Chapter 36
Yi Nuo~
Two months. Sixty-one days. One thousand, four hundred and sixty-four hours. Eighty-seven thousand, eight hundred and forty minutes.
It isn’t a clock that keeps the time for me. It’s my hair—strands I coil around my finger until they snap from the root. Each break is a quiet thunder in my fingertips. I hide them beneath my pillow like contraband, a secret no one cares enough to discover.
Some say I’m mad. I don’t argue. I must have been mad to think faith in another could be anything but a noose. We are born alone, and we die alone. Alone. I should have stayed that way.
Some say I’m confused. That, too, I don’t dispute. The memories blur—blood, pain, the weight of a baby in my arms, the warmth of tender skin against mine—until I can’t tell which belong to me and which are dreams I stitched together like patches on a fraying quilt just to keep warm.
Some say I’ve lost myself. With this I agree thoroughly. Sometimes I catch my reflection in the bronze mirror—a pale, hollow-eyed stranger staring back as if from under deep water. Hair uncombed, lips cracked, ink stains clinging to my fingertips though the letters have stopped.
It’s now been two months. Sixty-one days. One thousand, four hundred and sixty-four hours. Eighty-seven thousand, eight hundred and forty-nine minutes. In all those minutes, I’ve written one hundred and sixty letters to Ruilin. I don’t write anymore. The ink dries in the inkwell; the brush sits where I left it, like a sword long abandoned in its sheath. There’s no point sending words into a void.
“Yi Nuo, I brought you fresh flowers. Lillies.”
Feng Ming moves through my bedchamber as if it’s his own. No one knocks anymore; no one dares to stop him. His presence is like the turning of the sun—regular, inescapable, and scorching when it lingers too long.
He places the vase with precision, adjusting the stems as though a single crooked bloom could unbalance the world. His voice is soft; his manners impeccable. But my gracious visitor can’t hide the cracks in his porcelain mask.
I see it in the way his palm rests a heartbeat too long on my blanket. The way his gaze catches on my mouth and refuses to let go. The way his eyes travel the length of me—not like a man admiring beauty, but like a butcher mapping where to make the first cut.
He is a wolf in silk. And maybe… just maybe that’s better than a wolf pretending to be an angel. At least Feng Ming doesn’t hide the hunger in his eyes. Ruilin, I realize now, hid everything.
This morning, Feng Ming leans against the doorframe, his silhouette tall and deliberate, like a shadow cast by something much larger.
“It’s been a few months,” he says, the words slow, weighed, “and the doctors say you’re ready to resume normal—” He cuts himself off, but I hear what he swallow.
A chill curled low in my spine, deliberate as a hand closing around my throat. I knew the shape of that hunger in his eyes — it was not only desire, but the kind that sought to devour.
He didn’t just want my body. He wanted to take Yi Nuo apart, piece by piece, until there was nothing left of the woman Ruilin had touched, nothing left of the name I still clung to. He would unmake me and then remake me in his own image — something pliant, obedient, a thing that only breathed for him. I could see it in the way his gaze slid over me, weighing what he would strip away first — my will, my dignity, my name. Perhaps in Ruilin’s bed, the silks whispering not of love, but of misery, pain, and blood?
Is this my fate? To be a bruised petal, soft and torn, tossed between rough, calloused hands? I wonder if I should feel grateful for the fleeting warmth of their grasp… or if I’ve become too numb to even decide.
Feng Ming’s voice drops into the silence, curling through it like smoke seeking cracks in the walls. He talks of protection, of moving on with my life. His hands find reasons to touch me, the small of my back, splayed fingers spreading just enough to remind me that protection always comes with a chain. It comes with a hefty price.
He’s been here more often, pacing the Eastern Palace as though its corridors are already stitched into the hem of his robe. His voice is steady, the same low timbre Ruilin once used when he wanted me to feel safe—but Feng Ming’s safety is a cage with silk bars.
