Chapter 35
Yi Nuo~
The days after Ruilin left stretched into an eternity, each one a frayed silk thread, thin enough to snap with a sigh. Idleness, a silent enemy, threatened to suffocate me. I tried my best to ignore the slow passage of time, keeping myself occupied to avoid the emptiness left in the bed beside me, where Ruilin’s scent was gradually disappearing from the sheets.
Instead of dwelling on the now, I poured my energy into the future, sewing tiny swaddles and caps from soft cotton. I carefully copied drawings of herbs and roots into my medicinal journal, making sure to include all the notes. Back when I was a healer in the mortal world, I relied on straightforward tools: a mortar, a pestle, clean cloth, and boiling water. Now, even in the opulent Phoenix Realm, surrounded by jade and gold, I found quiet solace in these familiar practices.
Through a large window, I gazed at the moon, which resembled a milky coin against gauzy clouds, when my bedroom door slid open. I saw a familiar form and looked up to see my most trusted attendant Lue Lue, who had become like a second mother to me now standing in the doorway. Her hair was styled in identical side buns with a single flower tucked behind. Her simple green dress was pulled a little too tight, as it always had been. But she seemed different — a hair too measured, as if she were moving through each beat after some thought.
“I brought your hawthorn tea, Mistress,” she said, her voice calm and lacking its usual chirpiness. Perhaps I’m not the only one who misses Ruilin.
“Thank you, but so late?” I asked.
She placed the porcelain cup next to me, steam wafting in faint tendrils toward the ceiling. Her back was still facing me, and responded, “Lady Yi Nuo is working too late. You should rest.”
The phrasing caught my attention — she hadn’t called me Lady Yi Nuo since Ruilin and I’d gotten married, and never before had she turned to address me with her back toward me. I made myself flatten out my expression and inhaled the tea’s fragrance. My healer’s nose picked up hawthorn yes — but underneath something bitter. Red peony root. Oxtongue. A combination I had only seen in … My throat tightened. Abortives. Early labor tonics.
What am I thinking? I chided myself. Stop being irrational. Get out of your head!
I glanced up at her, searching her face. But the light caught her features softly, the same familiar slope of cheek, the same careful bow of her head. My mind had been a restless bird since Ruilin left — seeing threats where there were none. I was being overcautious. Overprotective.
I lifted the cup and drank. The earthy fluid was thicker than normal. Bitterness attacked, and then there came an oppressive sweet that would not leave my tongue alone. Suddenly, my limbs grew heavy. My eyes were impossible to keep open, my mind sliding like silk on waxed wood, and the cup slid from my fingers.
The last thing I saw was Lue Lue’s face looming above me — inscrutable, haloed in lamplight — before the darkness swallowed everything. The last lucid thought I had was, this must be a dream.
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I was jolted awake by the awful pain.
It felt as if I was being ripped from the inside out. Something was tearing me from sleep like claws raking through my belly, sharp and deep, stealing the breath from my lungs before I could scream. The silken sheets beneath me were damp, clinging to my thighs.
Confusion. For a moment, I didn’t understand. Then another contraction slammed into me, harder, more vicious — not the tightening waves I’d grown used to, but the wild, relentless spasms of a body forced into labor too soon. No! It’s too soon!
Relax Yi Nuo, just breathe through it. This will pass. I told myself while fearing the worst.
The jarring stabs of pain intensified with every pass as it ripped through me, instantly awakening my healer’s mind. I inhaled sharply, mentally counting the seconds between each wave, the ragged breaths mirroring the tightening in my belly. Too frequent. Too intense. Panic threatened, but I pushed it down, focusing. My hand slid beneath the thin cotton of my nightgown, between my legs. My fingertips encountered the slick, cool texture of the expelled mucus plug, a slippery, gelatinous mass. A moment later, a gush of warm water, like a torrent, flooded over my hand, soaking my nightgown with its sudden heat.
Panic clawed its way into my throat, but I forced it back. You’ve done this before. You’ve brought life into this world with your own hands. You can do it again.
“Lue Lue! Help!” My voice ripped into the stillness, cracking at the edges. “Someone — please!” Nothing. Not even the faint brush of slippers in the corridor.
I gathered my drenched nightgown to my waist, rolling onto my knees, willing my trembling legs to hold me. I tried to crawl toward the door, but another contraction seized me, locking my spine in a rigid bow, dragging me down to the floor.
