Syra stood near the tall windows of Lou's penthouse, arms crossed tightly over her chest as if she could hold in everything trembling beneath the surface. The city shimmered far below, lights blinking like tiny judgments. Behind her, silence stretched long and tense.
Lou hadn't moved since his grandmother's words landed between them like a ceremonial blade.
"She's not worthy of your name."
Syra flinched. Lou took a step forward. "Nai Nai, enough."
Madam Lou's gaze didn't waver. "She is Persian. Not one of us. Not from the houses we honor."
Syra turned, her voice low. "I'm also Chinese."
"Half-Chinese," the old woman corrected coolly. "That is not the same."
Lou moved to stand beside Syra, not touching her, but close enough that she felt it. "My name is mine to give."
"Your name belongs to your blood."
"And what does blood mean if it binds you to emptiness?" he said, softly but without yield.
Nai Nai's eyes narrowed. "You have duties. A bride has already been chosen for you. A contract signed when you were ten."
Syra went still. Lou turned his head slowly, looking at his grandmother like he didn't quite recognize her. "You never told me."
"Because you were a child. You are a man now. It is time to return to your place."
Syra stepped back. Her eyes were wide, burning. "You belong to someone else?"
"No," Lou said immediately. "Not in any way that matters."
"But legally? Politically?"
"Contracts can be broken."
Nai Nai spoke before he could finish. "But honor cannot."
The old woman turned to Syra. "You are fire. You will burn everything he has built."
Syra opened her mouth. Closed it. Swallowed. Her voice, when it came, was very quiet. "Then let me go."
Lou turned to her fully, eyes dark with panic. "No."
She looked up at him, the hurt tucked behind her lashes like a secret she didn't want to speak aloud. "Maybe your grandmother is right. Maybe I'm not fit for the temples."
"I never asked you to be." His hand cupped her face. "I asked you to be with me."
Nai Nai turned sharply on her heel. "If you walk away from this family, there is no coming back."
Lou didn't hesitate. "Then I walk."
Silence. Deafening.
Madam Lou stared at him as if truly seeing him for the first time. "Then I hope she's worth losing everything."
Syra trembled.
Lou pulled her gently against his chest and whispered into her hair, loud enough for his grandmother to hear. "She's worth more than everything."
And for the first time since childhood, he turned his back on the legacy he was born into—and toward the life he was choosing.
Beside him, Syra finally began to cry.
The silence following Lou Yan's declaration hung between them like incense smoke—beautiful, suffocating, and slow to fade. Syra's breath hitched, her back pressed against the elevator wall as if the smooth metal could anchor her to reason.
"I chose you," he said again, his voice gentler now, but no less resolute. "And I'll keep choosing you. Even if the world burns for it."
She stared at him, mouth parted, eyes wide. His words had hit something buried—something she didn't want to name.
Her voice trembled as it broke free. "That's easy for you to say. You don't know what it means to be split in two."
Lou stepped forward, his movements calm but deliberate, as if afraid one wrong step might shatter the moment entirely. "I was raised to carry tradition like a crown of ash. Do you think I haven't had to split myself in two just to survive?"
Syra's breath caught. The pain in his voice wasn't loud—but it was there. A quiet wound still bleeding beneath his otherwise perfect composure.
"You think I had choices?" Lou's jaw tightened. "I didn't get to decide who I wanted to be. They decided for me the moment I was born. Monk. Heir. Custodian. Servant of a bloodline so ancient they forgot the names of the women who gave birth to it."
Syra flinched. The image of him as a child—kneeling before golden altars, folding his hands while the world decided his future—unsettled her.
"And now," Lou whispered, stepping even closer, "for the first time in my life, I want something for myself. Someone."
Syra's hand twitched. "Lou… your grandmother—"
"My grandmother sees lineage. I see you." His hand hovered between them, trembling with the restraint she'd come to recognize as his form of devotion. "You're not just Persian. You're not just Chinese. You're not just beauty. You're not just scars. You're Syra. You are an entire world I want to learn by heart."
Tears pooled in her eyes, and she blinked them back furiously. "You talk like it's simple."
"It's not," he said quietly. "But love never is. And I don't want simple. I want you."
Her knees buckled slightly, and he reached out, but didn't touch her. Just stood there, steady and waiting.
"I'm scared," she admitted.
"I know." His voice softened like the first rainfall after drought. "But let me carry some of that fear. You've carried too much alone."
She looked at him then, really looked—at the man born of royalty and temples, of discipline and fire, who stood in defiance of legacy just to call her his.
And something inside her cracked. Not from pain.
But from hope.
She took his hand. Warm. Steady. Real.
"Then we burn together," she whispered.