---
The Prince watched him from the doorway.
Shèng Lín was brushing his now slightly longer hair, the dark strands reaching just below his nape. It had grown out during the month he'd vanished—unkempt at first, but now combed neatly behind his ears.
There was a strange softness to his appearance now. Less soldier. Less spy.
More… something else.
Someone else.
> He doesn't even look like the man who tried to kill me, the Prince thought.
> Maybe that's exactly what I need.
---
Later that evening, after dinner was done and Lù Zhāo and Shèng Měi had gone off to tend to the garden, the Prince quietly approached Shèng Lín at the back porch.
"Sit," he said simply, motioning to the stool beside him.
Shèng Lín obeyed without a word, though his brow furrowed.
The Prince folded his arms.
> "You're coming back to the palace."
Shèng Lín jerked slightly. "What?"
> "Not as yourself," the Prince clarified. "Obviously."
Shèng Lín's mouth opened, then closed again.
> "There's no place for a traitor."
> "Then we won't bring one back," the Prince said coldly. "We'll bring back someone else. A new knight. A different name. Different hair. A different face."
His gaze flicked over Shèng Lín's longer hair again.
> "You already look like someone else."
Shèng Lín's hands clenched on his lap. "That's dangerous. People—"
> "Will whisper no matter what," the Prince interrupted. "But I decide who stays in my palace. If I say you're not Shèng Lín—then you're not."
Silence.
The only sound was the soft hum of the countryside crickets.
> "Why?" Shèng Lín asked at last. "Why bring me back?"
The Prince looked away for a long moment, his jaw clenched.
Then he replied softly—
> "Because I'd rather keep you close… than let the world steal you again."
Shèng Lín's heart skipped.
> "And," the Prince added, "you still owe me answers."
---
That night, the Prince took parchment and quill and began writing the paperwork.
A falsified background.
A noble-sounding alias.
A fabricated story of loyalty from a distant land.
"Lǐ Wú—" he wrote. No surname. Just 'No Gift.'
He looked up at Shèng Lín, who stood behind him now, watching his name disappear.
> "Welcome to your second life," the Prince said dryly.
> "Try not to waste this one."
Shèng Lín gave a quiet, grateful bow.
> "I won't."
---