They didn't stay in the cave. Zhang Tian transported them instantly to the Demon Sect's inner sanctum.
Jia Wei Xin awoke with a start, finding herself on a familiar bed in the room she'd occupied during her previous stay at the sect.
Across the room, Zhang Tian sat cross-legged on a floating jade platform, seemingly lost in meditation. Yet, his subtle shifts and the way his gaze flickered betrayed his true focus—he was watching her.
"You were out for two days," he stated, his voice surprisingly soft for him, as he gracefully floated down and offered her a cup of steaming tea. "I thought you'd broken something vital."
She took a careful sip, the warmth spreading through her. "Liu Mo Fei—?"
"Recovering." Zhang Tian's jaw tightened. Her first thought was still Liu Mo Fei—despite everything he had done for her. The sting was familiar, but no less sharp. "But you should worry about yourself. You did something incredibly reckless. Your core was at the verge of breaking."
Jia Wei Xin propped herself up with effort, wincing slightly. "I had to save us."
"You could have just abandoned him," Zhang Tian countered, his voice devoid of judgment but laced with a strange curiosity. "We're talking about a group of high martial arts assassins who came prepared with a foolproof plan, poison and all. No one would've blamed you."
Jia Wei Xin met his gaze, her brow furrowed not in confusion, but in a quiet understanding of the unspoken question behind his words. She sensed the turmoil within him, the clash of his sect's teachings with what he'd witnessed.
"My teleporting skill… you already know about it," she began, choosing her words carefully. "In that moment, I just felt... I could bring both of us out of it, even though I hadn't tried such a complicated maneuver before."
"What if you failed?" Zhang Tian pressed, his voice low. "You would have been killed with him. You could have simply teleported yourself out and devised a way to save him later."
"I didn't think about that," she said simply. "I needed to do it. If I failed, I would've found another way. But I wasn't leaving him behind." Her words rang with truth; she was not one to abandon a companion in peril, nor to shy away from overwhelming odds.
Zhang Tian studied her, a profound shift occurring within him. "You are truly different, Wei Xin," he murmured, the words tinged with a raw, unaccustomed admiration. "In my sect, everyone is taught to trample on others to reach the top. Sacrifice is considered a weakness, a fatal flaw. "
"I've met people like that," she said, her voice quiet. "But sometimes strength isn't in what you conquer. It's in what you're willing to protect."
She paused, her gaze steady. "You protected us too. You didn't hesitate to bring us here. You risked your own peace."
Her words cut clean through years of doctrine—sharp, undeniable, and disarming.
A strange warmth bloomed in Zhang Tian's chest—unfamiliar, disarming, and dangerously easy to want more of.
His possessive urge, the desire to shield and claim Jia Wei Xin, intensified. He found himself wondering, with a vulnerability he'd never known: "Would you… would you have done the same for me?"
Jia Wei Xin gave a small, knowing smile. "I would have tried to save you too. Without a second thought."
Zhang Tian froze.
It was the answer he hadn't realized he needed. That he, too, was someone she'd fight for.
His throat bobbed. "Even if it killed you?"
"I'm not reckless," she said. "But I don't run from people I care about."
His heart thudded, too loud in the silence. "You care about me?"
She didn't speak—but the way her gaze didn't waver, the way her breath caught for just a beat, said everything.
Zhang Tian's lips parted, then closed again. His voice, when it came, was rough with emotion. "You're... the bravest person I've ever met. Braver than anyone I know. Including myself."
Jia Wei Xin looked down into her tea, a faint blush warming her cheeks. "You're not so bad either. For a demon king who likes to monologue like a tragic poet."
A small, genuine laugh escaped Zhang Tian, his shoulders shaking slightly.
But under the humor, something deeper remained. A spark. A bond. A possibility neither of them could name—yet neither could ignore.
---
Liu Mo Fei stirred by evening, a soft groan escaping his lips. Jia Wei Xin was by his side instantly, her hand resting lightly on his arm.
He blinked up at her, his eyes slowly focusing. A faint, familiar smile touched his lips. "You're still around?"
"Where else would I be?" she retorted, leaning against the bed frame, a playful glint in her eyes.
He chuckled, the sound weak but warm. "You look great. Like an angel. Especially when I thought I was dying."
"Will be my dying wish to get one last kiss then." He winked, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
Jia Wei Xin laughed heartily, a bright, genuine sound that filled the quiet room. The playful Liu Mo Fei was back, and she hadn't realized how much she'd missed it.
"Thank you," he said, his voice dropping to a low, sincere tone. "You saved me. I felt it—even while unconscious. For everything."
She walked closer, her touch feather-light as she gently felt his forehead. "You're welcome, Sifu. Now, try not to collapse so often, it's terrible for my beauty sleep. And don't forget there's another hero in this story. Zhang Tian saved you too."
She paused, then added with a smirk, "Though I'm pretty sure he only did it to keep his favorite sparring partner alive."
Their eyes locked—a quiet current passing between them. A deep, slow recognition of their bond, tinged with the knowing humor of their tangled lives. But something shifted. The banter dissolved, giving way to a hush thick with unspoken gravity. His gaze lingered on hers, not with fever, but with a warmth that had been waiting—patient, certain. It was the same feeling he'd clung to in the cave, just before darkness took him: the unshakable belief that she would not let him fall.
Jia Wei Xin felt it too—the comfort of his presence, steady and familiar. But now there was a tremor beneath it, a quiver of something more. His hand lay on the bed, fingers relaxed, maddeningly close to hers. The space between them held a question neither dared voice—about what they were, and what they might be. It lingered, shaped by near-death, forged in fire... and shadowed by the memory of another's hands, catching her when she collapsed.
The laughter from moments ago felt too light now, like a veil stretched thin over the quiet, inescapable truth: nothing between the three of them would ever be simple again.