Bai Qi stood before the mirror in his dressing room, but he did not recognize the man staring back.
The obsidian depth of his eyes had been replaced by a shattered, bloodshot fatigue. He was a sovereign without a kingdom, a man whose only remaining domain was the bedside of a boy who would not wake.
The door creaked open, and the scent of expensive perfume—lilies and ozone—preceded the arrival of the queen.
Bai Mingzhu entered, her silver gown whispering against the polished floorboards like a secret.
"My little magician," she murmured, her voice a soothing balm in the sterile chill of the morning.
Bai Qi stiffened, his hand hovering over the buttons of his shirt. He didn't turn. He couldn't. He felt a searing, visceral embarrassment.
To be seen like this—hollowed out, shaking, pathetic—by the woman who believed him to be invincible was a different kind of torture.
Mingzhu approached him from behind, her reflection joining his in the glass. She reached out, placing one hand over his thundering heart, while the other rose to gently wipe a stray, traitorous tear from his cheek.
"Why aren't you resting?" she asked softly.
Bai Qi darted his eyes away, focusing on the floor. "I have to be there. In case he..."
"In case he wakes," she finished for him. She turned him around with a strength that belied her delicate frame. "My little boy, I know you hurt him. I know the weight of the shadow you cast over that child."
Bai Qi's hands trembled violently. He wanted to speak; he wanted to vomit out the truth of his sins.
He wanted to tell her how he had mocked Shu Yao, how he had used his power to trample on the boy's devotion, how he had been a monster wrapped in silk.
But as his lips parted, the words turned to ash. The shame was too dense, a physical blockage in his throat.
"Every person learns from their mistakes, don't they?" Mingzhu whispered, offering a bittersweet smile.
"You don't need to keep blaming yourself at the stake, Qi. He will come back. I believe in him. He has survived you this long; he will survive that for you too."
She pulled him into a hug, her warmth cutting through his icy armor.
For a moment, the "Monarch" vanished, and only a broken boy remained, clinging to his mother as he sought a mercy he felt he didn't deserve.
"I believe in you, too," she whispered into his hair. "Now, go to him."
Across the sprawling villa, the atmosphere in Niklas Rothenberg's study was of a vastly different temperature. It was a tomb of glass and leather, where sentiment went to die and ambition was the only currency.
Niklas sat behind his desk, his gold-blond hair catching the morning light like spun thread. He was examining a stack of files with an expression of clinical detachment. In front of him stood Armin, dressed in a beige-gold suit that made him look like a statue of a modern god.
Armin's posture was perfect, his expression a mask of professional stoicism. But beneath the table, his fingers were locked together, the knuckles white. He had just presented the results of a massive acquisition—work that should have earned him the highest praise.
Niklas closed the file, the sound echoing like a gavel. "Well done, Armin. You managed the logistics with a clarity.
Armin looked down at his sleek, bespoke shoes. "Thank you, Father."
"Is there something else?" Niklas asked, his voice trailing with boredom. "You're lingering."
Armin's heart hammered a frantic rhythm. He thought of Florian—the boy who had returned to him like a ghost made of starlight. He thought of the years he had spent suppressing his soul to fit into his father's mold.
"Father," Armin began, his voice surprisingly steady despite the storm inside. "I would like to speak with you about a personal matter."
Niklas leaned back, his cold blue eyes narrowing. Annoyance flickered across his face. "So, you too are stuck in your life? Do you all intend to bring your domestic dramas to my desk?"
Armin didn't flinch. He had learned from the best how to hide a wound. "If this is regarding my future... and my marriage... I wish to be clear."
Niklas leaned forward, the light shimmering off his hair. "If you are here to discuss a contract, speak. If you are here to discuss a 'feeling,' be brief."
Armin opened his mouth to speak the name—Florian—but a sudden terror seized him. He remembered the mistake Bai Qi had made. He remembered how easily miracles could vanish if they were handled by clumsy, cruel hands.
Before he could speak, the door swung open.
Bai Mingzhu swept into the room, her presence immediately softening the jagged edges of the confrontation. She saw her older son, standing there like a soldier on trial, and she saw the faint, tell-tale flush creeping up his neck.
