"Some things returned are not gifts, they're warnings dressed in silk."
Dawn arrived reluctantly, pale and silent.
Xu Feiran sat by her window, watching the thin veil of fog roll off the tiles of the inner courtyard roof. The plum trees below remained bare, their spindly branches like the fingers of something long dead still pretending to hold grace.
She hadn't slept.
The silence of the Crown Prince's response still lingered in the room like leftover perfume. The poem had said nothing—and said everything. It clung to her like a second skin.
"Your Highness," Yue'er's voice came through the door. "The foreign guest from the western provinces arrives today. You're to be present for the receiving ceremony."
"Of course," Feiran said quietly.
She stood, letting the morning air steal a shiver from her.
The Hall of Everlasting Virtue was already filled by the time Feiran entered.
Beneath the towering lacquered columns, dressed in formal winter robes, stood the full court—nobility, ministers, high-ranking concubines, and finally, Meilin, who stood perfectly poised at the edge of the third row, as if she'd arrived early just to be noticed.
Feiran moved through the space like someone walking across thin ice—every step soundless, every glance measured.
She took her place two seats down from the Crown Prince.
He did not look at her.
But Meilin did.
Just once.
And smiled.
Lord Xiala, the western dignitary, arrived with pomp and excessive silks. His speech was florid, his tone deferential. He bowed too low to the Emperor and stood too long near the prince. He offered compliments to everyone—but Feiran most of all.
"Your Highness," he said, voice like polished stone. "I expected grace, but not such silence."
Feiran's answer was smooth. "Silence often holds the most meaning."
He laughed too loudly. But the Crown Prince said nothing.
The ceremony passed like slow thunder—official exchanges, gifts, minor performances.
And just before the closing bell sounded, Meilin stepped forward.
She carried a narrow lacquered box—long, black, bound in red ribbon.
"Your Highness," she said with a voice as delicate as snow, "a gift of artistry. Something I found in the calligraphy vaults, abandoned and nameless. It reminded me of something you once described in your youth."
Feiran's hands tightened.
She took the box with a measured bow.
"Lady Wen is thoughtful."
Meilin's smile widened. "I try."
It wasn't until she returned to her quarters that she opened it.
Inside was a scroll. Thin. Handmade.
She unrolled it carefully across her writing table.
It was an ink painting—simple, elegant. A snowy courtyard. A half-frozen pond. A pavilion built in the shape of a fan, partially obscured by pine trees.
Feiran stared.
Her fingers froze midway through smoothing the edge.
She knew this place.
It was a private garden behind her mother's chambers at the old Xu estate—her secret hideaway when she was a child. No one but Yue'er and her mother had ever seen it. It wasn't in any official records. The pavilion had been torn down years ago.
And yet here it was, rendered in perfect detail, down to the crooked lantern stand beside the pond.
She leaned in. Her breath trembled.
"Yue'er," she called.
The maid entered quickly, then stopped dead when she saw the scroll.
Feiran looked up.
"Did you tell anyone about this?"
Yue'er's face was pale. "Never."
Feiran whispered, "Then how did she know?"
Yue'er stepped closer. "Is it a message?"
Feiran stared at the fan-shaped roof.
"It's a memory."
"A stolen one?"
Feiran's jaw clenched. "A rewritten one."
That night, Feiran sat beside her candlelight, watching the shadow of the scroll's inked pavilion on the wall.
It was beautiful.
It was also impossible.
How did Meilin know?
Had she once been nearby? An unseen maid? A visitor she had forgotten? Or had someone told her?
And worse: was she hinting at something?
Claiming a piece of Feiran's childhood as her own?
Feiran unrolled the scroll again. She stared at the trees. The pond.
The one lantern that always tilted left. It tilted here, too.
That was no accident.
She closed it slowly and slid it back into the box.
Not a gift.
A warning.
Meilin wasn't just stepping closer. She was reaching back.
She stood up and looked out the opened window where the wind stirred the trees.
And this time, she could swear,
One blossom had opened.