Black dots swarmed across my vision. The air was thick with the sharp, metallic tang of blood — too much blood for this stage of labor. I felt it run hot and heavy, streaming down my legs in ghastly ribbons. I gasped and reached down again — and froze. The hard, round swell of my baby’s head was already pushing against me.
“No… please… it’s too soon,” I whispered, my breath shaking. Desperately, I tried to hum the Phoenix Song, the one I’d sung to her in the womb, as if my voice could coax her to wait. But the pain stole the melody from my lips. I grasped the cool, carved table leg beside me, my nails scratching against the smooth lacquer, digging in so deep I imagined the sting of splinters.
Through unknown hours, I battled my body’s primal cry, a guttural command I struggled to silence, holding back as if will could keep her safely within. My jaw ached, a tight, burning throb from clenching. My thighs trembled, a shaky, vibrating hum beneath my skin. Sweat, salty and slick, slid down my temples, mingling with the hot, stinging tears, and I knew, with a hollow ache in my chest, that nothing was going to stop my baby from leaving my womb.
Breathe with the pain.
I took a ragged, gasping inhale.
Let it come, this unstoppable tide. Push when the wave takes you, surrendering to its powerful pull. But the next wave was my undoing, so I braced myself, gritting my teeth, and I pushed as if my life depended on it.
The smell hit first — the thick, cloying stench of blood mingled with the sour tang of urine and the earthy musk of fecal matter. The ring of flesh stretched, searing like a brand against my skin, before tearing in a raw, shocking rip from front to back. Warm fluid and blood gushed in a violent flood, streaking my legs and pooling around my knees. The table leg shook in my grasp as I clung to it like a drowning woman to driftwood.
Saliva dripped from my chin as my screams split the air, unrestrained, animal, echoing off the walls. Then — pressure and relief all at once. The small, slippery crown of a head the size of an apple slid into my trembling hands, slick and hot. Another push — the shoulders passed — then the rest, the release sudden and overwhelming, leaving in my palms the tiny, impossibly fragile weight of life.
A son. Perfect and small, and alive.
He made a sound — not a cry, but a soft, lamb-like coo. His eyes opened, impossibly clear, deep brown laced with molten gold. Ruilin’s eyes.
The sight undid me. My breath broke into sobs as I pulled him to my bare chest, the rapid flutter of his heartbeat a miracle against my skin. Instinct guided him to my breast, his tiny mouth latching as though he had known all along where to find me.
A slick cord still tethered us, pulsing faintly with the last of its life. I reached for the small, pearl-handled knife on the bedside table — a tool I used for slicing herbs — my hands shaking as I cut through the cord. It resisted for a heartbeat, then gave way with a soft, wet snap, severing the link but not the bond.
Blood welled at the stump, but my healer’s training stirred even through the haze of pain. I fumbled for a strip of clean cloth from my work basket, twisting it into a tight cord and binding it firmly around the newborn’s navel to staunch the bleeding. Only then did I cradle him fully to my chest, breathing in the raw, sweet scent of him.
His wet, dark hair, like delicate strands of seaweed, plastered to his small head under my fingertips. Each strand felt weightless as a feather. “You clever boy,” I whispered, my voice trembling, a shaky breath escaping my lips. “I thought you were my daughter… but you knew.” A nervous giggle bubbled up. “Your father will never let me live this down. He’s going to be over the moon when he meets you.”
Blood still streamed from me, pooling beneath my knees, soaking my shift until the floor was a dark, glistening pond of maroon. My arms ached, my body shook, but nothing in the world could take him from me.
I hummed the Phoenix Song. He stilled instantly, his gaze too intense for a newborn locked on mine. His tiny fingers curled into the damp strands of hair on my chest, holding me with a strength far beyond his size, as if to say, I know who you are.
“You’re perfect,” I breathed, pressing my cheek to his downy head.
The world narrowed to his warmth, his milky scent, the fragile weight of him in my arms. But the warmth beneath me kept spreading. Too much. My head grew light, my arms heavier with each breath. I blinked hard, desperate to hold on to this moment, but the edges of the room blurred and darkened. The song faltered on my lips.
Footsteps — heavy, sharp, fast — cut through the haze.
