Moonlit Hearts

Chapter 62: Even in Ruins, We Grow

Here is a new chapter for this week. Next chapter will be a bit later because I don't have much internet here in Colombia. The connexion is bad and I still Want to have fun and be off my phone for a while. 

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The late afternoon sun lay soft and low across what was left of the garden.

It wasn't much. The war had stripped away most of the gold-lit grandeur that once stretched across the palace grounds. The carefully tended hedges were gone, the radiant lotus ponds dried and cracked. What remained now was a patchwork of green clinging to cracked earth—torn roots curling in defiance, a few stubborn blossoms pressing up through the rubble like they'd never learned how to give up.

Sizhui crouched beside a half-crushed cluster of dianthus, gently pruning away the wilted petals. His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, hands dirt-streaked, his brow furrowed in focus. Not far from him, Jingyi muttered something under his breath as he wrestled with a tangle of weeds determined to claim an entire patch of soil.

Neither of them spoke for a while. The silence felt like something sacred here.

"Okay," Jingyi finally grunted, tugging a root loose with a satisfying snap. "Whoever decided we were qualified for this clearly overestimated our skill and patience. I mean, mine mostly, you always had more skills and patience than I do."

Sizhui didn't look up. "You're the one who said it would be therapeutic."

Jingyi snorted. "Yeah, well, I also said I'd never eat spicy tofu again and look how that turned out."

Sizhui let a smile pull at the corner of his lips. "I think it's helping, though. Being here."

Jingyi wiped the back of his hand across his brow, squinting at the scorched remnants of what had once been a garden. “You think Wei Wuxian will want to plant a new one?”

The question hung in the air, quiet and weighty. Sizhui’s hands stilled over the soil. He glanced down at a fragile sprout pushing up through the cracked earth—thin, trembling, but alive.

“He will,” Sizhui said softly. “Even if it looks nothing like the old one. Even if he has to build it from nothing.” A faint smile ghosted his lips. “When I was a child, he used to spend hours in the garden. He loved it—loved getting his hands dirty. Said watching things grow made the world feel worth saving.”

Jingyi let out a quiet hum, his gaze drifting over the battered ground. “Yeah. That sounds like him.”

The wind shifted, carrying the faint scent of crushed herbs and wilted petals—ghosts of what once was. It wrapped around them like memory.

A beat passed. Then another.

“You’ve got that serious look again,” Jingyi said, breaking the silence with a soft exhale. “You want to talk about it?”

“I don’t have a ‘serious look.’”

“You absolutely do.” Jingyi arched a brow. “It’s the one you wear when your brain’s too full and you’re scared to spill any of it.”

Sizhui hesitated, brushing soil from his fingers. His eyes dropped to the earth again. “I’ve just been thinking,” he murmured. “About what comes next. The core. The butterflies. The dreams. Everything that was given to me.” He paused, voice thinner now. “I didn’t ask for any of it. But it’s mine now. And it still catches me off guard, sometimes.”

Jingyi didn’t answer at first. He simply shifted closer, settling beside Sizhui with a quiet thump, legs crossed, elbows on his knees. When he finally spoke, his voice was lower, steadier. “You don’t have to know everything yet, Sizhui. You don’t have to be everything yet. You’re allowed to be confused. You’re allowed to take your time.”