The air crackled with tension for the next revelation. Because it was not only about a simple revelation, but someone's fate itself.
"May the god of love bless you with his last blessing to you. May you find your lifelong match," Chi Yan wished with deep focus. Eyes glossed, red hair rushed softly by the earth-smelled wind.
He slowly opened his eyes; bright blue eyes held the young Crown Prince Shen Yi's reflection. He could feel the King exchange a look with the Prince. The Shen palace felt like it was holding its breath.
Chi Yan's hands moved with the small ten dices of faith. He shook them three times before throwing them lightly onto the grand silver table. Then, a name was formed by the dice beside Prince Shen Yi's name— Mi Ying Xin.
The King grinned like he had won a lottery. He placed a proud hand on his son's shoulder."My son's luck is so bright," King Shen Ren said.
Chi Yan smiled softly and turned to the small Qi-made replica of the love god on his shoulder. The replica is like his little friend and helper at work— sometimes troublemaker.
"Congrats, Miss Mi Ying Xin is our Crown Prince's fated soulmate. Wish you a good life, Shen Yi Kumsun," Chi Yan wished and bowed lightly in what is called a 'wishing bow'.
Everyone else in the room clapped for Shén Yì. Because the woman who was in his fate wasn't only a simple woman.
She was one of those first female warriors who brought justice to the North Shén Fāng Mount a few years ago.
The legacy is still fresh and warm, remembered every single day.The South Shen Fāng Mount people admired her a lot, which is why Shén Yì's father is so happy for his son's fate, and princes from other kingdoms are going to be very jealous of this.
Chì Yàn felt satisfied by his another perfect matchmaking. He also believed the Prince and the Princess would make a beautiful pair.
But something felt wrong. he froze when he saw the Crown Prince didn't look... satisfied?
The man's lips twitched in annoyance and disbelief. The crowd fell silent at his look.
"Why does he look angry?"
"Does he already have a love interest? The Princess would look perfect with him!"
"If it was me in his place, I would be crying by now in happiness!"
"pardon me, Shén Kùmsūn? May I know why you're angry?" Chi Yan sounded genuinely confused here. The replica exchanged a look with him. The king also blinked at his son's unsatisfied look.
"Son?" the King echoed softly. His voice was almost judgmental.
The crowd fell silent at his look. Shèn Yì's golden eyes, dark and unwavering, locked not on his furious father, but on the red-haired matchmaker. His voice cut through the silence, flat and final as a falling blade: "Undo it."
A dramatic gasp filled the air. Nobody could believe what they were hearing.
Yet the man was stubbornly final. His face showed no acceptance.
'Is that man insane?' Chi Yan hissed into his mind, his one eye twitching with an uncomfortable feeling even though he was smiling politely.
It can't be undone, Shén Yì Kùmsūn. The fate is sealed," Chi Yan explained politely, not wanting to bring any chaos here for his stupid temper or breaking rules.
A loud thud from the prince's hand.
"I don't care," the prince hissed. "Just undo it. I don't like that woman, nor do I want to marry her."
The loud thud on the table made the dice dance. One die dropped to the ground like the last thread of Chì Yàn's temper.
Chì Yàn's blue eyes darkened a little. He doesn't like it when humans complain about their fate. He tried one last time to handle the matter. "Everything is done for humans' own good, Kùmsūn. You might be complaining now, but later, you'll understand how wrong you were."
Shén Yì!" The King groaned, his jaw tight. "Watch your tongue, boy."
"I mean it," Shén Yì answered without hesitation. His eyes burned on his father. "I, the Crown Prince of the Shen Kingdom, refuse to marry Princess Mì Yìng Xīn."
"And why, may I know?" Chì Yàn said flatly. His right hand trembled with the fate-writing pen. His voice made the prince look at him sharply.
"Tch... I need a woman who is as soft as cotton, not sharp as a blade—while I am supposed to be the blade. She should be peaceful, not a cry of war. That's why I refuse to marry."He pridefully huffed over his nails and rubbed them over his robe like he was cleaning precious glass, his eyes bored over Chì Yàn.
"I personally prefer a 'pure' woman who knows only softness... not sharpness. I didn't like your matchmaking. So, change it to Princess Méi instead. She's better for the role"
Chì Yan's blue eyes, usually the colour of a tranquil sky, darkened like a deep, storm-ravaged sea.