He sets aside his untouched tea and lets his eyes hold mine a beat too long. “You’ve been alone too long, Yi Nuo.”
“I’m not alone,” I hear myself say. “I have—” The name lodges like a splinter in my throat.
“Ruilin?” His mouth tilts in something that isn’t quite a smile. “He’s not here. Hasn’t been here. You can’t keep waiting for someone who’s already chosen to stay away. You can’t continue to wait for someone who chose another over you.”
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, voice a whisper crafted to feel like comfort. “You need someone who’s here. Someone who can take care of you.”
His eyes don’t move from mine. They don’t flinch. They don’t blink. “Come to me,” he says, smooth as wine spilling over glass — coaxing like the serpent spirits of legend, who wound themselves in silk and scent until their prey forgot the fangs. But the bite always came, sharp and deep, and it never let go. “Let me touch you. I’ll plant my seed and put another child in your belly—one you can keep. No one else will have you now. Not after what they say. But I will.”
The room seems to shrink; the walls drawing closer like a breath held too long. My heartbeat roars in my ears, drowning the fire’s crackle. His amber eyes drop, deliberate and slow, to my breasts—and stay there.
“Your breasts are leaking milk.” His lips glistened, catching the faint light.
I glance down. The silk clings damp to my skin. My milk—meant for my child. My body has betrayed me.
“Such a waste. The pressure must be uncomfortable.” He licked his lips again, eyes gleaming as he moved closer, the scent of his fragrance pouch filling my nostrils. “I can help take that pressure from you.” One finger, not hesitant but deliberate, dared to trace my nipple, the darkened patch. The touch was feather light against my skin, but the intent behind it was a stone pressing down on my chest, heavy and suffocating.
It takes all my will not to pull away, not to let the bile rise. Instead, I lift my hand—one palm steady but light against his chest, the other circling his wrist. My voice is soft, calm, even tender, Ruilin’s voice. Feng Ming isn’t the only one who knows how to play games.
Softening my voice, I’ve never been one to behave coquettishly, but the tone is effective nevertheless. “Not just yet. Let me prepare myself properly. I want to serve you as you deserve.”
His pupils tighten to pinpoints; his nostrils flare. Heat radiates off him like the mouth of a forge. “You’ve made a wise choice. Tomorrow, then. In Ruilin’s bedchamber,” he says, almost to himself. “You’ll give every part of yourself to me.”
His hand slides lower along my back, curving beneath, fingers grazing the most intimate edge of my body. “I’m sure there are places Ruilin has never been. Places that are still intact. I won’t hesitate to claim them.”
“As you wish,” I answer. “But tonight, I need to rest for tomorrow and you.”
“Yi Nuo, I’ve never loved a woman, but… it’s possible I could grow to lo—” He stops, smirks, and chuckles as if the lie is too bitter, too big to swallow or too unnecessary. His confidence is bared now; he no longer bothers with the mask.
When he leaves, his gaze sweeps me once more, a slow inventory that feels like invisible fingers dragging down my skin. The door shuts behind him with a sound like the closing of a lock. He leaves me no choice. I already know exactly where I’ll go before he comes back.
=====
The moon was high when I rose from the bed, the brazier’s glow painting the room in shades of copper and ash. I dressed in the clothes I had arrived in — plain mortal cotton, frayed at the seams, carrying the faint cedar scent of the chest where they’d been hidden. They hung loose now, my body smaller, my bones sharper.
On the wardrobe’s inner shelf and vanity lay the gifts Ruilin had given me — gold upon gold, jade pins, butterfly hairpieces chased with phoenix fire, silk ribbons in the colors of dawn and midnight, a string of pearls that had once graced my throat when he’d kissed me there. My fingers hovered over them, tracing memories, as if the cool luminous pearls could summon him back.
Stop. Stop looking back at something that was never real.
