Without another word, Xie Zheng drew her into his arms.

His embrace tightened, not with strength alone, but with the quiet desperation of a man trying to hold back the tide.

A single tear slipped free despite him, carving a quiet path down his cheek. 

It was the kind of tear born not from weakness, but from endurance—one that had waited a long time for permission to fall. It carried the weight of battlefields survived, nights spent believing pain was simply another duty to bear, and the unbearable relief of finding the person he had feared losing still warm within his embrace.

It was a tear that carried with it all the fear and love that words had never been able to contain. 

Before anyone else could notice, he brushed it away with the back of his thumb.

The gesture was almost instinctive. Quiet. Careful.

As though even his sorrow ought to remain disciplined, hidden from the world, lest it burden someone else. Yet neither the gesture nor his composure could erase the truth it proclaimed: that even the strongest men bled in places no blade could ever reach. 

Fan Changyu possessed no army. No title capable of commanding ten thousand men. No imperial decree. And yet she alone could accomplish what no general, emperor, or strategist had ever managed.

She could call the Marquis of Wu'an back from war. Not merely from the battlefield beneath his feet, but from the one that had lived inside him for most of his life.

The Marquis of Wu'an had always been likened to an unsheathed sword—brilliant, unwavering, and frighteningly efficient. He judged with reason, acted with precision, and dispensed mercy as sparingly as grain during a famine. In his eyes, affection had always been a weakness; love, an exposed seam in a fortress wall through which enemies inevitably entered. 

It was safer not to love. Safer not to need. Safer not to feel. Safer to be alone.

Then Fan Changyu had wandered into his life carrying butcher's knives, impossible courage, stubbornness, and sincerity….and somehow became the only person capable of disarming the most dangerous man in Great Yin.

Not because she dulled its edge, but because she alone knew when it should remain sheathed and when it must be drawn.

The Marquis of Wu’an remained every inch the commander who inspired allies and terrified enemies. But Changyu had become the hand upon the hilt. 

She was the one place where the Marquis of Wu'an ceased to be a legend, a commander, or a prince regent.

With her......he was simply Xie Zheng. A husband. A man allowed to bleed, to laugh, to be jealous over a bowl of soup, and to rest. A man who discovered that wounds hurt a little less when someone he loved wrapped her hands around his. A man who, for the first time in many years, had somewhere he could lay down both his sword and the weight of carrying it.

It had never been that Xie Zheng had forgotten how to love.

He had merely spent half his life waiting for someone strong enough to remind him what it looked like.

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Without another word, Xie Zheng drew her into his arms.

His embrace tightened, not with strength alone, but with the quiet desperation of a man trying to hold back the tide.

A single tear slipped free despite him, carving a quiet path down his cheek. 

It was the kind of tear born not from weakness, but from endurance—one that had waited a long time for permission to fall. It carried the weight of battlefields survived, nights spent believing pain was simply another duty to bear, and the unbearable relief of finding the person he had feared losing still warm within his embrace.

It was a tear that carried with it all the fear and love that words had never been able to contain. 

Before anyone else could notice, he brushed it away with the back of his thumb.

The gesture was almost instinctive. Quiet. Careful.

As though even his sorrow ought to remain disciplined, hidden from the world, lest it burden someone else. Yet neither the gesture nor his composure could erase the truth it proclaimed: that even the strongest men bled in places no blade could ever reach. 

Around them, the room gradually fell quiet. Their friends looked on in silence, eyes glistening with tears they made no attempt to hide.

For Qi Shu, this was a peculiar thing to witness.

Fan Changyu possessed no army. No title capable of commanding ten thousand men. No imperial decree. And yet she alone could accomplish what no general, emperor, or strategist had ever managed.

She could call the Marquis of Wu'an back from war. Not merely from the battlefield beneath his feet, but from the one that had lived inside him for most of his life.

No one knew better than Qi Shu did the man he had once been.

The Marquis of Wu'an had always been likened to an unsheathed sword—brilliant, unwavering, and frighteningly efficient. He judged with reason, acted with precision, and dispensed mercy as sparingly as grain during a famine. In his eyes, affection had always been a weakness; love, an exposed seam in a fortress wall through which enemies inevitably entered. 

It was safer not to love. Safer not to need. Safer not to feel. Safer to be alone.

Then Fan Changyu had wandered into his life carrying butcher's knives, impossible courage, stubbornness, and sincerity….and somehow became the only person capable of disarming the most dangerous man in Great Yin.

Not because she dulled its edge, but because she alone knew when it should remain sheathed and when it must be drawn.

The Marquis of Wu’an remained every inch the commander who inspired allies and terrified enemies. But Changyu had become the hand upon the hilt. 

She was the one place where the Marquis of Wu'an ceased to be a legend, a commander, or a prince regent.

With her......he was simply Xie Zheng. A husband. A man allowed to bleed, to laugh, to be jealous over a bowl of soup, and to rest. A man who discovered that wounds hurt a little less when someone he loved wrapped her hands around his. A man who, for the first time in many years, had somewhere he could lay down both his sword and the weight of carrying it.

Only then did Qi Shu understand.

It had never been that Xie Zheng had forgotten how to love.

He had merely spent half his life waiting for someone strong enough to remind him what it looked like.

Once the room had fallen silent, Gongsun Yin let out a long breath. "She has been in a dreadful mood."

Xie Zheng glanced at him. "Her parents still object?"

Gongsun gave a humourless smile. "They remain unconvinced that I should become their son-in-law."

Xie Zheng considered this. Women in foul moods were hardly unfamiliar territory. In his experience, a cart laden with explosives was generally the more emotionally stable of the two.

"Titles are little more than ink on paper," he said. "I've met plenty of nobles with impressive pedigrees and remarkably unimpressive character."

"That is very easy for you to say." Gongsun looked at him pointedly. "You are the Marquis of Wu'an. If someone objected to your marriage, your first instinct would be to arrive at their front gate carrying a sword."

"I would hear their reasoning first."

"...While carrying a sword."

"...Yes."

Gongsun sighed, vindicated.

Xie Zheng leaned back in his chair. "If preserving harmony with your future in-laws is your concern..." he said thoughtfully, "have you considered marrying into the Qi family instead?"

Gongsun blinked. "...You mean becoming a matrilocal husband?"

"Why not?" Xie Zheng inspected a small nick on one of his fingernails with surprising concentration. "You're organised, meticulous, and capable of folding blankets with military precision. I imagine you'd make an excellent househusband."

Gongsun stared at him as though the Marquis had suddenly begun speaking an obscure mountain dialect. Of all the people in Great Yin, the last one he had expected to advocate becoming a resident son-in-law was Xie Zheng.

"...Did you strike your head in that last battle?"

Xie Zheng ignored him. "Besides," he continued matter-of-factly, "marrying into the Qi family would make you one generation senior to Sui Yuanqing." He paused, slightly amused. "You could make him call you the honourable uncle."

~~~~

after qi min was defeated, wei yan executed, and everything's back to their rightful place, it's revealed that changyu was actually a transmigrator who travelled to the past to save dayin. she had one peaceful night with xie zheng, they slept so soundly, and when she woke up, she was back to her room in the present time. the air in her room was stuffy and her body didn't feel like her own. she sobbed quietly, her body drained of energy and warmth.

2000 years in the past, xie zheng wakes up to a bewildered changyu beside him. and her eyes, for some reason, don't look familiar at all.