At last, the two young men reached their separate destinations.
When Han Liang stepped into the inn, he was met by the quiet warmth of an old but carefully maintained building. The wooden frames, painted deep red, had been softened by years of wind and rain, while lantern light flickered gently along the corridor.
The owners — an elderly couple — studied him with quiet awareness. They could tell at once that he was not from this town, not from this peaceful mountain market. Still, they welcomed him with quiet kindness, offering tea and a room without asking too many questions.
Han Liang accepted. He did not linger downstairs.
Inside his room, the silence settled quickly. He stood at the window for a moment, looking out at the dark street below — committing everything to memory the way he always did.
The masked figures. Their words. One name that had surfaced tonight.
The Jewel Sect.
He turned away from the window.
*Did their encounter carry meaning… or was he simply searching for one?*
He did not answer. It was not a question he usually asked.
---
Elsewhere, Yuan Yu returned to his private residence within the Jewel Sect.
His quarters stood apart from the gathering halls, hidden among endless peach trees — as though protected by spring itself. Behind its walls, the air smelled faintly sweet. The silence carried a sense of safety.
In the garden, there was only one pomegranate tree.
His father had given him this residence when he came of age. The pomegranate tree had been there already — alone among the endless peach blossoms, slightly apart from everything else. Yuan Yu had never known who planted it.
Tonight, passing it in the dark, he slowed for just a moment.
Then he went inside.
The room was as he had left it — antique vases, pale jade reflecting the lamplight, shelves of books arranged with quiet precision. This place was meant for peace, not politics.
Here, away from expectations, Yuan Yu could breathe.
He sat down. The jade comb rested once more in his palm. His fingers brushed its surface. The warmth returned — stronger this time, as if it had remembered something. Yuan Yu stilled. He didn't understand it, but he couldn't ignore it either.
He reached for his journal and opened it.
*Tonight, the jade spoke,* he wrote. *Not in words. In warmth. In something I cannot explain and am not yet willing to name.*
*And there was someone on the rooftop.*
He set the brush down and closed the journal.
---
As night slowly edged toward dawn, both young men lay awake in their separate rooms.
Who was the night-blue-eyed man watching from the rooftop?
And who was the stranger beneath the peach blossoms, holding jade as though it could speak?
Neither of them had an answer.
Yet Han Liang felt something restless beneath his ribs — a quiet impatience he did not recognize.
And Yuan Yu could still feel the faint warmth of the jade.
In the silence, they finally closed their eyes.
And somewhere between dream and darkness, the jade comb sat warm in the quiet — as if it, alone, already knew what neither of them did.