The morning after the dinner, Li Zhanxan did not go to the office. Ignoring seventeen urgent calls from his assistant and a pointed text from his mother, he drove back to the Old Imperial Library. The building was now cordoned off with yellow caution tape, silent and looming like a tomb.

He didn't care about the trespass warnings.

He climbed through the same ground-floor side window Yanshan must have used, his expensive shoes crunching on broken glass.

He climbed to the third floor, his heart racing with a mixture of dread and hope.

The alcove was a mess of fallen books and dust. Zhanxan knelt where the boy had stood, searching for anything – a footprint, a dropped glove, a sign.

His hand brushed against a heavy, leather-bound volume of ancient poetry that had fallen from the shelf during the collapse.

As he lifted the book, a piece of paper slid out from underneath it.

It wasn't a printed page. It was a piece of heavy sketching paper, charcoal-smudged and torn at the edges. On it was a drawing of a soldier in ancient armor, standing under a weeping willow. The soldier's face was incomplete, but the posture - the way he held his sword, the slight tilt of his head - was unmistakable.

It was a portrait of him. Or rather, a portrait of the man he felt he used to be.

At the bottom of the sketch, in a messy, modern handwriting, were four words: "I dream of you."

Zhanxan felt the air leave his lungs. This wasn't a glitch in an app. This wasn't a deleted message.

This was graphite on paper, a physical echo of the connection they both felt.

The paradox had tried to drop a bookshelf to keep them apart, but in doing so, it had shaken loose the very evidence Zhanxan needed.

***

Hei Yanshan was sitting in a lecture hall, staring blankly at a slide of a Gothic cathedral. He felt a sudden, sharp sting in his chest – a sensation of being watched, or perhaps, of being found.

He frantically patted down every pocket and compartment of his bag.

He finally found his sketchbook and let out a sigh of relief, only for his heart to sink again.

The most important page was missing - the one where he had captured the likeness of the man from his strange dreams.

He had brought the sketchbook to the library and, in that quiet, dust-filled alcove, had drawn the soldier who haunted his dreams; but when the shelf collapsed and he fled in terror, that specific sheet must have fallen out.

"Oh God no," he whispered, burying his face in his hands. "Not that one. Anything but that one."

It was a sketch he had drawn in a feverish state after his first dream of the War God. It was his most private confession, a bridge between his waking life and the haunting past. If someone found it, they would think he was insane. Or worse, they would know exactly who was haunting his heart.

***

In the Heavenly Realm...

Official Wang was leaning back in his chair, feet propped up on the console, looking immensely proud of himself.

"See, Chen? Logic," Wang said, popping a celestial grape into his mouth. "The system is programmed to stop interactions. It can stop a phone call, it can stop a conversation, it can even stop a handshake. But it cannot stop a man from reading a piece of paper that was already there. It's a passive observation."

"You've bypassed the filter by using a 'Past Event' to trigger a 'Present Realization'," Junior Official Chen noted, impressed despite himself.

"The paradox didn't see the sketch as a communication because Yanshan didn't give it to him. He lost it."

"Exactly," Wang grinned. "And now, Zhanxan knows that the boy in the library isn't just a stranger. He's the one who shares the dreams. Now, Zhanxan won't just look for him – he will hunt for him."

"But what about the wedding?" Chen asked, pointing to a flickering icon of a diamond ring on the screen. "The wedding is approaching fast. If he doesn't break the cycle before then, the Red Thread will be buried under another lifetime of duty."

Wang’s smile faded. "Then we need to make sure the hunt ends before the 'I do'."