The chamber was silent at first, thick with the scent of spilled, watered-down wine and the heavy weight of a shattered composure.
Hàn Zì listened to his little brother, his own anger morphing into a familiar, tender annoyance. He could practically see the scene that had unfolded: the frantic, self-inflicted chaos of a young man taught to suppress every vulnerable emotion. That cruel social rule, which deemed tears a weakness, had cut Hàn Zài far too deeply this time.
How could he ignore it—like the knife he'd once dismissed?
Hàn Zì knelt by the bed and, gently yet firmly, made his brother look up. "...So, what's next?" His brows drew together, showing faint disapproval and a weary impatience.
Hàn Zài blinked, startled and miserable. He could sense his brother's protective fury beginning to simmer. "Gēge—"
Before he could finish, Hàn Zì lightly struck his hand with his folded fan. It was a soft tap, a reprimand far gentler than the one he'd once gifted to Huà Yǐng. "Don't talk, little feather." His voice was a tight cord of anger and tenderness.
Hàn Zài, though his neck resisted the effort, rolled his eyes and sat straighter. "You came back to your room, messed up everything just because you lost your flawless test paper for breaking two simple rules," Hàn Zì's tone grew sharper, each word a chisel against his brother's self-pity. "Then you bled, as men are told to, and called yourself sick for overthinking. Am I right, Hàn?"
"Hmph—no… um, yes…" Hàn Zài muttered, taking another desperate gulp of the wine mixed with water. Then, his head falling back against the bed frame, he slurred again, "I mean… no, gēge."
"Stop drinking like a boy rejected by some girl." Hàn Zì tried to seize the cup, but Hàn Zài held it fast. His younger brother's breath hitched, his mouth parting slightly in a half-irritated, half-moved protest. "Mph! Don't call me that, gēge." He mumbled lower, his eyes shutting, "You know my ears hurt."
"Then listen. Get fresh and go to the academy. I'll tell Shīzūn to disqualify your rest completely—you'll at least perform with the sword students. I'm calling Yǐng Huō to take you." He said it all in one breath, an unyielding stream of command, while forcing Hàn Zài to his feet.
Hàn Zài blinked tiredly, whining. "Can't I just sleep for one full day?"
"Shut up. How many glasses did you drink, huh? You'll have planets roaming around your head if anyone suspects you've been drinking—wait!" Hàn Zì froze, his gaze sharp and calculating.
Hàn Zài froze, too, his face dripping with the water he'd splashed on it moments ago. His pale skin flushed softly, like rice paper kissed by blush. "Gēge…" he whispered, his voice half-terrified. "What's wrong again, gēge?"
"You drank real wine too? Without water?" His tone was a warning now, sharp with sudden, deep worry.
"Ah… what are you saying? You saw me drink—didn't you?" Hàn Zài tried to sound innocent, but his resistance was thin and weak. He murmured under his breath, "...but I still did." He quickly clamped a hand over his mouth, but the confession was already out.
"Hàn Zài! You'll be the death of me! If Father finds out, I can't save you from anything!"
"Then let me rest today!" he protested softly, almost pleading. "Just once, gēge… I don't want to see those annoying children right now."
"No rest. If you at least do the second part, it won't be a complete lie to Father."
"Gēge, you're more stubborn than me." Hàn Zài huffed while he swiftly fixed his hair and robes, unconsciously molding himself back into the presentable idol everyone expected him to be.
Hàn Zì huffed back, messing his brother's newly smooth hair. "Wait here, cutie. I'll bring the herb to erase your drunkenness. Don't you dare go out unless I say so." He left, the door closing with a definitive click behind him.
Hàn Zài groaned, palming his throbbing head once, twice. He stumbled to his knees near his messy table—and that was when Huà Yǐng's notebook slipped from the piled scrolls and fell squarely onto his lap.
"Stupid boy," he muttered bitterly. "Always shows up even when he isn't here."
But his heart, still drunken and vulnerable, began to pound faster. What could possibly be inside that "sin" disguised as a notebook, the thing that had swallowed his ten precious points in one go?
He opened it.
One page. Ten pages.
The handwriting was soft—too neat, too delicate for a mere child. He'd searched for drawings, a sketch of a bird or a flower, but the words caught him first.
Red is rose, blue is sky.
Nobody knows, who is Hàn Zài.
His breath hitched. That boy... he had been watching him. He laughed weakly, a trembling, disbelieving sound. "He writes poetry instead of listening to my class?"
He turned more pages, now driven by a frantic, impatient curiosity. Then, another poem—longer, titled: Huà Yǐng's Welcomed Sin.
I'm Huà Yǐng;
Don't know when things will turn into my biggest sin.
I know nothing but beauty… purity.
The beauty is this wide sky,
The beauty is everything around—
Each purity seen as sin.
I'm Huà Yǐng;
Don't know when things will turn into my biggest sin.
I know nothing but beauty… purity.
The 19th blue jade might hide it behind the sanity.
Hàn Zài froze. He had read hundreds of poems in his life—sad, cold, angry—but this one was different. What was it? A cry for help? A secret confession? And "19th blue jade"? The color of his feather was blue, and he was the nineteenth child in his family. Was it about him?
He turned more pages, his hands shaking, and then he stopped.
A drawing.
Huà Yǐng's drawing.
It wasn't simple or childish—it was a detailed portrait of Hàn Zài himself. He was depicted in rose-red robes embroidered in gold, a guqin beneath his fingers, sitting with divine, almost sorrowful grace. Below it, in that soft, neat hand, a single, devastating line:
"Maybe that's what could be called temple and pagoda both."
The world tilted. The pounding in his head wasn't from wine anymore; it was a drumbeat in his ears. Temple—an object of worship. Pagoda—a beautiful, sacred enclosure for relics.
In that single moment, every layer of his cultivated indifference shattered. The protective bubble of alcohol and self-pity burst, leaving him shockingly, violently sober. The childish urge to skip the day was gone, the instruction to stay was forgotten.
He ran.
He ran out of the room, throwing the door open, a man possessed. His feet pounded down the hall, heedless of any who might see him. His head no longer throbbed; it felt hollow and focused, his whole being streamlined into a single, desperate, and urgent need.