Chapter 14 - ​Chapter 14: The Midnight Siege

​Above them, the sound of the front doors being breached vibrated through the floorboards. The Wei family's "rescue" team had finally broken through the first layer of security. In the vault, the red emergency lights began to pulse, casting a ghoulish glow over Xuan's face. He looked like a demon caught in the middle of a prayer. "They're here," he whispered, a chilling smile spreading across his lips. "They think they can take my heart and walk away." He reached into a drawer and pulled out a remote, his thumb hovering over a button that would seal the entire estate in a total blackout. Ning lunged for his arm, her extreme possessiveness over his safety taking over. "Xuan, stop! If you do this, there's no coming back! They'll call you a terrorist! They'll take you away from me forever!" She clung to him, her tears soaking his black shirt. "I can't live without you! If they take you to jail, I'll die! Please, Xuan, let's just talk to them!" But Xuan was beyond the reach of reason. He saw her plea not as an act of love for him, but as a desperate attempt to save Wei Chen from his wrath. "You're still protecting him," he hissed, shoving her back onto the bed. "Even now, when I'm about to lose everything, you're worried about the 'peace'!" He pressed the button, and the house fell into a tomb-like darkness. The only light came from the pulsing red emergency lamps. Outside, screams of confusion erupted as the Wei security team was blinded. Inside, Xuan stood in the center of the room, his chest heaving. He felt a twisted sense of triumph. In the dark, no one could see her. In the dark, she was only his. He turned to Ning, who was curled in a ball, shaking with extreme fear and misery. "Don't cry, my love," he whispered, his voice dripping with a terrifyingly sweet possessiveness. "In the dark, the debt doesn't exist. In the dark, there is only Xuan and Ning." He crawled onto the bed, pulling her limp body into his arms, his hold so tight she could barely expand her lungs to sob. "Let them come," he muttered into her hair. "I've rigged the gates. No one leaves this house unless they're carrying my corpse." Ning's cries turned into silent, racking gasps. She realized then that their love had become a black hole, consuming every light, every truth, and every hope of a future. She reached up, her fingers trembling as she touched his face. "I love you," she choked out, "but I wish we had died in that accident instead of my parents." Xuan froze, his heart stopping at the sheer weight of her words. The jealousy flared one last time, a white-hot spark in the red-lit room. "You wish you were dead so you wouldn't have to choose?" he asked, his voice trembling. "Or so you could be a martyr for him?" The misunderstanding was complete. There was no more space for words, only the heavy, suffocating weight of two souls bound by a love that had turned into a curse.