The air was warm that morning.
I was sitting alone in a quiet part of the west garden, trimming dead leaves from a potted plant outside the Lotus Pavilion. A servant girl nearby was crying from being slapped and scolded by her master. Her apron was stained with spilled tea.
I didn't ask what happened. I just handed her a clean cloth to wipe her tears.
"You'll be fine," I said softly.
She bowed quickly and ran off, nervous she was caught crying.
But someone had heard me.
Gao Yuren, a young court scholar, had come to deliver scrolls to the palace library. His path took him past the garden wall.
He wasn't supposed to be paying attention to anyone—not a concubine, not a servant.
But he stopped when he saw me. I don't even know why. Most people in the palace ignore me like I was invisible.
There was nothing unusual about me at first glance. My robe was plain. My hair was tied simply. I didn't move like a woman trying to be noticed.
But something in my stillness made him pause.
He turned to a passing eunuch.
"Who's that?" he asked.
The eunuch squinted. "Her? Just one of the newer girls from the Lotus Pavilion, I think. Yue something."
"Yue Zhenzhen?" the scholar asked.
The eunuch shrugged. "Could be. She's nobody important."
Gao Yuren nodded and kept walking.
But he kept thinking.
He'd seen ambition in the palace before. Seen women who clawed for attention.
This one didn't look like that.
This one looked… patient.
And that was stranger than anything.
~~~
From the corner of my eye, I had seen him.
I know him.
Gao Yuren.
In my first life, he was known for being fair. Honest. Not easily fooled. Not easily swayed.
He had spoken at my trial—not in defense, but with confusion in his voice. As if something doesn't add up.
He was right.
Now here he was, ten years earlier, walking past me as if we'd never met.
Because we hadn't—yet.
But he had noticed me.
And that made him dangerous.
Or useful.
I folded the dead leaves into a cloth and stood up and left.
That night, while the palace slept, the emperor dreamed again.
He stood in a dark hall, cold stone under his bare feet. No throne. No fire. Only shadows.
And from the far end, a voice—soft, like wind through silk—whispered:
"I'll remember everything."
He woke up breathing hard.
He sat up in bed, heart pounding, staring at the empty corner of the room.There was no one there.
But the words still echoed in his chest.