"Oh, darling!" she exclaimed, moving toward Armin. "What are you doing here? Business at this hour?"
Armin stopped dead, his face a map of caught-out worry.
Mingzhu looked at her husband, her eyes narrowing playfully. "Husband, don't tell me you are forcing our Armin to work even at home? In his personal time?"
Niklas sighed, shaking his head. "He was the one who insisted on speaking. He has something 'personal' to share."
Mingzhu turned to Armin. She didn't miss the way his eyes darted away or the slight trembling of his hands. She placed a hand on his back, and she felt the flinch—the high-strung tension of a man in love and terrified of it.
"Why are you shy, darling?" she teased softly, her voice carrying a hidden layer of support. "Tell him. I bet he won't say anything as long as I'm standing here."
Armin felt completely exposed. He was the eldest, the "reliable" one, yet here he was, blushing like a schoolboy under his mother's intuition.
Niklas watched them, finally sensing that he was the only one in the dark. "Did he already tell you who he likes?" he asked, his voice dry.
Mingzhu smiled widely, a radiant expression of maternal triumph. "Our both sons are old enough to know how to love properly, Niklas. Even if they take the long way around."
Niklas shook his head, leaning back with a rare, weary exhale. "How did you manage both of them on your own? They are equally impossible."
Mingzhu's smile only grew. She was the woman who held the threads of the family together, the one who saw the heart beneath the armor.
Armin swallowed, the sound echoing in the silence of his own throat. He felt the weight of his mother's gaze—Bai Mingzhu's black onyx eyes were shimmering with a playful, encouraging spark that acted as a lifeline in the suffocating room.
"Come on," Mingzhu whispered, her voice a soft velvet nudge. "Now."
Niklas sat behind his mahogany desk, his patience thinning into a fine, jagged wire. He was exhausted by the domestic theater, his mind already drifting back to the cold mathematics of the Rothenberg empire.
Drawing upon the courage his stepmother had breathed into him, Armin lifted his chin. He stopped looking at his polished shoes and met his father's piercing blue gaze head-on.
"Father," Armin began, his voice dropping into a register of absolute, terrifying honesty. "I am in love with my assistant."
The silence that followed was not empty; it was pressurized.
Bai Mingzhu let out a soft, melodic chuckle, but Niklas was struck by a momentary paralysis.
The shock was visible—a rare dilation of his pupils, a subtle hitch in his breathing. For a man who prided himself on predicting every market fluctuation, this was a variable he had failed to calculate.
Niklas's brows knitted together, a stormy shadow crossing his handsome features. He cleared his throat, the sound sharp and clinical. "Can you explain that... carefully?"
"I love him," Armin repeated, the words more solid this time. "I love Florian."
Niklas's jaw tightened, a muscle twitching in his cheek. He stood up, the movement abrupt and imposing. "You too?" he muttered, his voice laced with a strange mixture of irritation and disbelief. "Are both my sons determined to succumb to this... drama?"
Armin felt the heat of a blush crawling up his neck, but he didn't dart his eyes away. He stood his ground like the architect of a new world, refusing to let the foundation crumble.
Before the tension could turn into a conflagration, Mingzhu was there. She glided across the room, placing a delicate hand on her husband's chest. The effect was instantaneous. Niklas looked down at his wife, and the cold, predatory fire in his eyes flickered and died.
"Come on, husband," Mingzhu chided gently, her fingers tracing the lapel of his suit. "Don't be so dramatic. It doesn't suit your station."
She leaned in, her voice a conspiratorial hum. "Give our son your blessing so he can go to his beloved. He has already earned your expectations, hasn't he?"
Niklas let out a long, weary sigh that seemed to deflate the entire room's hostility. He looked at his wife—the only person who knew how to bypass his armor—and felt the iron in his resolve soften. She was clutching his elbow just hard enough to signal a warning: Do not destroy their dreams.
Armin's eyes widened. The world, which had felt like a cage of gold and glass only moments ago, suddenly swung open. He looked at his mother, who was beaming at him with maternal triumph, and then at his father, who was already settling back into his seat to bury himself in paperwork.
"Thank you, father," Armin said, bowing deeply—a gesture of respect that felt, for the first time, like it was given freely.
