Healing in the Dead of Night: Her Heart Turns for Him
That night, Su Qing had just sorted and stowed the day’s earnings and supplies into her space when someone knocked on the window—three short raps, two long ones. The old signal.
Without even sitting up in bed, she called out: “Come in. The door’s unlocked.”
Three seconds later, the door creaked open. It wasn’t Lu Zhanye. It was Xiao Zhao, his face ashen with terror.
“Educated Youth Su—Commander… something’s wrong—”
Su Qing threw off her quilt and sat bolt upright. “What happened?”
“At the training ground—his old wounds flared up all at once. The medics can’t bring it under control. He’s already smashed two tables, flipped a whole jeep—no one at the garrison dares go near him now—” Xiao Zhao’s voice shook so hard it nearly broke. “The surgeon sent me to beg you—”
Su Qing was already lacing her shoes. “Let’s go.”
The garrison training ground blazed with floodlights, bright as high noon. The center was a wreck: two folding tables splintered to scraps, and a full jeep overturned on its roof, its tires slowly spinning. Su Qing eyed the vehicle—at least one and a half tons, he’d lifted it single-handedly. In his frenzy, he’d pushed past the very limits of human strength.
Lu Zhanye wasn’t by the jeep. He huddled in the far corner, head bowed, both hands knotted tight in his hair, forehead pressed almost to his knees. His whole body shuddered—not a faint tremor, but violent, visible convulsions, as if something inside him was tearing loose.
No one dared step within three meters of him. The medics stood five paces back, pale as ghosts; one had a bandage wrapped around his forehead, nicked by flying splinters of wood.
“We gave him the maximum sedative dose—it did nothing,” the lead medic stammered. “His system has developed severe resistance to standard medication—”
Su Qing didn’t wait for him to finish. She walked straight toward the huddled, shaking man.
“Educated Youth Su—!” Xiao Zhao cried out. “Don’t! Last time the surgeon tried to get close, Commander Lu swatted him four meters back—!”
She didn’t turn around. Her pace was steady, unhurried, calm—like approaching a wounded beast.
Three meters. Two. One.
She knelt before him, meeting his gaze. Her heart wrenched tight. This was more than a flare-up—this was raw, soul-deep agony, verging on collapse. His eyes were bloodshot, pupils dilating then contracting, over and over, as if his consciousness was being torn between clarity and chaos. Cold sweat dripped down his temples, veins bulging from his scalp to his throat, and he’d bitten his lip until it bled. His knuckles were white as bone—he was clinging to every last thread of sanity, fighting not to lash out.
He wasn’t fighting the pain. He was fighting himself. Afraid of hurting anyone else—most of all, afraid of hurting her.
“Lu Zhanye,” she said. Her voice was soft, but in the silent training ground it cut clear as a stone dropped into still water.
He didn’t answer—but his body shifted. The convulsions slowed, just a fraction. She saw it.
“Lu Zhanye,” she said again. “It’s me. Su Qing.”
His fingers loosened in his hair.
She reached out—not to touch his face, not to take his hand. Her fingertips pressed precisely to the Fengfu acupoint at the base of his skull, while her other hand settled on the Shuaigu acupoint at his temple: one calms the spirit, the other quells internal wind.
She’d studied his symptoms in the ancient texts from her space, mapped out acupuncture protocols for PTSD more than fifty times in her head. But needles were too risky now—any sharp object might trigger a violent reaction. Instead, she used her fingers, channeling the ancient “needle-by-touch” technique, amplified threefold by the spiritual spring water in her veins.
The effect was instant. His pupils steadied, his shudders faded to faint tremors, his ragged breathing deepened. His hands fell away from his hair.
But this time was different from all the others. He didn’t pull her into an embrace. He just lifted his head and looked at her. The redness lingered in his eyes, but his gaze had cleared, fixed squarely on her face. He stared for so long she thought he might say something—
“I’m sorry.”
Two words, his voice ragged as broken glass scraping over sandpaper.
Su Qing blinked.
“I scared you,” he said.
Not I’m sorry I flared up again. Not I’m sorry you had to come out in the middle of the night. Just—I’m sorry I scared you.
Even after a fit that had nearly torn his mind apart, his first thought was for her.
A sudden, sharp warmth pricked at Su Qing’s nose, rising fast to her eyes. She blinked hard, pushing it back.
“You didn’t,” she said, her voice softer than usual. “I’m not afraid of you. Never have been.”
Lu Zhanye looked at her. Something in his bloodshot eyes seemed to shatter—and something new began to take its place among the pieces. Slowly, he lifted a hand. He didn’t grab her wrist, didn’t cup the back of her head. With fingers still trembling faintly, he brushed her cheek—just once, his thumb wiping away a speck of dust from her cheekbone, then pulling back, light as a breeze.
“Thank you.”
Su Qing said nothing. If she spoke now, she wasn’t sure her voice would hold steady.
Half an hour later, Lu Zhanye was fast asleep on a cot. Su Qing had worked through a full calming acupressure sequence: Fengfu, Baihui, Anmian, Shenmen, twelve points in all, her touch steady as she fed him gentle streams of spiritual energy. He’d drifted off at the eighth point, his brow smoothed, his breathing even. For the first time, he looked like nothing more than a young man, worn thin and finally at rest.
Su Qing sat beside the cot, watching him. He hadn’t reached for her hand—but in his sleep, his whole body turned unconsciously toward her, like a sunflower chasing the light. Even asleep, he sought her out.
She hesitated a moment, then brushed a damp lock of hair from his forehead, her fingertips grazing the faint scar that curved from his temple to his jaw. She wondered what had happened that day—how much pain he’d borne, how alone he’d been. Always alone: charging into battle alone, weathering these attacks alone, lying awake through the long nights alone. Until her.
She pulled her hand back, staring at her own fingers—steady, but her heart hammered twenty beats faster than normal. She couldn’t lie to herself anymore. This wasn’t just physiology, or strategy, or a fair trade of mutual need.
For the first time, she admitted it, clear and honest to her heart: she had fallen for him. Not just a little. Truly, completely, irrevocably.
She leaned against the cot frame and closed her eyes. Outside the tent, the north wind howled. Inside, his breathing was soft and warm. A faint smile tugged at her lips.
Fine then, she thought. Let it be true.