House of Shadows
Lady Ye , swathed in unadorned mourning silk, stood like a bleached bone amidst funeral trappings. Though grief-etched lines marred her face, plump cheeks betrayed a youthfulness ill-fitting her station. Bai Heran's memory sharpened: This stepmother, niece to the Grand Empress Dowager , once promised motherly love while fingernails drew blood from my child-self.
A cold smile touched Bai Heran's lips. Renowned as Wen Guogong's virtuous consort, Lady Ye's true legacy was writ in stillborn heirs and mysteriously ailing concubines.
*
Frost and Moonlight**
Beside Lady Ye stood Bai Jinghong , her daughter by a prior marriage—now Wen Guogong's trueborn lady in all but blood. At fifteen, the girl was winter incarnate: ivory skin glowed beneath plain robes; eyes like frozen lakes held galaxies of ice. Her silhouette—willowy yet curved—evoked a dagger sheathed in silk.
"Moon hanging solitary," people whispered—and indeed, an unearthly grace radiated from her, a cold fire that drew moths yet froze their wings.
Now she smoothed creases from a paper groom's sleeve, sighing like zephyr through mourning bells. Bai Xingyan snatched her wrist. "Foul fortune clings to these effigies, Jinghong!"
*
The Viper's Brood**
Bai Heran's blood curdled. So this is my sire. Barely forty, elegant as a silver fox, gold thread gleaming at his cuffs despite his daughter's funeral. No grief shadowed his face—only tenderness for Bai Jinghong.
Memory surged: Chunyu Lan , driven to suicide, whispering to child-Heran: "Your father forgets faces like seasons. Expect no mercy."
A sparrow-cheeked girl spat melon seeds near the paper bride. "Sister Jinghong, spare yourself these ill omens! That Bai Heran robs graves even in death—clutching at Prince Zun's coattails! Had he lived, only a Tyrell rose like you could've matched him—never some Bai weed!"