"But—"
"No," Jin Boyuan cut in, his voice brooking no argument, the same tone he used in boardrooms when lives and fortunes hung in the balance—but softer now, wrapped in something that sounded almost like affection. "You made the tactical decision available to you with the information and time constraints you had. You calculated the odds, acted accordingly, and it kept you alive. It kept all of us alive. That's not something to apologize for, Yuxi. That's something to be proud of."
Zhou Yuxi nodded, the motion small and weary, but the guilt didn't ease. It coiled tighter in her stomach, a living thing with teeth and claws, whispering all the ways she had failed. She knew logically they were right. She had run the numbers in those final, terrifying seconds—blast radius, wind direction, water depth, the weight of the explosives, the speed of the car—and chosen the only path that gave them all a chance.
