When death came, Qi Xing felt no pain.
The man in the ice coffin had kept his eyes closed for five hundred years. His features were still as beautiful as they had been in life, as though he were merely asleep and would wake tomorrow, call Qi Xing's name, and reach out to touch his face.
Qi Xing leaned against the ice coffin, his fingertips resting on its edge as they touched the hand inside—the hand that would never clasp his again.
There was no light in the mausoleum. He didn't need any. His cultivation was enough to let him survive another five hundred years in the darkness, but his heart couldn't go on.
"Shaoyan."
His voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible. He hadn't spoken in so long that his tongue had nearly forgotten how to form those two syllables.
"I think... I'm getting ready to go keep you company, too."
He closed his eyes.
Five hundred years of loneliness flowed like a long river, finally reaching its end.
When his consciousness returned, the first thing he felt was noise.
So much noise.
Music, laughter, the clinking of glasses, and a kind of electronic beat he'd never heard before all came pouring into his ears at once.
Qi Xing's fingers twitched.
The surface beneath him was soft—a leather sofa, not a freezing ice coffin.
His eyes flew open.
A massive crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, its warm light almost painfully bright. The air was saturated with the scents of all kinds of pheromones—sweet, bitter, spicy—all mixed together as if an entire garden and wine cellar had been crushed up and splashed through the air.
His head spun as the original body's memories surged into his mind like a tide.
What was a pheromone?
Before Qi Xing's mind could process the word, a familiar scent—so familiar it nearly stopped his heart—cut through the chaos and slammed precisely, overwhelmingly, into his senses.
Wine. The people here called it a red-wine scent: rich, aggressive, and powerful enough to make a person's bones go weak from the inside out.
His breath caught for a beat.
That scent. This man's scent. Qi Xing had guarded it beside the ice coffin for five hundred years, watched until the last trace had completely faded, guarded it until he could only recreate it from memory, until he had believed he would never smell it again in this life—no, not in his next life, or the one after that, either.
Qi Xing turned toward the scent.
And then he saw him.
Huo Shaoyan stood beside the sofa, one hand in his suit pocket and a phone in the other as he looked down at something on the screen. His features were exactly the same as in his previous life—broad, cold brows, deep-set eyes, slightly pursed lips, and a jawline sharp enough to have been carved by a knife.
Qi Xing's eyes instantly reddened.
Five hundred years.
The man he had guarded for five hundred years was standing right in front of him, alive, warm with body heat, his chest rising and falling.
His lips trembled. A sour ache welled up in his throat, and his tears nearly spilled over—
Then he saw the top of Huo Shaoyan's head.
In his previous life, Huo Shaoyan had worn his jet-black hair tied at the back. When he rode, his hair ribbon would stream behind him, and he looked so handsome he seemed to have stepped out of a painting.
But Huo Shaoyan now...
His hair had been cut extremely short, the sides almost shaved clean, with only a thin layer of buzz cut left on top.
The tears pooled in Qi Xing's eyes were scared right back in.
How did he go bald?
"You're awake?" Huo Shaoyan didn't even look up. His tone was as calm as if he were commenting on the nice weather. "How much did you drink? Getting this drunk at your own birthday party—when Tang Wanrou finds out, she'll say I failed to keep an eye on you again."
Qi Xing stared at the top of his head. His mouth hung slightly open. For a moment, five hundred years of devotion and his shock at the present battled it out in his mind, and shock won by an overwhelming margin.
Huo Shaoyan finally raised his head and met Qi Xing's gaze.
His brows drew together slightly. "What are you looking at?"
Qi Xing looked at him.
This face. These eyes. The way he furrowed his brows. Even that impatient tone was exactly the same.
It was him.
It really was him.
Tears welled up in Qi Xing's eyes again, but this time he didn't let them fall. In five hundred years, he'd learned one thing: crying was useless. He had cried countless times beside the ice coffin, cried until his eyes were too swollen to open, and the man inside had never woken up.
So he stopped crying.
He drew a deep breath, forced all the surging emotions back into his chest, and then smiled.
The smile was lazy, careless, and carried the brazen certainty that the whole world ought to revolve around him.
"Huo Shaoyan," he said. His voice was unexpectedly steady, even ending on a teasing upward lilt. "When did you shave your head? You look hideous."
Huo Shaoyan's brows furrowed even deeper.
He lowered his phone and gave Qi Xing a serious look.
The look lasted about three seconds.
Then he said, "Did you drink yourself stupid today? I've had this hairstyle for three years."
"Three years?" Qi Xing's expression twisted in genuine pain for a moment. "And not one person told you how ugly it was?"
Huo Shaoyan fell silent for a moment, seemingly trying to determine whether Qi Xing was serious or just making a scene again.
In the end, he chose to ignore him and turned toward the door. "Get up. Your mom—Aunt Tang is looking for you outside. She says she's going to cut your cake. If you don't go out soon, she'll come in. And if she sees you looking like this, I'll be the one who gets yelled at again."
Qi Xing watched his back.
Broad shoulders, narrow waist, and a naturally oppressive presence in every step he took. His suit fit him perfectly, and each stride was steady and powerful.
Just like in his previous life.
Even the way he walked was the same.
Qi Xing's fingers quietly tightened around the sofa's leather.
He told himself silently: In this life, I won't let you leave first again.
Then he stood, brushed at nonexistent wrinkles on his clothes, and chased after him with his long legs.
"Huo Shaoyan—"
"What?"
"You really should grow your hair back."
"...Shut up."
"No."
Huo Shaoyan's footsteps paused.
He didn't turn around, but the tip of his ear moved almost imperceptibly.
That "no" was different from all the times Qi Xing had said it before.
In the past, whenever Qi Xing said "no," there had always been a hint of testing in his voice, as if he were checking whether Huo Shaoyan would get angry or walk away because of it.
But that "no" just now—
It was crisp and certain, even carrying a trace of amusement.
As if he wasn't worried in the slightest that Huo Shaoyan might leave.
Huo Shaoyan turned his head slightly, then decided he was overthinking it.
Qi Xing had probably had too much to drink.
He continued forward without saying another word.
Behind him, Qi Xing watched his back. The curve of his lips slowly faded, and a tenderness known only to him, deep enough to have no visible bottom, rose in his eyes.
Shaoyan.
This time, I'll be the one to find you.