Years passed quietly, like ink soaking into parchment.
In the Mo estate, silence was a virtue. Emotions were treated as flaws. The children of noble blood were to be elegant, restrained, obedient. Mo Xianyu mastered the art of being invisible before his twelfth spring.
He spoke only when spoken to. Smiled only when alone.
And yet, beneath the still surface, Xiao Mo never truly forgot the boy he used to be.
That boy had cried behind bathroom doors, whispered jokes into pillows, and dreamed of a world that didn't hurt so much. Now, that same boy studied calligraphy, memorized the dynastic codes, and learned to kneel perfectly straight for hours.
But in the quiet of the night, beneath his covers, Xiao Mo would still trace characters from the modern world into the fabric of his bedding—freedom, light, home.
Even if no one here understood.
—
The first person who truly saw him wasn't a noble or a tutor. It was the old caretaker of the west garden.
His name was Shen Bo, a hunched old man with hands calloused from years of sweeping stone paths and trimming bonsai trees. He rarely spoke, but when Xiao Mo wandered to the edge of the estate one day, curious about the only part of the grounds that was left unguarded, Shen Bo offered him a cup of chrysanthemum tea.
It was warm. Bittersweet. Just like Shen Bo's eyes.
"You're the quiet one," the man said, sitting on a moss-covered bench. "But your eyes are loud."
Xiao Mo blinked, caught off guard. "Loud?"
"Like you've lived a thousand years already," Shen Bo muttered, sipping. "And none of them were kind."
Xiao Mo didn't know why, but he stayed. Every week, he would sneak past the south wall with some snacks or a new poem he had written. Shen Bo listened. Sometimes he nodded. Sometimes he chuckled.
And sometimes, when no one else was watching, he taught Xiao Mo simple self-defense—how to fall properly, how to grip a wooden staff, how to throw someone off balance with minimal force.
"You don't need to win," the old man would say. "You just need to survive."
It became their secret. Like the boy himself.
—
Yuan Sijun came and went like a comet in those early years—brilliant and warm, but distant. His family, high-ranking military aristocrats, moved often. Training. Diplomacy. Warfare.
But every season or two, he'd reappear like spring after winter, and the garden would feel alive again.
He brought Xiao Mo sweets from the southern ports. Foreign coins. Smuggled scrolls about astronomy and sea monsters.
In return, Xiao Mo told him stories from the modern world—filtered through riddles and metaphors so no one else could understand.
"They built ships that fly," Xiao Mo said once, drawing a clumsy airplane in the dirt. "Like iron birds, carrying hundreds of people through the sky."
Yuan laughed, eyes wide with wonder. "You have the wildest dreams."
Xiao Mo smiled faintly. "Maybe."
He never said I remember them, or I've seen it with my own eyes.
Some truths were too fragile for even friendship.
—
When Xiao Mo turned thirteen, he was attacked.
It happened in the scroll chamber. A visiting cousin—arrogant and spoiled—cornered him after overhearing him reciting a strange line of poetry under his breath. The words had come from his old life—Yeats, maybe, or Frost—but in this world, they sounded like incantations.
"What demon tongue was that?" the boy hissed, grabbing Xiao Mo by the collar. "Are you possessed?"
Xiao Mo tried to explain, gently, calmly.
But fists answered faster than logic.
He didn't cry out. Didn't fight back.
He simply lay there, bleeding from his lip, until the cousin grew bored and left.
He would have stayed there, cold and bruised among dusty scrolls, had a pair of boots not stopped beside him minutes later.
"Who did this?"
Yuan's voice was quiet. Dangerous.
Xiao Mo blinked up at him. "It doesn't matter."
"It does to me."
Yuan helped him up, careful as if he might break. His grip lingered on Xiao Mo's wrist a moment too long.
The next day, the cousin was found dunked headfirst in the koi pond, reeking of fish and humiliation. No one could prove anything.
But Yuan Sijun didn't deny it.
That night, as they sat beneath the old camphor tree, Yuan passed him a carved wooden rabbit.
"For luck," he said.
Xiao Mo held it with both hands, staring at the smooth curves and the care it must've taken to shape it.
"…Why a rabbit?"
"Because you remind me of one," Yuan said, grinning. "Quiet. Soft. But when cornered… sharp teeth."
Xiao Mo chuckled. It startled even him. The sound felt unfamiliar on his lips.
That night, he hid the rabbit in his sleeve. He still carried it years later.
—
Their bond was never loud.
There were no declarations. No dramatic gestures.
But Xiao Mo began to notice the little things.
Yuan always placed his teacup on the side Xiao Mo favored. He walked on the outer edge of the road. He never interrupted when Xiao Mo spoke, no matter how long the pause between words.
And when they sparred, Yuan never fought to win. He fought to teach.
"I know you can read ten languages," Yuan teased one day after practice. "But your sword form is still trash."
Xiao Mo wiped sweat from his brow. "My arms are for writing, not war."
"Then I'll protect them both," Yuan said, so simply it made Xiao Mo pause.
In his old life, no one had ever said such things.
In this one, someone had.
—
As spring bloomed, so did change.
Xiao Mo's father summoned him with a proposition—an arranged marriage with a daughter from another noble clan. He was fifteen now. Of age. The girl had beauty, manners, and a strategic dowry.
"I'm not ready," Xiao Mo said, voice even.
"You don't need to be," his father replied. "You only need to obey."
The words struck a nerve buried deep in Xiao Mo's bones—the same helpless ache from his old life.
He fled the estate that evening, heart pounding, breath ragged.
And he ended up at Yuan's doorstep.
"I shouldn't have come," Xiao Mo said, shaking his head. "I didn't know where else—"
He was cut off by arms wrapping around him, holding tight.
"You're always welcome," Yuan whispered.
In the quiet of that night, with no titles between them, no duties, no rules, Xiao Mo felt something shift.
Not just between them.
Within himself.
For the first time in either life, he didn't feel like he was surviving.
He felt like he was beginning to live.