Can You Grant Me Youth Again?

The wind and snow still raged beyond the pavilion.

A palm-sized round crystal lay quietly on the stone table.

Li Yaoxuan stared silently at it, watching the faint starlike glow upon its surface. Emotions churned violently within his chest; a thousand words clogged his throat, yet he did not know where to begin.

In the past, he ought to have burst out laughing and teased the other man for secretly creating such a miniature divine artifact of communication. Now, he ought to have been terrified—terrified that the Prime Minister's Mansion they had built up together had, at some unknown point, become a war behemoth that made the world tremble.

But Li Yaoxuan was not.

All he felt was a profound weariness.

The dream of trampling Jiangnan beneath iron hooves in the recklessness of youth had been realized, at death's door, by the comrade who had walked beside him all his life. There was neither comfort nor gratitude, neither fear nor suspicion—only weariness.

He rose in silence. His imperial dragon cloak swept across snowflakes drifting in, and Li Yaoxuan stood at the pavilion entrance, murmuring in an indescribable tone:

"Prime Minister, it is too late."

"."

In silence, Xu Yinhe put away the round crystal on the table. There was no surprise in his eyes as he said calmly:

"Before the news spread, I could not have told you of this."

"I know."

The turmoil in Li Yaoxuan's eyes gradually subsided. "I have changed. I have become like those sovereigns we once despised. Had you told me beforehand, I would not have colluded with the sects—but I would have told Zhaoyuan. As for what he might have done, that truly would have been impossible to say."

"." Xu Yinhe did not reply.

Li Yaoxuan smiled at the sight.

Like the sudden