“Oh, the Gods! Yi Nuo!” I lifted my gaze, the world swimming, and saw the last person I wanted. Feng Ming knelt beside me, his usual smirk vanished, replaced by something that looked almost like grief in the dim light of the bedchamber. He appeared roughed up, as if he’d been in a fight, a fresh smudge of blood on his lips and his hair disheveled. “I heard you howling,” he stammered, winded from running, his voice shaky but low, steady — almost like Ruilin’s.
The scent of sweat, blood and leather clung to him. “The guards wouldn’t let me in — his orders, you know. But I broke them and had to fight the guards to get to you.”
My skin felt clammy; my body heavy as lead. “Look at my perfect baby. I have a son,” I murmured, the words sounding distant and slurred as they left my heavy tongue, my strength fading with each breath, the sounds of the night blurring around me.
His hand covered mine, warmth flaring through my skin, his magic threading into me. “You’ve lost too much blood. It must be stopped.” he said softly. “Let me help you.”
I wanted to tell him to go. To bring Ruilin. But the dark tide was already rising. The last thing I saw was his face in the lamplight — shadowed, unreadable — before it pulled me under.
====
I woke up again to the mingled scents of cinnamon and blood in my bed — a strange, unsettling sweetness threading through the copper tang clinging to my throat. Feng Ming sat beside me, his robe sleeves pooling over the armrest, one hand resting lightly on the blanket near mine. His gaze was steady, warm in a way that unsettled me more than his smirks ever could.
“You scared me to death,” he whispered. “If I’d been a moment later—” He stopped, shaking his head with studied restraint. “I stopped the bleeding.”
At the foot of the bed, Lue Lue knelt with her forehead pressed to the polished floor. A dark smear of blood marked where she had already struck it in penance. Behind her, the other servants mirrored her posture, motionless as carved statues.
My dry voice cracked, harsh in the still air. “I called for you! Where were you? Where were you when I needed you?”
“I—” Lue Lue’s voice shook, thin as rice paper in the wind. “I was under a spell. I couldn’t wake up! Someone must have messed with the water — Lue Lue would never let Princess Consort suffer! Lue Lue wouldn’t!”
Feng Ming’s tone was silken, deceptively soft. “Under a spell, or simply negligent? This one let her previous mistress, Empress Ma, die. What was Ruilin thinking, choosing her to serve you?”
Tears streamed down her face as her forehead struck the floor again, harder. “I failed you, Mistress. I am unworthy.”
Something in me snapped. The emptiness in the room seemed to swell, pressing in from all sides. Ruilin was gone — the only person here who was mine, truly mine — and now my son… “My baby,” I whispered, clutching the blanket as though it could anchor me. “Bring me my son.”
A long pause. The longest pause perhaps since the beginning of time.
Feng Ming’s expression softened, almost sorrowful. “It was a girl, Yi Nuo. She… didn’t survive.”
What nonsense was he talking about? “No.” My voice sharpened, rising like a blade. “No, you’re wrong. He was alive — my son was alive!” I pushed myself upright, the room lurching violently.
The sobbing servants murmured, their words muffled, meaningless. I shoved the covers aside and stumbled toward the cradle in the corner.
Inside lay a still form wrapped in white — a girl, skin blue-tinged, cold to the touch. “That’s not my child,” I whispered, and the whisper broke into a scream. “That’s not my child! There’s been some mistake — I had a son! He looked at me! He knew who I was, and he nursed! I can still smell him! I want him this very instant!”
I must have sounded mad. I felt mad. The cradle blurred through a wash of tears. I clung to its cherry wood edge as though I could wrench the truth out of its grain. My sobs tore at my ribs. “This isn’t her. This isn’t her. You have to believe me.”
“Take the little princess away for a proper burial,” Feng Ming ordered, his voice low and edged with steel. “Yi Nuo has cried enough. Confine Lue Lue until her punishment is decided for failing her mistress. Remove the rest — strip them of their posts and send them to the lowest duties in the palace. They should be grateful I don’t have them executed on the spot.”
He paused, his gaze sweeping the bowed heads before him. “Replace them with my people. I want no one near her who answers to anyone but me.”
The words settled over the room like chains, invisible but unbreakable.
