Julian's footsteps stopped at the entrance to the gallery.

Time seemed to freeze in that moment.


Chloe froze in place, even forgetting to breathe. She stared at the man in the doorway, the source of all chaos and pain in her life. On his face, for the first time, appeared an immense shock beyond his control and a trace of… awkward vulnerability after having the deepest part of his soul exposed.

That mask of a king, always calm and in control, developed its first crack the moment he saw her standing there.

And he saw himself in her eyes—an unforgivable trespasser who had violated sacred ground.


That brief, illusory sense of control from discovering his secret vanished completely when their eyes met. In its place came overwhelming panic as she realized she'd made a terrible mistake.

But there was no turning back now.


All the pain, humiliation, and enormous confusion that Chloe had accumulated for days, even years, found an outlet in this moment. She extended her trembling hand, pointing not at him, but at the portrait on the wall—the one where she was smiling radiantly in the sunshine at eighteen.

"What is this, Julian?" Her voice became sharp and broken with agitation.

Then, her finger moved desperately toward the portrait of her in a wedding dress, her voice carrying an uncontrollable sob:

"And what is this? What do you take me for? A pitiful specimen locked in a cage, to be observed and sketched by you?"

The word "specimen" pierced Julian's heart like a poisoned knife.

This word redefined all his self-righteous acts of "treasuring," "protecting," and "loving" as cold, degrading "observation."

In his unfathomably deep eyes, that glimpse of vulnerable discomposure from shock was instantly replaced by a more violent, more painful emotion.

He approached her suddenly, like a wild beast stabbed in the heart.

"A specimen? You think you're a specimen?"

He grabbed her arms with such force that he nearly crushed her bones. In his extreme anger, he began to shake her slightly—for the first time, completely losing control in front of her.

"Five years ago, I rejected you not because I disliked you, but because if I hadn't pushed you away, I would have done something a thousand times more despicable than that night, right in front of your father!"

His roar, like the wail of a wounded beast, echoed in this sealed temple filled with her portraits.

Chloe was completely stunned by his shouting.

"I made you marry Daniel, not because I thought he was worthy of you, but because I thought he was safe! A harmless waste of space who wouldn't hurt you. He could give you a peaceful life, allowing me to watch over you quietly from a distance!"

"I was wrong! Terribly wrong! I handed my treasure with my own hands into a hell disguised as safety! You ask me what this is?"

He suddenly released her, his trembling hands frantically pointing at the portraits covering the walls.

"This place is the only place I could breathe for these seven years! This is my hell, and also my only heaven!"

After this earth-shattering revelation with its enormous weight of information, both of them fell into a state of exhaustion. Chloe was completely frozen in place, unable to think because of this overwhelming, obsessive truth. Looking at the man before her whose eyes had turned crimson from emotional agitation and whose chest heaved violently, for the first time, she felt like she was seeing a complete stranger.

After Julian had confessed everything, all his strength seemed drained away. Looking at her face, pale with shock and streaming with tears, he felt sharp pains stabbing through his chest.

He walked back to her and gazed at her with an almost reverent, broken look.

Then, he leaned down and, with unprecedented tenderness weathered by ten years of hardship, kissed her lips.

This kiss contained no desire or control.

It was simply a pure kiss, filled with pain, remorse, the joy of recovery after loss, and despair.

This was the only instinctive comfort between two broken souls standing among ruins.

Chloe neither responded nor pushed him away.

She simply allowed those scalding tears she had been holding back to flow freely from her tightly closed eyes, their salty taste merging with this kiss full of sorrow.

Her old world had completely collapsed.

And her new world—how would it be rebuilt upon these ruins?

Everything was unknown.