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Days after she's certain he must be dead, she finds him kneeling in her chambers.
For a moment, hovering on the threshold, Pian Ran stares at the straight line of his shoulders and the slope of his bowed head. He's still wearing his armour, lined with dust and the sharp scent of blood, and in the long beats of silence that follow she thinks about how she could leave him there.
After all, she's already spent long nights resigning herself to his death. If she walks away now, then one day, when the time finally comes, she can pretend they weren't in vain.
She can tell herself she's already mourned him.
"General Ye," she finally says instead, her voice deceptively light, and Ye Qingyu doesn't flinch—not at the sound of his name, and not at the sharp click as she turns and slides the doors closed behind her. When she turns back to him, his head is still bowed, but Pian Ran fights to keep the smile on her face agile and unfrozen. Utterly unbothered. "What a surprise to find you returned to us alive."
"Pian Ran," he says, his voice a rough rasp. His head remains bowed, as if he can't bring himself to meet her eyes. As if he thinks he might have done something wrong by returning from the dead—missing in battle for nearly a week, now here in the flesh to put her still beating heart back into her chest.
She crosses gracefully towards him, her robes rusting as she moves—red like blood, like the red he'd rubbed onto her lips the first day they met. Her fingers come up under his chin, tilting his head back sharply.
The fool man. Forget about not taking the time to change; he hadn't even had his injuries properly tended before coming here. The cut across his cheek is ragged, days old and angry.
"I returned as swiftly as I could, Pian Ran," he says gravely, his eyes finally caught by hers.
"Tantai Jin must be pleased," she says, because it's easier than saying anything else. If she tightens her grip on his face, her fingers on the soft underside of his chin, her nails will pierce flesh. She presses her lips together. "He didn't tell me you had returned."
Ye Qingyu doesn't say anything, just keeps looking at her, and that tells her all she needs to know.
"You are a fool," Pian Ran says, out loud this time, and her heart pounds wildly in her chest. "Why would you come here first, Ye Qingyu? Why would you—"
Her fingers move, but not to pierce skin. His guan is long gone, lost somewhere between death and her chambers. Only a simple string holds his hair back, and it's easy to wind her hand into night of it. Pian Ran pulls him towards her, his face to the red silk of her robes.
"Pian Ran," he says again, his voice muffled, as if they're the only words that matter. His arms are shaking a little with exhaustion as they come up around her waist, armour smearing dirt and blood upon her robes.
He holds onto her like he never intends to let her go.