The wind returned to Long Zhi with a voice that day, long and hollow, like a ghost passing through the corridors of YongShen hall. Even the bells atop the shrine roofs clinked like chilled porcelain.
Lianhua stood by the upper veranda, watching the pine boughs sway beneath a pale sky. She'd been up since before dawn, long before the stewards began rustling scrolls and couriers began muttering half-truths in the kitchens.
There is something about winter silence.
It doesn't ask for company—only that you endure it.
And she had.
She had endured weeks of cool glances, of unreadable meetings, of Lord Shen vanishing into the maps and ledgers of his war chamber without so much as a breath in her direction.
But something within her had changed.
Not despite that silence— but because of it.
She saw how the others spoke of him now—half in reverence, half in suspicion.
Liwei was no longer just the quiet prince.
He was a storm locked in a sheath. And even his allies watched him with a touch of wariness.
But she—she watched something else.
The tension in his shoulders when he sat too long at a table.
The way his fingers curled slightly when reading difficult scrolls.
How his voice grew quiet—not out of gentleness, but restraint.
She had stopped fearing his silences.
She had begun listening to them instead.
At midday, while reviewing inventory with Wei An, a new report arrived.
Another anonymous note, likely forged in the southern courts, questioning Liwei 's "Military independence" and accusing his officers of skimming troop pay.
"Lies," growled Zhao Yue. "Crafted too neatly."
Wei An handed her the scroll. "They mean for it to reach the emperor. If not now, then soon." Lianhua placed the scroll on the table slowly. "They want to isolate him."
"They're doing it already," muttered Yuchi. "Piece by piece."
That evening, she found herself at the lantern court.
It was a quiet space lined with redstone and hanging silk. Lanterns were lit here only by hand—
no servants. No ritual. Just flame, oil, and thought.
She hadn't meant to stay. But she did. Something about the glow felt like a memory.
"Lighting a prayer?" Came a voice behind her.
She turned. Liwei.
He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his posture as cold as ever—but his eyes held something that hadn't been there before.
Not warmth. Not even softness.
But something human.
She shook her head. "No prayer. Just light."
He stepped forward, took a lantern, and knelt. Slowly, deliberately, he lit it and handed it to her.
"For your silence," he said.
She blinked. "My silence?"
"You wear it better than most people wear words." She held the lantern as if it were something sacred.
"And you—," she said, then stopped. He looked up at her. "I what?"
She didn't answer.
Because to answer would be to name something she wasn't ready to admit.
Later that night, in her room, she placed the lantern on her desk and stared at it long after the flame had gone out.
Love, she thought, did not have to shout.
Sometimes, it arrived like a flicker— barely enough to warm a room, but impossible to forget once seen.