Still, my fingers sought it out — the one thing I had both longed to touch and dreaded to see. Behind the false panel of my dressing table, in a fold known only to me, lay the red satin rope.
It was coiled with the patience of a serpent, its surface still smooth beneath my fingertips, still holding the faint scent of cinnamon and osmanthus — sweet enough to ache, bitter enough to burn. This was the cord Ruilin had bound around our hands when we married, the sacred tether that once felt like a blessing from Heaven. Now it felt like a noose.
I held it in my lap, its weight pressing into my palms. Once, it had been heavy with promise. Now it was weightless, meaningless. From the bedside, I took the pearl-handled knife — the same one I had used to cut the umbilical cord. I thought of that moment — the tether between me and my baby, pulsing with the last of its life before I severed it.
The rope felt the same under the blade — warm from my touch, resistant for just a breath before yielding with a soft snap.
Another cord cut. Another bond severed.
I gathered everything: the letters I had never sent, the swaddles and caps, the yellow silk ribbon from the cradle. I fed them into the brazier, watching the flames curl greedily around them, turning silk to smoke and paper to ash. The red rope went last, its color deepening to black.
No more looking back. I pulled my cloak over my shoulders and left the room without a sound. The Eastern Palace — my home for three years — lay quiet, sleeping. I walked through it like a shadow, past the gardens where I had once embroidered in the sun, past the terraces where Ruilin had held me. Past the rooms where my daughter had drawn her first breath and, perhaps, her last.
I had stopped denying it. She had been a daughter. And yet her face… I could not recall it. Only the weight of her in my arms, the soundless way her mouth moved as she searched for my breast. Everything else was gone — stolen by blood, fever, and magic.
The Eastern Palace gates closed behind me without a whisper. I kept to the side paths, skirting lantern-lit courtyards and guard posts. No one looked for me; no one would. I had been a shadow for so long that even my absence was invisible.
The road out of the Phoenix Realm’s inner court was not made for mortals. It wound through terraces of white stone and gold-veined bridges that seemed to stretch endlessly, each step heavier than the last.
The winter night was cool, but sweat beaded along my spine beneath the coarse cotton of my cloak. The fabric chafed where my shoulders had grown thin. Hours passed. My legs trembled. The bruises at my hips — remnants from childbirth — ached with every step. My lungs burned. The soles of my feet throbbed from the unpaved stretches, the stone dust clinging in gray smudges.
Twice I stopped to drink from shallow streams, the water icy enough to make my teeth ache. Once, I sank to my knees, pressing my palm to the earth, feeling the faint thrum of something deeper — as though the land itself breathed. That pulse drew me forward when my body begged to turn back.
As I walked, the sky paled at the edges, a faint prelude to dawn. My cloak snagged on a thornbush, tearing the hem, but I didn’t stop. My breath grew ragged. My vision swam. Then — the air changed. It thickened, warmer, richer, carrying the scent of rain on sun-warmed earth and the faintest trace of sandalwood. The ground softened underfoot, giving way to moss the color of deep emerald.
I looked up. There it was. The Tree of Origins.
It rose from the heart of the clearing like the axis of the world. Its trunk was a deep, burnished red, the color of ancient blood polished to a sheen by centuries of wind. The bark shimmered faintly, lit from within, each ridge and groove alive with threads of gold that pulsed like veins.
Roots sprawled across the moss in great, coiling arcs, thick as temple columns, their surfaces etched with faint sigils that glowed and dimmed with the rhythm of a heartbeat. The branches soared higher than any palace tower, vanishing into a canopy of leaves that blazed in every hue of fire — molten gold, ember-orange, deep crimson — each flickering as though the tree itself breathed. When the wind stirred, the entire crown shimmered like a living flame.
From somewhere high above, a low, resonant hum descended — not a sound, but a vibration that wrapped around my ribs and sank into my chest. This was no mere tree. It was older, vaster — a witness to all beginnings and endings. And for the first time in months, I felt small not from grief, but from the enormity of what stood before me.
