Then, after a long mont, he spoke again, his voice quieter now, almost hesitant.
"How about you look at my fate?" The words ca out carefully, as if he’d been holding them back and finally decided to release them. "I want to know... you know..."
He trailed off, unable or unwilling to finish the sentence.
The request hung in the air between them, heavy with implication. After everything they’d just discussed about sparing Chen Xiao from the burden of knowledge, here he was asking for exactly that burden for himself.
Shuyin went very still in his arms.
The silence stretched long, heavy with unspoken tension. Lu Yuze could feel her body stiffen slightly, could sense the sudden wariness radiating from her.
"No," she said finally, the word flat and absolute.
"Shuyin..."
"No," she repeated, more firmly this ti. She pulled back slightly so she could look at him, her jade eyes serious, guarded. "I haven’t looked at your fate, and I won’t. That won’t happen in any way."
"But we just agreed that so knowledge is too heavy for children to bear," Lu Yuze said carefully. "I’m not a child but an adult. I can handle it."
"Can you?" Shuyin’s gaze was sharp now, piercing. "You think you can, but you don’t know. You don’t know what it’s like to carry that knowledge, to see the end written and be powerless to change it."
"Then tell ," he pressed. "Let decide if I can handle it."
"That’s not how this works." Shuyin’s voice carried an edge now, sothing almost defensive. "Once you know, you can’t unknow it. Every mont between now and then becos colored by that knowledge. Every decision, every conversation, every touch, all of it becos shadowed by the ending."
She sat up fully now, putting distance between them, her dark hair falling like a curtain around her shoulders.
"Do you know what it’s like?" she asked, her voice quieter but no less intense. "To look at soone you care about and see their death superimposed over their face? To count down the days, the hours, watching ti slip away while they laugh and live, completely unaware? To have every happy mont tainted by the knowledge of what’s coming?"
There was sothing raw in her voice now, sothing painful and deeply personal.
"I’ve lived centuries watching people die," Shuyin continued, her hands clenching in the sheets. "I’ve seen friends, acquaintances, people I cared about, all of them marching toward ends I could see clearly while they remained blissfully ignorant. And the worst part isn’t watching them die. It’s the ti before. The knowing. The waiting. The way every goodbye might be the last one, and you’re the only one who knows it."
She turned to look at him fully, and Lu Yuze was startled to see sothing glistening in her eyes, not quite tears, but close.
"So no," she said firmly. "I won’t look at your fate. I won’t curse myself with that knowledge. I won’t spend however long we have together counting down to your ending. I want to love you without that shadow hanging over us. I want to be surprised by each day we get, not dreading the one we won’t."
Lu Yuze absorbed this, seeing for the first ti the true weight of what he’d been asking. Not just knowledge for himself, but a burden for her. The burden of knowing, of watching, of waiting for his death while pretending everything was normal.
"I’m sorry," he said quietly. "I didn’t think about what it would cost you."
Shuyin’s expression softened slightly, so of the defensiveness draining away. "You’re mortal, Lu Yuze. That’s all I need to know. You’ll die soday, whether it’s next year or in fifty years, it will happen. And when it does, I’ll grieve. But until then..."
She reached out and took his hand, her fingers intertwining with his.
"Until then, I want to live in uncertainty. I want to wake up each morning not knowing if it’s our last. I want to argue with you about stupid things without wondering if this will be our final fight. I want to make love to you without counting how many tis we have left." Her grip tightened. "I want to be present with you, not trapped in the future."
Lu Yuze pulled her back into his arms, holding her close. "I understand. I won’t ask again."
"Good." Shuyin settled against his chest, her voice muffled. "Besides, knowing wouldn’t change anything. You’d still make the sa choices, live the sa way. All it would do is add anxiety and fear to your remaining ti. What’s the point of that?"
"There isn’t one," Lu Yuze admitted. "I suppose I was just... curious. Wanting to be prepared."
"You can’t prepare for death," Shuyin said softly. "Trust , I’ve watched countless people try. The ones who knew their endings often wasted their remaining ti being afraid instead of living. The ones who died suddenly, unexpectedly, at least they lived fully until the end."
She pulled back to look at him again, her expression gentler now. "So live, Lu Yuze. Don’t worry about when or how. Just... live. With . For however long we get."
"However long we get," he echoed, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "I can do that."
"Good." Shuyin yawned suddenly, exhaustion catching up with her again.
"Your brother is downstairs, has been waiting for you for the last two hours already!" Lu Yuze reminded her, turning over to face the ceiling with a slight smile.
Shuyin paused halfway to sitting up, then slowly lay back down, her body lting into the mattress like she’d lost all motivation to move. "Let him wait..." she mumbled, her eyes already drifting closed again, exhaustion pulling her back under.
Lu Yuze glanced over at her, watching as she burrowed deeper into the pillows, clearly having no intention of getting up anyti soon despite just saying they should.
With a soft chuckle and a resigned sigh, he rolled toward her and dragged her into his arms, tucking her against his chest. If she was going back to sleep, he might as well accompany her.
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