The wind howled through the cracks of the cold palace, whistling like a mourning flute. Snow piled up at the threshold, unshoveled. The brazier had long since gone out.
Shen Lian knelt in her tattered robes, her body trembling from the chill, fingers clutching a crimson scroll. The words "Decree of Dismissal" gleamed in gold, written by the man she once called husband.
She had fought for his crown, slaughtered her own emotions, handed him power on a golden plate—and he gave her this.
A cup of poisoned wine.
She drank it all. No tears. No screams. Just one bitter laugh.
"This life," she whispered, as blood dripped onto the snow, "was wasted on you. I hope you choke on the throne."
Her vision blurred, and her body grew colder than the snow beneath her knees. Memories flickered like candlelight—her wedding, her coronation, the day her father died on the battlefield. The laughter of her so-called sister. The Emperor's back as he walked away.
Then the world went white.
And then—warmth. Birds. A familiar scent of plum blossoms.
She gasped and sat up.
No frostbitten limbs. No blood.
She was in her childhood courtyard. The same stone path. The same bamboo grove.
A shadow moved.
She turned.
There, half-collapsed in the snow, was a boy. Thin, pale, bleeding. His lips trembled as he looked up, pain and defiance flashing across his eyes.
"Save me," he said.
Shen Lian looked into those eyes—eyes she had seen kneeling in front of the palace gates for three days and nights, begging for her life with madness and devotion.
"This time," she said softly, her gaze like frost, "you'll live. But you'll belong to me."
The wind stirred again, but it no longer howled. Somewhere in the distance, a bell rang from the front of the estate. Shen Lian stood up slowly, her fists clenched at her side.
She was thirteen again. And this time, she wouldn't waste it.
She had no allies. No power. Not yet. But she had time—and this time, she wouldn't play by their rules. She would write her own.
Let them laugh at the quiet girl from the outer courtyard. Let them scheme and whisper. In the end, their victories would pave her road to the throne.