The polite smile vanished from his face. The air grew heavy, and the little Qì-replica on his shoulder shivered and hid in his long hair.
"You..." Chi Yan's voice was no longer soft. It echoed with a power that made the silver table vibrate. "You who dare command the threads of heaven, who look upon a warrior's heart and call it impure... You think you know what is best for you? Then let fate teach you the humility you lack."
He took a step forward, and the fallen die at his feet cracked in two. "Since you scorn the destined match of a woman, you will find no woman's grace.
Since you demand softness, you will find only a hardness that mirrors your own stubborn soul. Your match will be a man—a bond not of political peace, but of personal torment. And you will cling to him as your only solace, until the day you understand the blessing you so foolishly threw away."
The silence that followed Chi Yan's pronouncement was not merely quiet. It was a vacuum, sucking the air, the sound, and the sanity from the grand hall.
Shèn Yì's shoulder gave a minute, involuntary flinch. He swallowed, the click of his throat audible in the hush. His gaze—first to his father's frozen visage, then back to the storm-eyed matchmaker—held a tremor of pure, unvarnished disbelief. And beneath it, a flicker of something colder: fear.
It's not a real curse. He's just angry. A slip of the tongue… right? The desperate thought was almost visible in the prince's wide, golden eyes.
Around them, the court's composure shattered into a hundred whispered fragments.
"Marry… a man? Did he just…?"
"That's not a match. That's a death sentence for the lineage!"
"If he's not straight…" a voice muttered, trailing into appalled silence.
Shén Yì found his voice, a hissed scrape barely above the dreadful quiet. "What… did you say?" The question was directed at Chi Yan, but it felt like the prince was asking the universe itself. The crack in his royal facade was now a chasm, his golden eyes darkening to the pitch of a starless night.
The King, Shèn Rén, remained speechless, his face a mask of imperial shock.
In Chì Yàn's mind, reality crashed down with the weight of a falling temple when he felt the familier copper on his tongue right after he Saud those.
'How could I forget?! The Lip-Blood Curse… when my temper ignites, the words… they solidify!'
Stupid, stupid, STUPID!' He screamed internally, mentally driving his forehead against a wall of his own making. 'Why must my divinity express itself only as petty, permanent vengeance?!'
He blinked, the internal storm clearing to reveal the external wreckage. The crowd's shock was a physical wave. This was his fault. Again.
With a force of will that felt like holding up a collapsing sky, Chì Yàn smoothed his expression. He cleared his throat, the sound delicate in the cavernous silence, though his heart was a frantic war drum against his ribs. He could not let them know. He had to pretend this was a mere theatrical flourish, a lesson delivered too harshly. He had to escape.
"I do not… appreciate objections to my celestial calculus," he said, his voice reclaiming its earlier, polished tone, though a faint tremor betrayed him. He gestured dismissively, a fluttering of long fingers. "My tongue slipped in the heat of admonishment. Do not dwell on it."
He glanced pointedly at the ornate golden timepiece on his wrist—a prop, a signal. "I have overstayed. Other threads of fate await my attention."
He offered the room one last, porcelain-perfect smile, a mockery of the chaos he'd sown, and performed a flawless, shallow bow. As he turned toward the great doors, his gaze snagged on Shèn Yì one final time.
His eyes were still dark, but the storm had passed, leaving something softer, more ancient, and infinitely more terrifying in its wake. "The die is cast, Shen Kùmsūn. Your soul is tethered to Mì Yìng Xīn. That is the first and final truth."
He paused, letting the weight of the real curse—the one he could not name—hang unspoken between them. "The rest… was merely a warning from a weary craftsman."
"You—" Shén Yi's voice was a strangled thing, choked by a humiliation more cutting than any duelist's blade. He could muster no other word.
The humiliation was a shared poison now. Chi Yan had scorched the prince's pride, and in doing so, had exposed the dangerous, broken engine of his own power.
Chì Yàn did not wait for a royal dismissal. He left, his footsteps silent but swift, a streak of crimson and silver retreating from the hall he had just plunged into turmoil. The tiny Qì-replica peeked from the sanctuary of his hair, its form quivering.
Chì Yàn did not look at it. His lips were pressed into a bloodless line, his mind screaming a single, desperate prayer into the void of his own divinity:
'Please. Let the words fade. Let the curse sleep. I did not mean to weave his torment… I only meant to prick his pride.'