In the gentle hush before dawn, the film set lay veiled in mist. Canvas tents huddled like sleeping beasts. Prop swords stood upright in their racks, glinting faintly beneath the halogen lights. Beyond the plastic mountains and faux palace walls, the city remained asleep, unaware of the history being rewritten in silence.
Behind the monitor, Director Lin Yichen hadn't moved in hours.
His coffee had long gone cold.
"Director Lin," his assistant whispered, careful not to startle him, "shouldn't you rest? It's nearly four in the morning."
Lin Yichen didn't respond. His gaze remained fixed on the playback screen—frame by frame, dissecting the actor's every blink, every inflection, every breath that rang hollow. He watched the scene again. And again.
Still not right.
"Again," he murmured.
The assistant bit back a sigh. Everyone on set knew Lin Yichen's temperament. Cold. Obsessive. Unrelenting. He wasn't cruel to others—only to himself. The crew whispered that he never smiled unless he was speaking to a ghost in a script.
They weren't far from the truth.
---
Lin Yichen had once smiled freely.
Before the awards, before the contracts, before the jade pendant he now wore like a shackle. It hung around his neck on a thin red string—old, unpolished, but heavy with weight he could never explain.
His grandmother had pressed it into his hands the week before her death.
> "You carry someone's fate now, Yichen. Don't lose it."
He hadn't. Not once.
Not even when it burned against his chest during the filming of the palace scene last week.
Not even when the dreams began.
---
For seven nights in a row, he had found himself standing beneath a black sky, inside a palace of obsidian and silver. No set design he ever imagined could rival the cold grandeur of those halls.
A man sat on the dragon throne—not a jade one, but wrought from twisted black iron, shaped like antlers. He wore ceremonial robes that shimmered like spilled ink. His crown cast shadows longer than torches should allow.
The prince—if he could be called that—looked directly at Lin Yichen.
"You came too late."
And each time, Yichen jolted awake, drenched in sweat, the taste of copper heavy on his tongue.
He never told anyone. But the dreams clung to him like smoke.
---
That evening, the crew finally wrapped. The lights dimmed. Actors disappeared into their vans. The assistant directors retired to their cramped trailers. But Lin Yichen wandered the set alone.
The mock palace courtyard stood quiet, lit only by leftover stage lights. He brushed his fingers along the painted wooden pillars designed to mimic ancient stone. He knew every brushstroke, every shadow cast, every etching burned into the false stone—because he had demanded historical precision. Down to the dynasty.
A dynasty that never existed in any official record.
He had found whispers of it in lost poetry, uncredited folktales, strange temple murals, and the mutterings of his grandmother in her final days.
> "Han Zhen… the prince they erased."
No archives spoke of such a man. And yet, Lin Yichen remembered the name like a splinter embedded deep in his memory.
---
A wind rose from nowhere, curling through the courtyard. A parasol fell with a sharp snap. The incense burner left in the temple prop overturned, scattering fine ash like snow.
Yichen turned sharply. No one was there.
But the jade pendant on his chest—silent for years—pulsed once.
He froze.
It pulsed again.
He clutched it instinctively.
The air changed.
For a brief second, the set around him blurred. The painted pillars seemed darker. The fake stars above the backdrop looked… too real. The tiled floor beneath his feet flickered—not plywood but cool, worn stone. And in the corner of his vision, a tall shadow lingered beneath the eaves.
He blinked.
Gone.
Back to fake stone. Electric lights. Empty silence.
He exhaled.
Just fatigue, he told himself. Just dreams bleeding into waking hours.
But the pendant throbbed beneath his fingers, hot enough to sting.
---
That night, he drove home through the city alone.
Rain slicked the streets. The windshield wipers danced rhythmically, the hum of his old sedan drowning out his thoughts. The jade pendant hung cold against his skin now, like the eye of a storm watching him silently.
At a red light, his phone buzzed. He glanced down—his assistant had texted about reshoots scheduled for next week. He responded with a brief "Noted."
A honk behind him startled him. The light had turned green.
He hit the gas.
As he crossed the intersection, the pendant on his chest flared suddenly—heat, then cold—like being plunged into icy water.
He gasped.
Then it faded.
Just stress, he told himself again. Just a dream.
The prince from his nightmares had no place in this world.
---
But when he returned to his apartment, the shadows followed.
He showered, ate nothing, and finally sank into bed .His back ached. His temple throbbed.
He closed his eyes.
And the throne room returned.
But this time, the prince stood beside him.
Not seated, not silent.
"You still don't remember, do you?" he asked softly, head tilted.
Yichen swallowed. "Remember what?"
The prince's fingers touched the jade pendant hanging from Yichen's neck.
His eyes were cold. "You promised to return."
The pendant blazed—white-hot.
Yichen jerked awake, gasping.
It was morning.
And on his chest, the jade pendant had cracked.
Just slightly. A fine line down the center.
He stared at it, breath caught in his throat.
For the first time, he felt the world tipping sideways.
---
He did not know that the crack was the first sign.
That fate had merely paused… waiting for the right moment.
Waiting for a red light.
Waiting for a mistake.
Waiting for the moment the jade no longer held him back.