying out for missing family members beneath the roar of fire.
And in the midst of it all stood Fan Changyu.
Alive.
Relief struck him with enough force to hurt.
Her twin swords were already drawn.
One burning support beam crashed toward a trapped family, only for Changyu to strike it aside before it could fall. Nearby, Zhao Uncle and several veterans from the Northwest Pig Butcher Squad dragged injured civilians free from collapsed debris while Aunt Zhao shielded a trembling Changning against her chest.
“Move back!” Changyu shouted, smoke roughening her voice. “Everyone move back!”
Even amidst the chaos, people obeyed her instinctively.
Xie Zheng reached her side moments later. Together they pulled wounded civilians from beneath shattered beams, shielding whoever they could reach as burning debris rained from above.
For one brief, desperate stretch of time, it felt almost like the battlefield again.
Back to back.
Moving as one without thought, without hesitation.
The firelight flickered across Changyu’s face as she shoved a fallen timber aside to free a crying child pinned beneath it. Nearby, Xie Zheng caught an elderly man before the collapsing debris could strike him, pushing him toward safety through the panicked crowd.
Then came another sound.
A sharp crack overhead.
Xie Zheng looked up instinctively.
And felt the blood freeze in his veins.
One of the upper support beams, already half-devoured by fire, tore loose from the collapsing scaffold above them. Burning timber groaned as it plummeted downward straight behind Changyu.
“Changyu!”
His voice tore through the chaos.
She turned at the sound of it, just as she shoved the rescued child toward safety.
Too late.
Xie Zheng saw the firelight catch briefly in her eyes.
Saw horror bloom across Changning’s face somewhere beyond the smoke.
Saw the burning beam come crashing down upon her before he could ever hope to reach her.
The impact thundered through the street.
For one terrible instant, the entire world seemed to fall silent.
The packet of honey cakes slipped from Changning’s hands and struck the ground untouched.
And beneath the roaring collapse of lanterns and fire, Xie Zheng felt his entire world give way like thawing snow beneath his feet.