The world was made of gold, jade, and crushing weight.
Li Fan's knees hit the polished obsidian floor. The impact shot pain up his thighs. He didn't remember walking in. One moment he was in choking darkness, the sound of a collapsing stage roaring in his ears. The next, he was here.
Light from a thousand glowing stones in the vaulted ceiling stabbed his eyes. The air smelled of sandalwood and ozone, thick enough to taste. And the pressure… it was a mountain sitting on his chest, a silent, vast force pushing him down, flattening his spirit.
A scream echoed.
To his left, a man in elaborate blue robes was dragged backwards by two armored guards. The man's face was a mask of snot and tears.
"Mercy! Your Majesty, one more day! I beg you!"
His pleas bounced off the silent, watching courtiers lining the hall and faded through the giant ornate doors. They did not close. A distant, final cry was cut short.
Silence returned, heavier than before.
Li Fan's heart hammered against his ribs. This is a dream. A bad, bad dream. He saw the flashing camera lights of his rally. He felt the platform shudder. He heard his own voice, loud and confident: "Vote for me, and I'll give you tenfold—"
"Minister Li Fan."
The voice was not loud. It was clear. It cut through the hall, through his memories, and etched itself into his bones. It was the sound of tectonic plates moving.
He forced his head up.
At the far end of the hall, on a dais of white jade, she sat.
Empress Huang Yue.
She wasn't just a woman. She was a landscape. Her robes were layers of deep amber and gold, flowing like a mountain range at sunset. Her hair was a dark cascade, held by pins and ornaments that glowed with their own soft light. Her face was perfection, cold and still as a statue carved from ancient ice. And her eyes… they were the color of old, wise earth, and they held no pity.
"The spiritual veins of the Amber Dynasty convulse," she said. Her words made the very air vibrate. "The land sickens. My ministers offer only excuses."
As if to prove her point, the floor trembled. A faint, deep groan traveled through the stone, up through Li Fan's knees. A few courtiers in their rows swayed. No one made a sound.
"You have three days."
The sentence fell like a guillotine blade.
"Solve the crisis of the veins. Or join the others in the chasm."
Li Fan's mouth was desert dry. He tried to speak. A croak came out. He swallowed, tasting blood from where he'd bitten his cheek. "Your… Your Majesty…"
She was already looking past him, as if he'd ceased to exist. A flick of her wrist, smaller than a heartbeat.
A guard's gauntleted hand clamped onto Li Fan's shoulder, hauling him upright. He was turned, marched, stumbling, back down the long aisle. The faces of the other ministers blurred past—some fearful, some grim, a few smug. He was the newest, the most junior, the fool handed the impossible task.
The pressure lessened as he crossed the threshold out of the throne room. The great doors began to swing shut behind him with a final, deep thoom. In the last sliver of closing light, his eyes, desperate for any anchor, any detail, found her again.
And he saw it.
Amidst the terrifying majesty, amidst the world-ending aura, one small thing was wrong.
The most prominent hairpin in her hair, a masterpiece of green jade carved into a phoenix in flight, was tilted. Just slightly. One wing was a fraction higher than the other. It was a flaw. A loose pin. A mundane, stupid, human thing.
Then the doors sealed, and he was in a cold, plain corridor.
The guard shoved him forward. "Your quarters. Don't leave."
The man left. Li Fan stood alone in a small, stone room. A hard bed. A simple table. A single window showing a harsh, beautiful mountain landscape under a purple-tinged sky.
The silence was absolute.
He slid down the wall until he sat on the cold floor. The tremors came then. Not from the earth. From him. His body shook uncontrollably.
Three days.
He saw the minister being dragged away. He heard the cut-off scream.
Spiritual veins. Cultivation. I don't… I don't know what that even means.
He clutched his head. Fragments of another life stabbed him. The cheers of the crowd. The smell of rain on concrete. The promise he'd been making. Tenfold. Everything will be tenfold.
A bitter, silent laugh choked him. Here he was. Promising tenfold growth again. But this time, the stage wasn't collapsing. The whole world was.
He looked at his hands, pale and soft—a politician's hands, not a laborer's. On his right palm, a faint, geometric mark glowed for a second, a ghost of intersecting lines, then faded. It itched. A deep, unnatural itch.
He clenched his fist, pressing it against his forehead.
The image wouldn't leave his mind. The perfect, terrifying Empress. And her crooked hairpin.
Outside, the mountain wind howled. Somewhere deep below, the earth groaned again.
The first day had already begun.