His hand came to my shoulder — gentle, coaxing. “Yi Nuo, I used my magic to stop your bleeding, but you’re bleeding again. The Imperial doctor just left. I can’t believe Ruilin didn’t arrange proper prenatal care for you. It’s one thing to be secretive, another to be negligent. Please, you need to rest. You’re safe now.”
“Safe?” I choked out a bitter sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I’m alone here. You don’t understand. None of you understand!”
His hand brushed my temple feather light. The soft, inevitable pull of magic lapped over me, loosening my muscles despite my fight. “Sleep,” he murmured. “I’ll watch over you, and no one will hurt you anymore.”
The last thing I saw was his face, blurred but steady, before the darkness claimed me again.
Days bled into one another without shape or color. I stopped counting the nights since my son was taken from me — whether stolen or truly gone, I could not tell. I didn’t dress. I didn’t eat. I didn’t sleep. What was the point of living?
“It’s time for the little Prince to nurse. Bring my son to me,” I murmured to anyone who entered — the new servants, the physicians, even the guards. “Tell Ruilin to come home. Does he know someone is keeping my baby from me?”
They told me he knew. They told me he grieved in the Nine Heavens. But if he knew… Why wasn’t he here?
I drifted wandering through the Eastern Palace like a lost ghost. Immortals who once offered polite smiles now looked through me. Conversations hushed as I passed; attendants shifted aside without bowing. I caught the curl of disdain at the corners of their mouths — the mortal who had failed to bear the Crown Prince’s heir.
When the news came, it fell like a blade. Consort Lie Xi had given birth to a fine son. Firebirds wheeled through the skies above her pavilion, their wings scattering sparks in what they called an auspicious sign.
“She planned this all along! The hawthorn tea! She induced my labor and stole him. I know it!” I said, my voice trembling but certain. “She stole my son.”
The maids glanced at each other nervously. “Princess Consort, you shouldn’t speak that way. You are mortal. This is dangerous.”
But the words spilled from me, jagged and hot. “Why can’t anyone see? Her hands are bloody. Her heart is poisoned. That child — mine..”
They stepped back as though grief were contagious.
I began to hear him at night — a thin, plaintive cry winding through the corridors, tugging at the core of me. My breasts ached, milk soaking through my gown.
One night, barefoot, my shift trailing like mist, I followed it past the sleeping pavilions into the red-lantern corridors of the inner court. The sound grew louder at the door to Consort Lie Xi’s palace. My hand trembled on the frame. I stepped inside. The air was thick with orchids and lotus. In the nursery, a lacquered cradle sat beneath a gauze canopy. I moved toward it, heart pounding, ready to see—
“Yi Nuo.” Her voice, smooth as oil over glass, froze me. She stood in the doorway, phoenix crest gleaming, robes the deep red of a temple flame. Her eyes held the cold appraisal one might give a stray dog at a banquet. Guards moved in. Hands on my arms — not rough, but unyielding — turning me from the cradle before I could confirm the truth I already knew.
They returned me to the Eastern Palace and locked my bedchamber doors. It was no longer a home. It was a silken cage. Without Ruilin or the Emperor, my place here was as fragile as a dried lotus petal. Consort Lie Xi’s son had given her a crown of influence.
I asked for Ruilin every day. Every hour. They told me he knew. They told me he grieved in the Nine Heavens. Then one morning, as a maid poured my tea, she whispered that Consort Lie Xi’s son had opened his eyes for the first time. Laughter rang through the Western Pavilion.
“That’s not true,” I snapped, voice brisk and hard. “My son was born with his eyes open. I remember. She stole him.”
The maid froze, hands trembling. “Yi Nuo… you mustn’t say such things. You are mortal. What you accuse is slanderous. You are accusing deities of acting like baby stealing demons. Please don’t say anything more.”
The word slanderous settled like a stone in my chest. After that, I could not leave my room, and they started to call me Yi Nuo, not Lady Yi Nuo, Not Princess Consort but just Yi Nuo.
I refused to give up on Ruilin. He wouldn’t leave me, his wife, the love of his life, in such a state. When he came home, he would take our son back, so I wrote to him every day. Come home. Please come home. I hear our boy crying. I’m afraid.
Day after day I waited, but sadly, no reply came.
The servants set down food and left without meeting my eyes. No matter how many braziers they lit, the air stayed cold. On the seventh night, the door slid open. Feng Ming stepped inside.