He turned toward Mingzhu. She was waiting with open arms. Armin, a giant of a man at 198 centimeters, discarded his professional stoicism and rushed toward her.
He folded his massive frame to hug her, burying his face against her shoulder. Even though she was vastly shorter, she held him with the effortless strength of a woman who had carried the hearts of her children for decades.
"See?" she whispered into his ear, rubbing his back. "Didn't I tell you? Nothing bad was going to happen."
Niklas remained focused on his files, his posture shifting back to its original, unbothered state. He pretended not to hear the soft, emotional exchange, choosing to exist in a reality where his sons were still the perfect, emotionless extensions of his will.
"Thank you so much, Mother," Armin murmured, his voice thick with relief.
"Go on, honey," Mingzhu said, pushing him gently toward the door. "Don't worry about anything here. Go back to your beloved. When he hears this news, I suspect he won't let you out of the room until he has kissed you properly."
Armin's blush deepened into a vibrant crimson, the "Architect" finally looking like a man truly, deeply in love. He nodded once, a bright, genuine smile breaking across his face before he turned to leave, his heart already racing ahead to find Florian.
The glass-walled office was a sanctuary of amber light as the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the Rothenberg tower in shades of bruised violet and gold. The workday had dissolved into a quiet hum, leaving only the ghost of clicking keyboards and the scent of expensive parchment.
Florian was in his element, moving with the fluid, rhythmic efficiency of a man who had reclaimed his purpose. He organized the final dockets, his movements graceful yet precise.
As the last of the staff departed, the silence became a living thing. Armin sat behind his monolithic desk, watching Florian. The "Architect" could feel the weight of the morning's victory burning in his chest. He was tired of the clandestine glances and the shadowed corners. He wanted to hold Florian's hand in the light.
Florian finished his task and let out a weary, satisfied breath. He moved toward the plush leather chair opposite Armin. "Today was a long day," he murmured, his voice a soft melody in the quiet.
Armin stood up immediately. His massive frame—all 198 centimeters of structured elegance—cast a long shadow across the room. Florian looked up, his olive-green eyes searching Armin's face.
"How have you been these days?" Florian asked, his voice laced with a subtle, protective concern. "You look like you haven't been sleeping well."
He reached out, his fingers grazing Armin's cheek with a touch as light as a falling leaf. Armin didn't pull away. Instead, he took Florian's hand, lacing their fingers together with a firm, possessive heat. Florian's breath hitched, a faint blush staining his skin.
"I talked about it," Armin said, his voice dropping into a low, resonant baritone.
"Talk about what, Armin?"
"I told my father," Armin said, his gaze unwavering. "I told him that I love you."
The effect was instantaneous. Florian's olive-green eyes dilated in a flash of raw, visceral shock. He didn't celebrate; he panicked.
He lunged forward, his hands moving frantically over Armin's chest, his shoulders, and his palms. He was looking for bruises, for the tell-tale marks of a father's cold-blooded wrath. He knew Niklas Rothenberg—a man who broke lives with the same indifference he used to sign contracts.
"Did he hurt you?" Florian's voice was high, jagged with emerging tears. "Did he scold you? Armin, why would you—"
"Florian, calm down," Armin interrupted, a rare, genuine smile breaking across his features.
Florian stopped, his hands still clutching Armin's lapels. "Why are you smiling? This is your father we're talking about!"
"Because," Armin whispered, pulling Florian closer until their heartbeats seemed to sync, "I still have Mother by my side."
Florian froze. His eyes widened as the realization dawned on him. He darted his head away, his face blooming into a vibrant, breathless crimson. "Does that mean..."
Armin took Florian's hand and pressed it against his own cheek, closing his eyes. The tension of years seemed to evaporate in that single, tactile connection.
"Now there is no need to feel scared," Armin murmured.
Florian felt his heart thundering against his ribs—a frantic, joyous rhythm. The fear that had lived in his marrow for so long finally withered. He stepped into the circle of Armin's space, pressing his forehead against Armin's torso.
Because Armin was so tall, Florian felt completely enveloped, hidden from the world by a fortress of beige-gold silk and steady muscle. Armin wrapped his long arms around him, hugging him with a crushing, protective tightness.