Chapter 126: Broken... yet whole.
The room was quiet but for the gentle sound of rain outside, a steady, rhythmic hum that soothed the tension in the air. Inside, the dim light of the lantern flickered softly, casting warm shadows across the walls. Feng Jiao Xue sat beside Mo Tianze’s bed, her posture poised but with a subtle, quiet tension as her eyes never once strayed from his form.
For three days, she hadn’t left his side.
Not even when the fever had raged, burning him with a relentless fury. She had stayed with him through each wave of heat and tremor, soothing him with damp cloths, coaxing his fever down, and regulating the chaotic qi that threatened to consume him. She’d hardly slept, barely eaten, too focused on him, too worried about his state to care for anything else. He was her responsibility. Her promise.
And though she told herself it was nothing more than that, a duty, each moment spent beside him wore away at the wall she had so carefully built around herself.
She refused to acknowledge the way her heart ached when his fever spiked, how her pulse quickened when his breath became shallow, or how her hand instinctively found his every time he stirred. No, she told herself. She wouldn’t think about that. She couldn’t. Not now.
But when his golden eyes finally fluttered open, when his breathing steadied, and his body relaxed into the soft pillow beneath him, she felt a weight lift from her chest that she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying.
Mo Tianze stirred again, his lips parting slightly as he let out a soft sigh. His eyelids fluttered as his gaze wandered, unfocused at first, before it slowly sharpened.
And then he saw her.
Feng Jiao Xue sat on a chair beside the bed, a book open in her hands, the pages almost glowing in the dim light. She was so engrossed in her reading that she didn’t even notice his gaze upon her at first. Her brow furrowed slightly, her lips moving as she silently studied the symbols on the page, the basics of magic manipulation, techniques that could help her wield her abilities more effectively.
It was a stark contrast to the battlefield, the chaos, the bloodshed she had faced. Here, in this moment, there was a quiet peace that had settled over her so unlike the fierce, untouchable warrior she often portrayed.
Mo Tianze’s golden eyes softened, but there was a question in them, a flicker of confusion. He swallowed, his voice hoarse from his fever. "Jiao Xue...?"