Feng Ming~
When I opened the door to her bedchamber, the stale air was heavy — thick with uneaten food, wilted flowers, and grief that clung to clothing like smoke.
So small. So frail. She was curled in the bed, hair tangled, eyes staring off far away. She was not the radiant figure from the Jade Terrace. The Eastern Palace was no longer her home — it was her cell, and Consort mother had made sure everyone knew it. Without Ruilin or the Emperor, Yi Nuo was nothing here. Nothing but prey. Perfect for me.
I’d dressed in muted gray tonight, hair unbound the way Ruilin often wore it after training. Even the tilt of my head when I looked at her was his. I set the tray down softly, as though the sound alone might shatter her, and it was completely possible it might.
“I had planned to let you rest, but I heard you haven’t eaten. I’m worried about you,” I said, sitting beside her at the right angle with just enough space between us to mimic Ruilin’s habit. I lifted a spoon. “Please. Just a little.”
She blinked slowly, as though surfacing from a deep pool. In some ways, she was as dead as Consort mother’s child. “Why hasn’t he come back? He swore he would.” Such a small, broken voice, never did I think such a voice could come from someone as vibrant as she.
That was my cue — but I didn’t give her the blade immediately. I let her squirm for it. “He’s… busy,” I said at first, keeping my voice level. “You know how the Nine Heavens can be. The Skylord. Demands. Formalities. He can’t just leave whenever he wishes.”
Her pale lips parted, a tiny sound escaping. “But he knows… Are you sure he’s gotten my letter?”
I nodded, laggingly. “He knows. I sent a message personally because I’m worried about you. I asked him to come home, but… perhaps… it’s harder for him than you think. Some men… they don’t know what to say in the face of this kind of loss. They think distance and silence is charitable.”
She flinched at the word “charitable” and wheezed as she looked away, her lips and jaw trembling. That brief flicker of defense for him was exactly what I wanted. I sighed, letting my gaze drop like Ruilin’s had so many times when he was searching for gentleness. I even mimicked his voice. “I don’t want to hurt you, Yi Nuo.”
“What more could possibly hurt me?” She asked in that lost little voice.
“Since you’re asking me for the truth.” I let the silence stretch, as though I was weighing whether I should say it at all. “Men… especially immortals… sometimes see a stillbirth as a failing of the mother. Even if it isn’t her fault. They hold women accountable for not being able to protect their child and her womb flawed..defective. They may not speak of it, but they feel it. It changes the way they look at her, and many men never touch their wives again after such a misfortune.”
Her head shook, desperate tremor that ran through her entire body and sent a denial in waves down each shudder. Tears welled, blurring her vision. Her voice cracked as she whispered, “No — no, Ruilin wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t…” The words were there, spun in the air like a spider’s web — tearing and fragile as it was desperate, beating its wings against the bars of that golden cage.
I managed a small, pained smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes. “I hope you’re right.” Then I let the silence stretch, thick and heavy hanging between us. “But… there’s more.” I paused to build tension. “As much as I hate to tell you, Yi Nuo, this will hurt you.”
My voice dropped, softer still. I leaned forward, just close enough that she had to tilt her head to catch every word. “Princess Changying’s palanquin was seen entering the Celestial Palace yesterday.” I paused, letting the image take root. “The servants whisper that she requested Ruilin’s favorite wine… for a private dinner that lasted long into the night.” I looked away as though telling her pained me, my gaze lingering on the floor before flicking back to her face, then down at my hands again.
“You remind me of her, you know — the same delicate jaw, the same shape to your eyes, even the same temperament. I’ve always wondered if that’s why he chose you.” My voice softened, warm with false empathy. “But Yi Nuo… you can’t blame him.” I leaned in a fraction closer, my tone dropping to a near-whisper. “That rumor about her having another? Only a rumor. She’s ready to marry him. Her father is the Emperor of the Heavens; her mother the Empress of Qingqiu. A marriage like that… it’s the kind of union that shapes realms. It would be foolish for Ruilin to refuse.”
The silence stretched just long enough to sting her raw nerves. Then, I lunged, aiming for the visible cracks in her already fragile heart, wanting to hear it shatter. “She was his first love,” I said, each word a shard thrown into the wound.