I did not come here to ascend. I am not pure of heart. I am far from innocent, and I have earned no spiritual merits that mark a cultivated soul. I came because they say the Tree remembers all beginnings and endings, that its roots hold the memory of every soul to pass through this world. If that is true, perhaps I could see my daughter’s face.
Just once.
The moss was springy beneath my knees as I lowered myself, my breath ragged from the long walk. For a while, I only stared at the Tree, letting its hum seep into me. Then I reached for a small pot of rouge. My hands trembled as I pressed the color into my lips and my cheeks. Even without a mirror’s reflection I saw hollow eyes, sunken cheeks and the sharp jaw. I pressed the rouge deeper, as though pigment could fill the emptiness. I wanted my daughter to see me looking… pretty. Not hollow. Not broken.
The wind stirred the canopy, and the sound was like a hundred small bells, pulling me deeper into memory. I thought of where I had begun — born behind the walls of a convent, the shameful child of a nun who had broken her oath. She died before I took my first gasp. I was raised among women who wore white and prayed to the heavens each dawn.
As a novice, I washed laundry in the freezing water by the river’s edge until my fingers cracked. I learned the holy sutras and names of herbs that became my religion of choice before I knew my own heart. I thought the convent was the whole of the world… until the massacre. I still hear the screams, smell the smoke. I see blood on white robes. Everyone I knew was gone within hours — sisters, elders, even the children. I should have been another body in the pile, but I lived because of Ruilin.
I remember his shadow falling over me, the heat of his feathers still gathered in my hands, the look in his Phoenix eyes — fierce, steady — as he reached for me and we soared the skies, leaving the nightmare behind. He became my savior, my protector, my… everything.
Another memory came unbidden — the warmth of his breath against my throat, his hands in my hair, the press and slide of skin on skin, his voice murmuring my name like both vow and plea. The way we moved together as if we had been made for each other, as if we made been made these moments. Fated to be one.
My breath hitched, and I forced the memory away. That was not mine anymore. That was gone, but I wavered, eyes blurring, heart aching in its cage. But the Tree’s glow pulsed steady before me, and I knew there was no turning back. I rose, leaving the rouge in the moss along with the last scraps of the woman I had been. My burdens — the grief, the doubt, the longing — I laid them at the roots.
Then I stepped forward toward the blazing light of the Tree of Origins when it struck me — what if my daughter didn’t know me? What if I looked into her face and saw only a stranger’s eyes? And worse… what if I could no longer tell if she was mine?
Among the Phoenix Clan, a mother’s pregnancy and conception is marked with a song — a melody only she and her child know, binding them together like threads in a nest. At birth, they find each other by that song. But I was mortal. I had no song to give her. So Ruilin had sung his own — low and warm, notes threaded with the heat of his spirit. He sang into my belly until it became ours, and I had hummed it back to her, weaving my voice over his until it was the only music she had ever known.
It was a song only the three of us could know. I hummed it now, soft and wavering at first, the notes trembling in the cool air. The melody rose and fell like a bird in flight, each line a flare of light drifting toward her wherever she might be. If she could hear it, if she still remembered, she would know — I am here.
The Tree loomed ahead — not the gentle beacon of old tales, but a blazing inferno. Its leaves burned in a thousand shades of fire, sparks raining and vanishing before they touched the moss. The trunk was veined with molten gold that pulsed like lava through stone.
The air stung my eyes with heat, and I wondered if this was not a divine place of beginnings at all, but my personal hell — the last trial for a woman who had failed to protect her child.
The wind shifted, the firelight washing over me, catching on the rouge at my cheeks, the trembling of my mouth. With Ruilin’s song still on my lips, I took my first step toward the Tree of Origins.
