The sheets beneath her were embroidered with plum blossoms, the silk so smooth it felt like water against her skin. Aurora blinked slowly, the weight of unfamiliar memories pressing behind her eyes like fog refusing to lift.
The walls around her were deep jade, lined with antique scrolls and hand-carved screens of phoenixes and dragons. It wasn't a hospital room. It wasn't her penthouse suite. It was a chamber built in elegance—ornate and ancient, yet pulsing with quiet power.
She rose from the bed too quickly. A wave of dizziness hit her like a punch. Her limbs felt heavier than they should have, and when she caught her reflection in the bronze vanity mirror, her breath caught.
It was her face. But leaner. Paler. Her lips had a slightly different shape, her eyes more almond-shaped, sharper. Yet those golden irises—glowing faintly under the candlelight—remained unchanged.
A name whispered from her lips unbidden:
"Lin Qingli."
Not Aurora Lin, daughter of the Lin conglomerate.
But Lin Qingli—the woman whose name she had once heard in a dream, centuries ago, dressed in red robes of royalty and carrying a zither on her back. A name that shouldn't have felt so natural, yet did.
She opened the door cautiously. The hallway was lined with soft lantern light, leading to a sweeping staircase that coiled downward like a dragon's spine. She had no idea where she was—or who had brought her here.
Descending slowly, she heard voices echoing from below.
"…She tried to jump from the west garden again. If not for Mr. Xu's order to monitor her room…"
"She hasn't spoken in days. It's like she died and someone else came back."
Aurora paused on the stairs. The body she now inhabited—it had tried to die too?
Something coiled tightly in her chest. A strange sorrow. Grief that wasn't hers… yet was.
She reached the last step, and the butler's eyes widened.
"Miss Lin…" he bowed slightly, clearly startled. "Mr. Xu is waiting in the tea room."
Mr. Xu?
She nodded silently, following him through a corridor that smelled of sandalwood and peony. The walls bore framed calligraphy, and on one stood a single oil painting: a man standing alone before a burning palace, his eyes wild with anguish.
The same eyes that met hers the moment she stepped into the tea room.
He was sitting by the window, sleeves rolled, pouring himself tea with an air of effortless control. His profile was sharply drawn—cheekbones etched like stone, jaw cut with military precision. But it was his eyes—burnished copper with a faint amber ring—that pinned her to the doorway.
Cold. Intense. Familiar.
Sebastian Xu.
She knew him. She had never met him before, and yet she knew the man seated before her.
The world slowed.
He looked up as if he felt her arrival before hearing it. Their eyes met—and time contracted to a breathless stillness. His pupils contracted. Something flickered behind his irises: recognition, disbelief, and something far deeper.
"You're awake." His voice was smooth as aged wine but carried the weight of thunder.
Aurora tilted her head slightly, careful. "Do I… know you?"
His lips twitched, almost amused. "Not anymore."
Cryptic. Guarded. His energy radiated power and danger. He was the kind of man who could build empires and burn them down with equal elegance.
"You're in my estate. I found you unconscious by the river behind your family home," he continued. "You had no pulse for 12 seconds. But… you woke up."
She narrowed her eyes. "Why help me?"
He set the teacup down gently. "Because I've seen your face before. Centuries ago. Standing in fire."
The air shifted.
Sebastian Xu stood slowly, revealing a figure clothed in tailored black—precise, regal. And on his back, she glimpsed something peeking out from beneath his collar: a burn-shaped mark, jagged and crimson.
Like a dragon.
She took a step back unconsciously, her heartbeat fluttering.
"What are you saying?"
He walked closer. "I don't believe in coincidences, Miss Lin. Especially not when the dead come back with someone else's eyes."
She didn't know whether to scream or weep. There was no way he could know. And yet…
His hand reached forward—not touching, just hovering by her shoulder.
"I once served a woman who ruled the jade court. I failed her. I watched her burn."
His voice dropped to a whisper.
"And last night, I saw her again. In you."
Aurora's breath hitched. Every hair on her body stood on end.
He wasn't just a stranger with power. He was part of the cycle. A thread in the tapestry she hadn't yet understood.
A part of her past—and maybe, just maybe, her only way forward.