Shu Yao's gaze shifted to the center of the room. The little boy was still on the floor, weeping into his hands.
Despite the trauma vibrating in his own marrow, Shu Yao couldn't walk away. He moved almost reverently, his movements soft and fluid as he crouched down beside the child.
"Why are you crying?" he asked softly.
The boy looked up, his face red and wet. "Ms. Lady... she was rude. She yelled at me."
Shu Yao offered a small, devastatingly sad smile. He reached into the pocket of his brown coat—the coat George had given him—and pulled out a handful of candies wrapped in shimmering silver foil.
"Stop crying. It's Christmas," Shu Yao murmured. "And on Christmas, the stars give us sweetness to fight the dark."
The boy looked at the candies, his sobbing slowing to a hiccup. "How do you have these? These aren't in the shops here."
Shu Yao's smile deepened, though it didn't reach his haunted eyes. "Someone precious gave them to me once. They are very sweet—the sweetest thing I've ever known."
He placed the candies in the boy's palm. The child's face lit up, the terror of Ming Su's outburst forgotten in the face of Shu Yao's gentle light. The boy stood up and ran back to his friends, and for a fleeting second, Shu Yao felt a sense of peace.
The peace was incinerated the moment he remembered Ming Su's face. He followed her trail, moving like a shadow through the service corridors.
As he reached the entrance to the vast, industrial-grade kitchen, he saw a group of servants filing out, their heads bowed. He stopped one of them, a young girl who looked flustered.
"Why are you all leaving?" Shu Yao whispered.
"The young mistress is inside," the girl replied, her voice hushed. "She said she wanted to prepare the young master's favorite herself—a slice of cake and his hot chocolate. She told us she didn't want 'poor hands' touching his food. We were ordered to wait in the hall."
Shu Yao's heart lurched. Hot chocolate. Bai Qi's one remaining comfort. The only thing that could make the Monarch look human for a few minutes was a cup of thick, dark cocoa.
Shu Yao crept toward the kitchen door, peering through the small circular window. Inside, Ming Su was alone. She wasn't cutting cake. She was standing over a steaming porcelain mug, her hand hovering above it.
Shu Yao watched, his blood turning to liquid lead. Ming Su pulled a small vial from the folds of her crimson dress. With a steady, practiced hand, she began sprinkling a fine, crystalline powder over the dark surface of the liquid. She stirred it in with a silver spoon, her movements graceful and lethal.
Shu Yao ducked back, pressing a hand over his mouth to stifle a gasp.
So this is the present, he thought, his mind racing. This is what they planned together. Shen and Ming Su.
He fumbled for his phone in his pocket. His fingers were slick with cold sweat. He wanted to text Bai Qi, to scream at him through the screen to not touch the cup. But then he remembered the mahogany office. He remembered the look of disgust in Bai Qi's eyes when he had pinned Shu Yao to the floor.
Would he even believe me? Or would he think I'm just trying to sabotage his happiness with her?
The kitchen air was heavy with the scent of melted chocolate and expensive spices, but for Shu Yao, it felt like the atmosphere of a gas chamber. He stood frozen as Ming Su turned, her crimson dress swishing like a pool of fresh blood.
Her eyes, sharp and predatory a second ago, suddenly widened with a simulated, shivering terror.
"Merry Christmas, you poor, little soul," she whispered, her voice a serrated blade.
Shu Yao recoiled, his back hitting the cold industrial fridge. "I... I saw everything," he stammered, his voice trembling but determined. "I will tell Bai Qi. I'll tell him what you put in his hot chocolate."
Ming Su's expression shifted instantly. She didn't look afraid; she looked amused. She let out a jagged, musical laugh that made Shu Yao's skin crawl. She leaned in, her perfume cloying and suffocating.
"Oh, no," she mocked, pressing her palms together in a fake gesture of distress. "If Bai Qi finds out, he will be so devastated. He'll think his precious Ming Su is a monster."
Her smile vanished, replaced by a look of pure, icy venom. "You forget who I am, Shu Yao. And you forget what you are. I saw you the moment you stepped into this hallway. Did you think I was stupid?"
Before Shu Yao could react, Ming Su reached into her clutch and snatched a tube of deep red lipstick. With two swift, violent strokes, she smeared the pigment under her eyes, then smudged it with her fingers until it looked like raw, inflamed skin from heavy weeping.
"How could you do this to him, Shu Yao?" she suddenly shrieked, her voice high and fractured. "I thought you were innocent! I thought you cared for him!"
Shu Yao stared at her in total bafflement. "What... what are you doing?"
The door swung open with a violent thud. Bai Qi stood there, his cream-and-black suit a stark contrast to the sterile white tiles of the kitchen. His eyes were obsidian, burning with a frantic, protective heat.
"What did he do, Ming?" Bai Qi asked, his voice a low, vibrating growl.
Ming Su collapsed against him, burying her face in his chest. Her shoulders heaved with practiced, silent sobs. "Ah Qi... I... I couldn't believe it. I saw him... I saw Shu Yao adding something to your tray."
Shu Yao felt the world tilt. The sheer audacity of the lie left him breathless. He looked at Bai Qi, expecting to see a flicker of doubt, but he found only a wall of cold, uncompromising granite. Bai Qi didn't even look at him; his entire focus was on the woman "weeping" in his arms.
