'Don't', he told himself, with the same firmness he usually reserved for subordinates in crisis. 'Not here. Not now.'
There would be time for whatever came after. Right now his father needed someone present, and that was a task Jin Zixuan could perform. A concrete, actionable thing he could do in a situation where very nearly everything else was beyond his reach.
He sat.
He waited.
Jin Chengyu came back slowly.
Not all at once, not with the sudden sharp return of someone waking from ordinary sleep, but in gradual increments, a tightening around his eyes first, then a slight movement of his hands against the blanket, then a long exhale through his nose.
Jin Zixuan straightened immediately.
"Father."
Jin Chengyu's eyes opened. He stared at the ceiling for a moment with the unfocused expression of a man recalibrating, sorting through the sequence of events that had delivered him to this particular ceiling in this particular room.
