CHAPTER 136: CHAPTER 136; I ALWAYS ALWAYS THERE

For a long moment, he stood in the hush of the hallway, staring at nothing, letting the weight of his silence settle back into its place.

He couldn’t leave her alone for a moment. Not when her mind was still so fragile, when one wrong sound could send her spiraling again. With her sleeping so close to Yueqin, he had to be careful.

He turned the handle quietly and stepped back inside.

The dim light bathed the room in soft amber. Yueyao lay curled on her side, her arm draped protectively around Yueqin’s tiny frame.

Mother and daughter breathed in unison, their chests rising and falling together as if they had always been one.

Jin Shuren’s eyes lingered on them, two figures bound by blood, bound by pain, yet so unaware of the truth that tethered them more tightly than anything else.

For a moment, the mask he wore cracked, a shadow of longing flickering across his face before he forced it still again.

He walked over to the bed and gently caressed her face, every time he looked at Yueqin, he could see Yueyao’s image when she was a child. They had the same facial features and even expressions, even their hair had the same colour and texture.

His hand trembled as it hovered above her face, and this time he didn’t pull back. His fingers traced the curve of her cheek, feather-light, as though afraid she would vanish if he pressed too hard.

The warmth of her skin against his palm sent something sharp and aching through his chest, how many years had he dreamed of this, only to bury it beneath silence and restraint?

How many nights had he stood like this, watching over them from the shadows, carrying burdens they never knew, guarding what was never his to guard? Even when Yueyao had chosen another man, he had stayed near, never intruding, never demanding, and only waiting. And now, though their lives had been torn and rewritten by pain, here they were, within reach, yet still fragile as porcelain.

The sight of them together softened him in ways nothing else could.

The world might see him as ruthless, as calculating, but here, at this bedside, he was stripped bare.

The urge to protect them was instinct carved into his bones, not for duty or obligation, but for the love he had for them... so unyielding, unshaken, the kind that could outlast betrayal, time, and even fate itself.

He leaned closer, close enough to catch the faint rhythm of her breath, close enough that the veil between memory and reality seemed to blur.

"Yueyao..." The name slipped from him before he could stop it, soft, reverent, a prayer carried on the hush of the night. For an instant, he allowed himself the indulgence of what had always been forbidden, his lips brushed her forehead, tender and fleeting, a kiss that carried all the years he had swallowed his heart whole.

When he pulled back, his eyes burned with the weight of it, but his touch lingered at her hand, curling gently around her fingers as if anchoring her to him, even if she never knew. "Even when you belonged to another man," he murmured, voice rough, "I was always there for you and I will always be here. Always."

His thumb brushed across the back of her hand, lingering in slow circles as though memorizing every ridge of her skin, every fragile line that marked her humanity.

The years had taken so much of her laughter, her innocence, the warmth that once lit her eyes, but to him, none of it diminished her.

If anything, the scars only deepened his devotion. She was still the same girl who had once shielded him from the cold, still the woman he had followed through storms and silence, even if she never looked back to see him there.

He lowered his forehead to rest against their entwined hands, shutting his eyes as if to block out the cruel truth of the present.

If this was all he was allowed, then this moment was stolen in the hush of night, her hand resting in his, the illusion that she might belong here with him, then he would hold onto it with the desperation of a drowning man clinging to driftwood.

He had carried this love through lifetimes of restraint, and if fate demanded he carry it further still, he would do so without hesitation.

For a long moment, silence hung between them, broken only by the quiet rhythm of her heartbeat beneath his palm.

He let himself memorize it, her calm, her presence, this fragile reprieve. Tomorrow would not shatter it; he would see to that.

Whatever storms threatened, he would stand between them and her. She had suffered enough, carried enough. If the world tried to take her peace again, it would have to go through him first.

Tonight, he allowed himself to exist in this stillness, unguarded, and tomorrow he would begin the fight to make it last. Last forever...

His hand lingered in hers until he forced himself to let go. Slowly, carefully, he laid her fingers back against the coverlet as if they were made of glass. For an instant he bent lower, brushing the back of her knuckles with his lips, a vow sealed in silence.

He tugged the blanket higher over her shoulder, smoothing it into place, then did the same for Yueqin, tucking the child in with a gentleness that seemed to surprise even him. Before either could stir, he leaned down and pressed the barest kiss to their foreheads, a benediction he would never voice aloud.

Only then did he move to the far side of the room where a low couch stood, its cushions untouched. Lowering himself onto it, he sat with the measured stillness of a man used to long vigils. From here, he could see everything, the rise and fall of Yueyao’s shoulders, the soft flutter of Yueqin’s breath. He would watch, and he would be ready if the storm returned.