The Blossom and the Thorn chapter 6

He left me an address. Told me to wait there.

A cabin in a forest valley. Sparse. A bed, a table. The faint smell of pine.

On the table, roses. Black roses.

Dark, velvety, rich as spilled wine. They reminded me of him when I first saw him: a black rose in Armani, sharp-featured, languid, with women fluttering around him.

A cream card lay among them, his handwriting:
“To my little jasmine.”

Pinned beneath was a note in the flower shop girl’s hand:
“I saw you on the news. Was she the one you loved? She was stunning. Wishing you both happiness.”

My heart broke anew.

When Yichen finally stumbled into the cabin, his suit torn and waist bloodied, I nearly screamed.

“It missed the vitals,” he managed with a grin. “Only grazed me. I’ve got… an hour maybe. But it’s enough.”

And he smiled as sunlight.

He opened the closet. Inside, neatly hung: a white wedding dress and a black suit.

My tears broke.

He tugged on the suit, smirking faintly. “No more crying now. Is marrying me that painful?”

I collapsed into sobs as he smoothed phantom fingers over my cheek. Helpless, he muttered, “Still can’t touch you. Not even now.”

But he lit the basin. Burned the dress for me. Roses scattered into bathwater, crimson bleeding into porcelain.

I begged him to stop, to run, to live. But this was his finale.

He sank into the tub of petals, pale against velvet.

“I have a gift for you,” his voice shook. “No apologies. Just vows.”

His light faded. I clung to shadow.

“You don’t deserve this,” I screamed. “You should have lived, Yichen. Wrinkled. Safe. Laughing. Not this.”

He winced against pain, but his smile was tender.
“No, my Jasmine. This is happiness. More than I’ve ever had.”

Tears rolled down his cheek. “When you were gone, I thought of you every second. I didn’t dare visit your grave I’d have broken. But when you came back to me, even as a ghost… the world lit up again.”

He tried to chuckle, choking. “I never slept with them, you know. The girls. I paid them. Told them my lover believed she was dead. Asked them to play along. I couldn’t betray you. Not once.”

I wept, breaking.

He grinned faintly through dying breath. “You’re adorable, you know that? Crying like this.”

“I love you,” I cried. “Yichen, I love you with everything.”

He pulled me near, kissed air where my lips should have been.

“I love you more.”

And with that, Zhao Yichen clear-eyed, arrogant, tender let the petals close over him.

And I, his jasmine, held his fading smile in silence.

END