The corridors of the Heavenly Palace whispered with echoes from another age — and Qing Yue walked them in silence, dressed in the plain robes of a palace maid.
She had scrubbed floors for three days. Pretended to bow. Pretended to smile.
She, once the Mistress of the Nine-Tailed Clan, had once made kings kneel. Now she carried tea.
But revenge required patience.
He has to pay. The words repeated in her mind like a mantra.
And yet... something kept slipping.
Earlier that morning, she had entered the war hall to dust the weapons. A routine task. And there, hanging on the wall—was her blade.
The same blade Jin Xuan Yue had forged for her. Hidden behind a barrier only the celestial blood could see.
She had stood there, frozen, her heart thundering.
Why would he keep it? Why seal it away instead of destroying it?
Worse — the enchantments on it were for protection, not containment.
Was it guilt? Sentiment? Or… had he never betrayed her at all?
The thought unsettled her more than rage.
She had believed he was the one who turned against her. That he had let the Moon Goddess sentence her. That he had stood by while the Nine-Tailed Clan burned.
But then… why did the palace still hold relics of her? Why did the shrine in the East Courtyard have a single offering of moonflowers every full moon — her favorite?
Why had Jin Xuan Yue looked at her last night with such torment in his eyes?
She couldn't think.
She didn't want to think.
That night, she slipped away into the restricted chamber behind the Hall of Scrolls — a room only high-ranking immortals could access. But her blood still opened the wards.
She lit the lantern. Dust swirled. Scrolls as old as the heavens lined the shelves.
She searched until her hands were black with ink.
And then… she found it.
A scroll marked with the sigil of the Moon Goddess.
Qing Yue's eyes narrowed.
The title read: "Edict of Judgment: The Fox Queen and the Demon Pact."
Her blood ran cold.
Inside, the records accused her of conspiring with demon forces — a lie she knew too well. But the signature… it wasn't Jin Xuan Yue's.
It was forged.
And beneath it, a secondary seal. Faint, twisted… demonic.
A trap. A conspiracy.
Her breath caught.
He didn't sign it. He wasn't the one who condemned me…
The walls tilted. A thousand years of hatred cracked.
And just then, a shadow passed behind