I lifted my foot to step out of the barrier—and stopped. My toes hovered over the boundary as anxiety tightened around my chest. How could I help him?
Before I could think of anything useful, Gu Yuan had already materialized at Xun Mengsheng’s side. His sword rested across the other man’s chest, its blade tangled with the iron spikes of Xun’s chain. The duel between the two men flared, and in an instant they both streaked up as two long beams—one silver, one blood-red—piercing the black clouds overhead.
Everything vanished into that darkness. I was left inside the barrier looking up at the roiling sky, waiting for news. I told myself Gu Yuan must have won—otherwise Hu Qingluan wouldn’t have appeared in my world. But whether my presence here had altered anything was a question neither I nor anyone else could answer.
Helplessness settled on me; all I could do was wait. Then a thunderclap rent the night—blue-white and raw—splitting the ink-black sky and turning earth and cloud into something too bright to look at. I flinched and felt my heart stutter.
That blue lightning was familiar—the heavenly thunder. Gu Yuan had once called it down to save me. Why now? Had he summoned it at Xun Mengsheng?
Before I could chase the thought further, a body fell out of the clouds and slammed to the earth right in front of me. Xun Mengsheng. He lay blackened where the lightning had struck him, barely breathing, skin charred into a web of ruptured wounds. Then Gu Yuan dropped down after him; seeing Gu Yuan unhurt, a heavy stone rolled out of my chest.
I smiled at him—a small, shaky smile—and he looked back at Xun with an ice-cold gaze, sword pressed to the man's throat.
“Have you made up your mind?” Gu Yuan asked.
Xun curled one hand over his split ribs. The flesh there was burned to a brittle mesh, veins like dark twigs under ash; blood seeped from a hundred tiny breaks.
“Third Master is right,” Xun said, voice ragged. “I’ve been too stubborn. I will let go of Hu Qingluan. From now on I will obey you—show you loyalty. Spare my life, I beg you.”
He kowtowed to Gu Yuan with the mechanical humility of a man who had been broken. From his sleeve he drew out a tiny vial and pushed it toward Gu Yuan.
“This holds the queen of the lover-gu,” he said. “Place it near Hu Qingluan and cut her wrist. The brood will crawl back to their queen—her enchantment will be undone.”
“And the red string…” He raised his hand; the red thread shimmered into sight again, a thin scarlet cord that trembled between us. His eyes flickered with something like regret.
“I once offered my heart to the moon,” he murmured, “but the moon shone upon a gutter.” Then, with a last cruel tug at himself, he yanked the thread hard. It sent out a crimson glow and snapped into the puddle on the ground.
The string had been severed. Gu Yuan withdrew his sword and reached out. The thread that had been tied to my ring finger slid up like a strand of silk.
Xun knelt there and looked from me to Gu Yuan, voice falling to a whisper: “Are you certain you want it cut?”
Gu Yuan said nothing. He turned to me, waiting for my answer.
My lips trembled. I knew what had to be done. The line that tied me to another person—whether fate or enchantment—couldn’t remain. I swallowed and gave the single word I felt in my bones.
“Cut.”
Gu Yuan’s eyes dropped and a curious, almost unreadable smile touched his mouth.
“Gu—” I began, ready to explain.
He raised a hand and, with a softness that didn’t reach his eyes, made a childlike, earnest smile at me. “No need to explain. I’ll do as you say.”
Xun let out a helpless chuckle and shook his head. He laid his fingers gently on the remaining red thread. The cord pulsed like a breathing lamp—one blink, then another—and its tug was a physical ache against my ribcage.
I fixed my gaze on the thread coiling toward me. I knew, with bone-deep certainty, that if he pulled it apart I would feel as if my heart had been split.
Xun’s hand hesitated. He glanced at our solemn faces and then spoke, resignation in his voice. “All right. It’s better to dismantle ten temples than ruin one marriage. You two have something between you already. Even if I tear this now, it will bind again; the spell I placed has been lifted. Whether you yourselves choose to break it later is for you to decide.”
With that, he let go. At the moment his fingers opened, the pressure in my chest released as if someone unclenched a fist from around my heart—I could breathe again.
Gu Yuan seemed to breathe out too, and when he met my eyes I flung him a bright, grateful smile. He didn’t smile back. He looked distant, still a little cold.
The Hu family business with Hu Qingluan was settled. Xun, of course, could not return to the Hu family estate on Changbai Mountain—what awaited him there was anyone’s guess. Gu Yuan had spared him, but not out of mercy; he had no intention of letting Xun undermine things again. If Xun caused no more trouble, Gu Yuan would pretend nothing happened.
Xun prostrated himself before Gu Yuan, thanking him for his mercy, promising to serve without question. He handed over a brass lock as token of fealty. Gu Yuan asked me to take it and we left, returning to the Hu ancestral manor on Changbai Mountain.
I picked up the lock and pushed it toward him. “Keep it,” I said. “You might need it one day.”
He didn’t even look at it, much less take it. “If you want it, keep it,” he said in a voice stripped of warmth—the same chill he’d shown when we first met, thousands of years ago.
He walked ahead and I pursed my lips. How small-minded, I thought. A single red thread—what did it really mean? With it or without, what difference did it make?
“You still sulking over a red string?” I hurried to catch up, teasing.
“No,” he said flatly. “What does a red string matter, anyway?”
I blinked wildly and inhaled, suddenly paranoid. Did he…read my thoughts? Was he some kind of mind-reader who knew what I was thinking before I did?
“I’m not a mind-reader,” he said without turning. “I already know these things without you thinking them.”
Heat climbed my neck. I shut my mouth and stopped thinking. This man really was frightening.
“But I wasn’t entirely wrong—think about it,” I pressed. “A red string is supposed to bind two people. If two hearts already belong to each other, what’s the point of a string? That’s what I meant when I said it doesn’t matter.”
“Then cut it,” Gu Yuan replied, indifferent. And with a flick of his wrist the scarlet thread reappeared between us—brilliant and harsh against the dim evening.
“Go on, do it,” his voice was ice; his eyes colder than the air. I raised my right hand and, despite myself, reached toward the thread. I stole a glance at Gu Yuan. His expression was a warning: if you truly pull this, you will be finished.
I couldn’t do it. I snatched my hand back and babbled a hasty surrender. “Never mind. I won’t. It’s fine as is—really. Heh, heh.”
“You won’t pull it, then I will.” His words cut through me like a blade. Before I could blink he raised his hand and swung down toward the red line.
I widened my eyes. My insides churned—fear, relief, something bitter and sweet all at once. I bit my lip until it stung and held my breath as his hand fell…