First Phoenix Princess Lian Xu~
The snow-laden road to Consort Lie Xi’s palace stretched before me like a silken ribbon dusted with diamond frost. Each flagstone lay slick beneath a glaze of ice, the carved dragon scales at their edges blurred beneath windblown drifts. Overhead, jade-green roof tiles curved upward into icy crescents, each eave hung with clear icicles that chimed in the bitter wind.
Snowflakes settled on my hairpins, melting into rivulets that trickled cold against the nape of my neck. I should have dressed more warmly. But I had been too excited earlier—selecting silks from the Southern Isles, folding them into the lacquered chest, tucking auspicious verses into the cradle’s frame. I had told myself these were for the newest member of the family. In truth, my thoughts had been elsewhere—I had been missing Yi Nuo.
The day she rescued my son Jinger from the imperial pond, our destinies were sealed. He had been only three hundred years old then, a babe in spirit, his laughter as bright as sunlight off the Jade Lake. He had stood at the shore, watching the swans glide across black winter water, their downy wings catching the frost-lit air. I turned my back for only a moment—and he was gone.
The first sound was a splash. The next was my own voice, raw with his name. Then she was there. A lone mortal among gods, plunging into the abyssal pond without hesitation. I saw her pale form rise from the dark, her arms shaking as she lifted my son to the bank. Her lips were blue with cold, her breath a thin, white fog, yet she held him until his frightened cough broke into a wail of life.
From that moment she was my son’s savior and chosen sister. She refused a reward. She wanted nothing when I asked, but my presents to her became for me a joyful torrent: winter brocades threaded with starlight, silken robes dyed in moonlit rivers, jade hairpins carved into phoenix feathers that gleamed with hidden qi. Almost nothing she wore escaped my hand in its making.
One twilight, after a fragrant tea ceremony beneath snow-kissed pines, I marked her with a Phoenix Aura Strengthening spell spun from the four elements and my own life essence. I wove air and fire and water and earth into a ring of subtle power around her wrist; she winced as the faint burn bloomed on her skin, and I laughed softly, blaming a bee’s kiss while Jinger chimed in, “the bee mistook Jiejie for a flower.”
“Highness!” The voice dragged me back to the present.
In the courtyard below, Lue Lue knelt on frost-glazed stones, scrubbing at the ice with a coarse hemp rag. Her cheeks were chapped red, her breath curling into the lantern glow. Around her, other stooped figures bent over the ground—Ruilin’s people, now stripped of their rank and sent to menial work.
Lue Lue’s eyes found mine. Desperation flashed there. She bent her head, her lips shaping broken words: “Please…” She put her hands together as if in prayer. “Please. my mistress… the child came… too soon… she was alone… with Second Prince Feng Ming…”
A shadow fell across her, and the head attendant’s lash cracked in the air. “Back in line, or you’ll scrub until the frost takes your fingers.” He saw me then and swiftly dropped to his knees, forehead pressed to the frozen stone. “Forgive me, First Princess. Has this slave offended your Highness?”
I said nothing. There were too many eyes. Too many ears. But my heart clenched in my chest like a jade seal struck in winter. Turning from the path to Lie Xi’s palace I ran for the Eastern Palace.
The hallways seemed barren, even with furniture and attendants. The warmth of peach blossoms was gone, replaced by a cold stillness. Her bedchamber stood empty, the bed made with military precision, cold as a tomb. Yet in the dragon-mouthed brazier, embers still glowed, dim but alive.
I crossed the room and plunged my immortal hand into the flames. Heat bit at my skin like teeth, but I pulled free a blackened scrap of cloth—soft as lamb’s ear, scorched at the edges. And there, curled in the ash like a sleeping phoenix, was a strip of red satin.
The marriage ribbon that would bind them for eternity.
She and Ruilin had married in secret and had been stealing moments from heaven’s watchful gaze. My hands trembled like willow branches as I clenched the ribbon. Another treasure caught my eye: a small silken headband embroidered with silver clouds and lilac lotuses, sized to crown an infant’s delicate temples. She had borne a child into this realm of immortals and intrigue.
