And Mu Yunchen understood with perfect clarity that he would spend however long it took making this up to her. Starting with never, ever taking her devotion for granted again. Starting with never playing games with something as serious as memory and recognition. Starting with being absolutely certain she understood how much she mattered to him, how real their connection was, how completely he saw and valued her.
Starting with making sure she never, ever felt desperate enough to hold a knife to her own throat again.
Because losing her... truly losing her to suicide or despair or the crushing weight of loving someone she thought had forgotten her... would be infinitely worse than any injury he'd sustained, any conspiracy he'd faced, any threat to his life or empire.
She was the empire.
Everything else was just details.