I saw her face crumple like a letter waved in the grip of a fist. Her eyes first — the light flowing out of them as if someone had blown a candle. Then her mouth, the corners of it trembling before tucking in. Her shoulders came next, collapsing around themselves as she gripped the blanket so hard her knuckles turned white, as if it alone would keep her grounded while everything else was pulled from under. And in that moment, I could almost see it — the very hollow behind her rib cage where his name used to reverberate.
With deliberate slowness, I reached for her hand, brushing it with the back of my fingers gingerly. My touch was measured, oh so light, oh so tender, my head tilted in that exact way Ruilin used to reassure her. For a heartbeat, her gaze locked on my eyes — the same color as Ruilin’s — searching, desperate, and I knew she wasn’t entirely certain who she was looking at as she wavered.
But as my fingers lingered, the demon in me rose. My eyes dipped to her mouth for just a moment too long before I forced them away. I could feel the heat building low in my chest — not sympathy, but want. “You’re not alone,” I soothed her, warm and certain in a voice that was almost his. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure of it. I’m going to let you rest. Remember Yi Nuo, you’re not alone. I’m here for you.”
I left her chamber with my expression carefully schooled — the same half-somber mask I’d worn inside. The guards outside straightened as I passed; none of them dared to look too long. Once I turned the corner, I let the facade fall because I couldn’t carry on a moment longer.
But her face stayed with me — the confusion in her eyes when she looked at me, searching for Ruilin in the lines of my face. And she had seen him there. I’d made sure of it.
There was a part of me — the vulnerable side I rarely admit to — that wavered when I saw her tears. She trembled like a lone leaf clinging to a branch amid a storm, and doubt crept in. When her voice cracked, asking why he hadn’t come, something almost human stirred within me.
For a fleeting moment, I felt the urge to confess the truth: Ruilin was lost in darkness, blinded by the blindfold we tied around him. He remained oblivious, seeing no evil, hearing no evil, speaking no evil, as he read the fabricated letters from Yi Nuo, assuring him she was fine and waiting.
But that moment of compassion came and went as quickly as a single breath because pity doesn’t get you what you want. Power does. And how very much I want her — the mortal woman my brother had hidden away, the one who looked at him as if he were the only man in all the realms. That gaze, that devotion — that love, I would take it for myself.
She’s already halfway there. Grief will do that to a person — blur the lines, make them reach for whatever hand is offered. I’ll give her that hand. I’ll feed her, listen to her, protect her from the very people I poison against her. And when she is alone and trusts me enough to lean fully into my arms… I won’t let her go. Not because she’ll want to stay but because by then, she won’t know how to leave.
Consort Lie Xi~
The Western Maternity Pavilion was quiet but for the wailing. It was a thin, piercing sound that clawed through the silk curtains and into my skull.
“Make him stop! Just shut him up!” I barked without turning from the mirror. My fingers adjusted the fall of my hair, ensuring each strand lay sleek and perfect beneath the gold Phoenix hairpin. “I can’t hear myself think.”
Meizhen stood by the cradle, her face carefully blank. “He won’t nurse, Empress. Several wet nurses have tried. He turns away, cries harder. It’s been since yesterday.”
I sighed — not in worry, but in sheer irritation. “Doesn’t he understand how important tomorrow is? The court will see me for the first time with the new heir in my arms, and I will not appear with sunken eyes and chapped lips from lack of sleep.”
Meizhen hesitated. “Perhaps if you held him—”
I spun then, fixing her with a look sharp enough to cut. “Held him? Have you lost your senses? I carried him for two and a half years, Meizhen. I endured the swelling, the diet, the endless whispers about my age and my ability to conceive. I’ve done my part. Now he will do his — be silent, be presentable, and look like a son of the Phoenix Emperor.”
I rose, smoothing the crimson folds of my robe. “If the wet nurse can’t feed him, find another. If another can’t, use goat’s milk, or whatever it is mortal women feed their young. Just keep him quiet. A shrieking infant is not the image I intend to present to the ministers.”
Meizhen risked a glance at the child, whose cries had grown raw and hoarse. “He’s losing strength. If this continues—”
“If this continues,” I interrupted, “then the healers will do whatever is necessary to keep him alive. A dead heir serves no one. But don’t expect me to spend the night pacing like some farmwife. My face will be flawless in the morning, Meizhen. That thing is your responsibility.”
I swept from the pavilion without looking back, the echo of his cries chasing me down the corridor like an unwelcome servant.