The cold inside me deepened. I reached inward, toward the golden thread of the protection spell I had woven into Yi Nuo’s mortal life. It pulled at me—steady, sure, as the North Star. Toward the Tree of Origins.
I did not hesitate. My mortal shape dissolved into wings of fire. I tore through the winter sky, my cry echoing over snow-laden peaks. The horizon began to glow long before I reached it—a furious light against the bleak winter sky. The Tree of Origins blazed like the first fire ever kindled, its ancient branches reaching toward forgotten stars, its golden flames turning the falling snow to drifting embers.
She was there.
A lone figure in plain mortal robes, her slender shoulders bowed beneath the roots of the oldest fire.
I transformed mid-flight, my phoenix cry becoming a woman’s sob as I landed on trembling knees. “Yi Nuo! Stop! Don’t take another step!” She paused gracefully, like a brushstroke suspended in ink, one foot hovering above the sacred ground. Slowly, she turned. Her plain hemp robes and the muted colors made her blend into her background.
Her face was both terrifying and achingly beautiful — the kind of beauty forged in storms and sharpened by loss. Her painted lips bloomed red as fresh blood, a stark contrast to the snow-pale of her skin, her cheeks rouged like poppies. Her eyes were dark, fathomless pools that had weathered too many tempests, yet within them lingered a stillness, almost peace.
The faintest ghost of a smile touched her lips as she raised her slender arms — gently rounded in a gesture neither rigid nor hesitant — and bent into a deep, deliberate bow. It was not the subservient bow of a subject to a princess, nor the reverence of a mortal before an immortal. It was a sister’s bow — a silent thank you, a heartfelt farewell whispered across a thousand lifetimes.
My throat tightened. I could not let her go.
Summoning the ancient magic of my bloodline, my fingers carved the character 回來 — come back — into the bitter winter air. From my outstretched hand, a silken rope of phoenix flame leapt forth, spinning through the void between us. It writhed like a living thing, the desperation of ten thousand prayers woven into its threads, stretching toward her with all the strength I possessed.
But just as it reached her, the magic shuddered — halting a hair’s breadth from the edge of her robe, as if the heavens themselves had drawn an unbreakable line I could not cross and I helplessly watched her walk into the fiery lumber.
The Tree seemed to inhale the universe. Its roots trembled beneath the frozen earth, its ancient trunk shuddered with recognition, and from its crown a thousand golden firefly-lights burst into the air, swirling like a storm of stars returning home.
Ash like snow danced in the sacred updraft, melting into steam that curled like incense toward the Celestial Palace. The divine light wrapped around her mortal form, swallowing her shape until all I saw was fire. Then the Tree blazed harder, the gold turning blood-red at its core—the color of mortal sacrifice, of life exchanged for life—so bright it seared my immortal vision.
Ruilin~
The Nine Heavens were at their stillest when unease found him.
That morning, Ruilin had risen before the first bell, restless and alert without knowing why. He had read Yi Nuo’s latest letter by the first light — her handwriting steady, her words gentle, assuring him that all was well, that she missed him but urged him to focus on his duty. Yet something in the way her brush had lifted in mid-stroke… something in the measured, too-even phrasing… had left a tightness in his chest.
It had been there all day, a low hum beneath his ribs. Now he knelt before the Skylord’s throne, the polished marble cool beneath his knees, his crimson robes fanning around him like spilled flame. The vast chamber was lit only by the pale winter sun spilling through latticework windows, each beam catching on motes of dust that floated as slowly as falling snow.
“You have been here long enough and,” Skylord Ye Hua said at last, his low voice breaking the silence. “You have fulfilled your duty to the Heavens… though it was never truly yours to bear.”
Ruilin’s head dipped lower, hands pressed flat to the floor in deep obeisance. “It has been my honor to serve the Heavenly Lord.”
