"Some truths are not carved in stone, but burned into flesh."
The hour was nearly midnight when the Imperial Patrol circled the Southern Garden.
They were not searching for thieves. No one dared steal within the palace. They were looking for signs—marks—of the past reawakening.
At their front rode Commander Ji Fenglin, dressed in night armor, his silver mask lowered. He had requested the patrol route himself. Not because he doubted the guards… but because he could no longer doubt his own memory.
He had seen the scar.
A circular burn beneath the shoulder blade, once seared into the skin of rebels captured during the Southern Rebellion. The brand took the form of a blooming chrysanthemum — twisted by flame, inked by blood.
He had burned it into others himself.
So when he caught the edge of it on Mo Lianyin's back three days prior — during a routine inspection when she had stumbled — he had said nothing aloud.
But his silence had not meant ignorance.
It meant calculation.
That same night, Mo Lianyin sat in her small quarters tucked behind the lower wing of the Servants' Hall. The moon cast pale light on the floorboards, and the sound of rustling wind slipped through the gaps in the paper walls.
She sat on the edge of her cot, slowly untying her outer robe.
She had not been followed, but she had been watched.
The silence of the past days confirmed it. Fewer maids crossed her path. Conversations ended when she entered a room. Even the gardener, Lao Chen, no longer met her eyes.
The palace had seen her. Now it waited.
Lianyin pulled her robe down to her left arm and stared at the mark.
The chrysanthemum.
Still faint, but unmistakable — as though the fire that once branded her had cooled, but not died.
It was the only part of her she had never understood. The only thing from her childhood that remained untouched by memory.
She could recall no name.
Only heat. Smoke. And a hand pressing her into the dirt, whispering: "Don't scream. If you scream, they'll finish it."
Then silence.
Meanwhile, in the Jade Hall, a banquet was being prepared in honor of the late Empress's birthday — a yearly ritual carried out not for grief, but for political theater.
The Emperor did not attend. He never did.
But the ladies of the court were expected to honor the previous Empress with poise and poetry.
Lady Zhenluo stood before her dressing mirror, pale fingers threading pearls through her hair. Her expression remained composed, but her reflection betrayed the tremble in her lower lip.
A servant stepped inside, bowing low. "Your Grace. The gift has arrived."
She turned. "Place it on the table."
The servant laid down a long lacquered box, sealed with black wax.
Zhenluo dismissed her with a single flick of her sleeve. When the door closed, she moved forward slowly and opened it.
Inside lay a folded silk sash, embroidered with chrysanthemums and phoenix feathers — once belonging to Empress Yingwen, the Emperor's first and only wife.
A chill ran through her fingers as she lifted it.
This sash was supposed to be buried.
Only one person could have pulled it from the Empress's sealed tomb.
The Emperor.
And he had sent it to her.
Not as a gift.
As a message.
Back in the garden, Prince Ruiyan moved alone between the trees, cloak fluttering in the wind. He walked without an escort — as he always did when he needed to think.
He paused near the old scholar's pavilion, where many years ago, his mother used to take him when he cried over lessons.
She had died of illness. At least, that's what the records said.
But Ruiyan had always wondered.
When he arrived at the pavilion's steps, he was startled to find someone already seated there.
Mo Lianyin.
Her robe hung loosely over one shoulder. The moonlight cast silver across her exposed skin — and over the scar on her back.
She didn't turn.
She knew he was there.
He said nothing. He only stepped forward, and slowly sat down beside her.
For a long time, neither of them spoke.
Then she whispered, "Do you believe in ghosts, Your Highness?"
Ruiyan looked out over the garden. "Only the kind that still breathe."
She turned her head to him at last, her eyes glassy with memories. "Then I think one of them… lives inside me."
He didn't ask questions. He didn't press her.
Instead, he reached into his sleeve and unrolled a scroll — the painting signed with the single character: 音.
He laid it beside her.
Lianyin's eyes widened.
"That's…" she breathed.
"You painted it, didn't you?"
She said nothing.
But she didn't deny it.
He stared at her, voice soft. "Who taught you that brushstroke?"
She looked away. "Someone I loved."
Ruiyan's expression didn't change. But the weight in his eyes deepened.
"Then perhaps," he murmured, "it's time we both remembered who we're meant to become."