"I saw him with the hot chocolate," she whimpered into his lapel. "He thought I wasn't looking. He was sprinkling something... some kind of powder. Oh,
Ah Qi, I'm so scared."
Bai Qi finally turned his gaze to Shu Yao. It wasn't the gaze of a lover or even a master. It was the look of a judge delivering a final sentence.
"Did you add something to my food, Shu Yao? Is it true?"
Shu Yao frantically shook his head, his hands reaching into his chest in desperate plea. "No! No, Bai Qi, it's not what you think! She's the one—I saw her—"
"Silence!" Bai Qi barked, the sound echoing off the metal surfaces. He hushed Ming Su gently, then took a step toward Shu Yao, his presence towering and suffocating. "I am being polite because of her. Now tell me the truth. What did you do?"
Shu Yao's eyes welled with tears. The betrayal hurt more than the physical pain of three days ago. "I didn't do anything. I would never hurt you. Please, believe me."
Bai Qi's lip curled in a sneer. His mind, already poisoned by the "secret brother" revelation and the three days of Shu Yao's absence, began to weave a dark narrative.
"I see," Bai Qi whispered, his voice dangerously soft. "Three days of silence. Three days of hiding. You were orchestrating this, weren't you? You wanted revenge for what happened in the office. You were so tired of me that you decided to end it."
"No!" Shu Yao sobbed, the word a broken gasp. "I won't! I wouldn't!"
Ming Su smirked behind Bai Qi's shoulder, a fleeting, triumphant expression that only Shu Yao could see. She placed a delicate hand on Bai Qi's chest, her voice a soothing poison.
"It's okay, Ah Qi. You don't have to be angry. Let him explain himself. Maybe he has a reason for wanting you gone."
"If you didn't do it," Bai Qi said, ignoring Ming Su's "mercy," "then prove it."
He turned to the tray on the counter and picked up the steaming mug of hot chocolate. The dark, rich scent filled the air—the scent of Bai Qi's favorite comfort, now turned into a weapon. He held it out to Shu Yao, his eyes boring into the boy's soul.
"If you truly didn't add anything, and you want me to trust you... then drink it. All of it."
Shu Yao looked at the cup, then at Ming Su. She was staring at him with wide, panicked eyes, her composure finally cracking. She never expected Shu Yao to actually touch the liquid. She thought he would run, which would prove his "guilt."
Shu Yao looked back at Bai Qi. He saw the obsidian eyes that had once looked at him with a shred of tenderness, now filled with nothing but suspicion. He realized then that he was a stranger to the man he loved.
"Promise me," Shu Yao whispered, his lower lip quivering. "Promise me that if I finish this, you won't call me a liar anymore."
Bai Qi hissed under his breath, his jaw clenching. "Only if you prove your innocence."
Shu Yao reached out. His fingers brushed against Bai Qi's as he took the heavy porcelain mug. He felt a final, agonizing jolt of electricity at the contact—the last time he would ever feel the Monarch's touch.
Ming Su stepped back, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps. Is he insane? she thought. He's actually going to do it.
Shu Yao took the silver spoon. He looked at Bai Qi one last time, a small, devastating smile touching his lips—a smile of total surrender.
He took a spoonful. Then another.
The taste was metallic and sickly sweet, a strange bitterness lurking beneath the cocoa. He didn't stop. He swallowed the thick liquid down, his throat constricting with every gulp. He drank until the mug was empty, until the last drop of the tainted chocolate vanished.
He wiped his mouth with a trembling hand and set the cup back on the tray with a soft clink.
"See?" Shu Yao whispered, his voice beginning to sound thick and distant. "I told you. I didn't add anything to hurt you."
Bai Qi frowned, looking from the empty cup to Shu Yao's pale face. He looked at Ming Su, his suspicion shifting. "Maybe you were mistaken, Ming. He seems perfectly normal. If he didn't add anything... perhaps he was just checking the temperature for me. A way to say sorry for the last few days."
Ming Su's mask was near the breaking point. She forced a strained, shaky smile. "I... I must have been so stressed by the party. I'm so sorry, Ah Qi. I just wanted you to be safe."
Bai Qi sighed, the tension leaving his shoulders. He wrapped an arm around Ming Su, leading her toward the door. "It's fine. Let's go back to the guests. My parents are asking for us."
He didn't look back. He didn't see Shu Yao.
He moved with the grace of a broken marionette, tidying the counter. His hands shook, the porcelain rattling against the marble. He felt a strange, localized heat blooming in his chest—not the warmth of cocoa, but a dry, searing fever. His mouth felt suddenly like parchment.
I saved him, he whispered to the empty room. He didn't drink it. He's safe.
The festive lights of the Rothenberg gala were no longer stars; they were jagged shards of glass piercing Shu Yao's blurring vision. As he stumbled back into the garden, the laughter of children reached him—a high, silver sound that triggered a phantom ache in his chest.
He remembered clearly, a lifetime ago. He remembered a soft hand on his forehead and a voice promising that all pain was temporary. But the voice had lied. The pain hadn't vanished; it had simply evolved, growing teeth and claws until there was nothing left of him but a hollow vessel for other people's sins.