[Zhi Yu × Tuoba Sheng] Who could make a tyrant, whose dragon robes were stained with blood, conceal a tenderness he dared not touch amid the lust for power built on steps of bones?
Then, on a drafty night, he encountered a young bird in Pingkang Ward, bent beneath the frost. Zhi Yu was still a child, her eyes filled with a timid emptiness greater than the moonlit sky, like a butterfly that had forgotten how to fly.
He hid her in the shadows of the throne hall. When he came to her beneath the moon late at night, she was afraid, so he gathered her close, his palm so hot it made her tremble. When she grew tired, he let her rest against his knee, gently running his fingertips through her hair as if she were delicate porcelain.
On a bitterly cold snowy night, he tucked her feet into his arms to warm them and said, “I won’t kill you.” His tenderness was warmer than the palace’s heated floors. When she asked about the rumors of bloodshed, he pinched her cheek. “What happens to others has nothing to do with you.”
Arrows came through the rain one night, and he instinctively pulled her against him. Blood ran down his dragon robe, but he smiled, wiping away her tears. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll protect you.”
He slaughtered every dissenting voice for her, and the stench of blood lingered within the palace walls for three months. On the roof of Zichen Hall, he held her as they watched the lights, silver strands at his temples entwined with the moonlight. “I’ll give you this whole realm if you stay.”
Softly, she said, “I don’t want to see you in the next life.”
He smiled, sorrow spilling over the palace walls. “In this life, you can only be mine.”
