If you were to ask others then no. Even I didn't fully trust him. But I listened and I eventually followed to where he led. All the time I'd lost came back to me and I found her hiding away trying to get revenge against the Empress who scarred her face and also took her child. Through all of it she'd gone a little mad and she wanted my help to get her revenge.

I wasn't sure what to do. Her thoughts of revenge involved killing my brother. It weighed heavily on me. But I wanted to help her find peace as well as bring the Empress to justice somehow for all her crimes.

[Runyu closes his eyes then.]

It wasn't to be that way. Not the way my mother planned. The Empress found us and my mother died protecting me. She died in my arms and I felt ice run through me. So cold that I attacked the Empress. One of us would have died if Jinmi's father hadn't stopped us. That should have been the end of our conflict.

But she chose to threaten to kill my mother's people, including my two adopted brothers one of which is Yanyou. Unless I took the punishment on their behalf. A punishment meant for so many lives. They could be spared if I did so.

I agreed.

She tortured me before my brothers and my father only interfered when it seemed she would actually kill me. It was then I knew I had all the confirmation that I needed. There was no one who would fight for me. I had to do something instead.