The Skylord’s gaze, often cool as polished jade, softened by the barest degree. “Your discipline honors your clan,” he said. “Even my own A-Li would have grown restless, yet you have not faltered. A rare characteristic among young princes.”
Ruilin swallowed, his pulse quickening. The Skylord did not offer compliments without care. This was the moment — the request he had carried in silence for months.
“You have earned merit. Crown Prince Ruilin of the Phoenix Clan…” The Skylord’s words were measured, deliberate. “…what do you want?”
Ruilin’s breath caught. Relief didn’t flicker; it blazed for the Skylord had spoken first. He had feared broaching the subject himself. He took a deep breath and bent into a full kowtow, his forehead meeting the stone with a muted crack.
“I thank Heavenly Lord. My wish… is for the elixir of immor—”
The heavy bronze doors of the chamber slammed open. The sound cracked through the stillness like a sword cleaving bone.
A courier stumbled in, breathless, bowing low. “Forgive me Heavenly Lord — Princess Lian Xu of the Phoenix Clan is outside… an emergency. She insists on seeing Crown Prince Ruilin. She refuses to be turned away.”
The intrusion was a breach of every protocol, and guards tensed, ready to seize him — but Skylord Ye Hua raised a hand. His expression did not change, but his voice left no room for dissent. “Let her in. Family comes before all.”
Ruilin was on his feet before the words had fully faded, his pulse suddenly pounding in his ears. The uneasy hum in his chest had sharpened into something jagged. He stomped quickly through the arched corridors to the outer courtyard, boots striking the jade tiles in a rhythm too fast to be formal. Lian Xu stood there, her usually immaculate hair loosened by the wind, her eyes rimmed red and swollen. Zhang He was beside her, one arm steadying her as though she might collapse.
Ruilin’s breath hitched. “Jiejie—”
She didn’t speak at first. She simply opened her hand. In her palm lay a strip of scorched red satin — the marriage ribbon. His marriage ribbon. Her lips trembled as she mouthed the name. Yi Nuo.
A glacial coldness gripped his chest, a vise tightening with each shallow breath.
When her voice came, it broke. “Ruilin… she’s gone. She died right before my eyes. I didn’t get there in time — It’s my fault. I didn’t reach her in time.” The words poured out in a choked rhythm, over and over, as if saying them aloud might make her believe them.
The ground swayed beneath him. His knees hit the courtyard stone with a hollow, echoing crack. His hands braced against the cold jade tiles, fingers curling into the grooves as though he could claw his way across time itself and drag her back.
Above him, the Nine Heavens were impossibly clear — a sky of pure blue. But for Ruilin, it folded inward, darkening at the edges until there was nothing but the sound of his own ragged breath. All the grandeur, the titles, the oaths and duties… none of it mattered. The only thing left was her name, silent on his lips, burning in his chest.
Ruilin had once told Yi Nuo a tale — the kind Phoenix mothers whispered to their young beneath the glow of lantern light.
He spoke of the Tree of Origins, which was both divine and eternal, and rooted in the first cry of the first Phoenix. Of its molten heart that held the power to grant wishes and guide the worthy toward ascension. It was a story spun in silk and gold; the kind meant to cradle a child’s dreams.
But in all his telling, he left out one truth.
A Phoenix’s trial by fire is not merely a test — it is a death. In that moment, when flame claims feather and bone, the Phoenix slips into the realm of the departed, seeing those who have passed beyond. Only when the ashes stir does rebirth begin.
—Divine Ascension—
When Yi Nuo walked into the blaze, she did not see her child — for her child still lived.
Instead, the fire unmade her mortal shell, and from its heart rose not Yi Nuo the healer, the hidden wife, the woman of quiet courage… but Princess Changying, Second Imperial Princess of the Celestial Clan.
She had been trialed by fire. Her trial of love had ended. With it, the mortal name Yi Nuo vanished into the embers, leaving only the immortal High Goddess Princess Changying to step forth from the ash.