The city of Luyan was a glorious, chaotic assault on the senses, and ten year old Princess Xue An decided, with the solemn gravity only a child can possess, that it was the most magnificent place in all the realms.
After a decade spent within the elegant, silent, and entirely predictable perfection of the Imperial Palace, the sheer, unadulterated life of the mortal city was a revelation. Her dark, serene eyes, so like a ghost's her mother could barely stand to look at them some days, were wide with unrestrained wonder.
"Mother, look!" she exclaimed, her voice full of awe as she pointed a small, delicate finger. "What is that marvelous golden scepter?"
Xue Lian followed her gaze to a street vendor vigorously frying battered sausages on a stick. Her imperial composure, honed over a decade of ruthless rule, almost cracked. It's a corn dog, her 21st century mind screamed. My half celestial, royal blooded daughter's first taste of the mortal realm is going to be a corn dog.
Maintaining a regal calm, she replied, "It is a local delicacy, my love. A grain paste enrobed sausage, fried in oil."
"Magnificent," Xue An breathed. They purchased one, and the princess took a tentative bite. Her eyes went impossibly wide. "It is the most glorious culinary achievement I have ever witnessed!"
Xue Lian took a small bite herself, and the ridiculously simple taste of fried batter and processed meat was a jolt of pure, unadulterated nostalgia for a life of food trucks and late night study sessions. A faint, sad smile touched her lips before she quickly masked it.
The afternoon was a parade of such discoveries. Xue An was fascinated by a stall selling carved wooden toys and immediately picked up a figurine that looked remarkably like a six horned Netherworld cow.
"How much for this exquisite sculpture?" Xue An asked the portly merchant.
Seeing their fine, silken robes, the merchant's eyes gleamed. "For you, my lady? A true work of art like that… ten silver pieces."
Xue An, who had only ever known a world where her mother's will was absolute law, looked at the man with genuine confusion. "This price is illogical," she stated calmly. "The material is common pine, and the carving, while charming, is merely adequate. I will give you two copper pieces for it."
The merchant's jaw dropped. Xue Lian quickly stepped in, pressing the ten silver pieces into his hand with an apologetic smile before steering her daughter away. "An, my love," she whispered, trying to stifle a laugh, "in the mortal realm, we do not command prices. It is a… negotiation."
Note to self, Xue Lian thought wryly, add 'Basic Economics' and 'Don't Be an Adorable Tyrant' to her curriculum.
As dusk fell, the city did not quiet down; it came alive in a different way. Thousands of paper lanterns of every color began to glow, casting long, dancing shadows. The day market stalls were replaced by sizzling food carts and performers who breathed fire and swallowed swords.
"It is even more bustling now!" Xue An said, her face alight with excitement. She dragged her mother from one food stall to the next, declaring each new taste spicy noodles, sweet sesame balls, savory meat buns a new pinnacle of mortal invention.
While his daughter was happily devouring a skewer of grilled squid, Xue Lian leaned toward her. "Alright, little fox," she whispered, turning her reconnaissance into a game. "Let's play 'Spot the Spy.' How many people in this crowd are pretending to be something they're not?"
Xue An's eyes lit up with the challenge. She scanned the crowd, her perceptive gaze lingering. "That man selling silks," she whispered back, "his hands are a warrior's. Calloused. And that lady laughing by the fountain… her smile doesn't reach her eyes. She is watching everyone."
Xue Lian's heart swelled with pride. Her daughter was a natural. The game was a lighthearted way to teach her the situational awareness a ruler and a survivor needed.
They walked back to their inn late into the night, Xue An's arms full of toys and trinkets, her stomach full of mortal delicacies, and her mind buzzing with the thousand new things she had seen. It had been a perfect day. A perfect blend of a mother giving her child a glimpse of the world, and an Empress gathering a wealth of information about a city on the edge of a knife.
As the real moon began its ascent, casting a silver glow over the lantern lit city, two new figures descended from the sky beyond the walls. Lan Yue and Wei Chen, their sect robes replaced with the darker, more practical attire of traveling cultivators, entered the city as the nightlife was reaching its peak.
"This place is a nest of vipers," Wei Chen said, his hand never straying far from his sword, his expression one of stern disapproval. "We must remain on our guard."
Lan Yue was silent, her gaze sweeping over the vibrant, chaotic streets. She felt the complex tapestry of energies the desperation of the hidden demons, the ambition of the rogue cultivators, and beneath it all, like a patch of dead silence in a symphony, the cold, nauseating signature of the Void threat.
At the inn, her request for a room on a separate floor from Wei Chen was met with a tight lipped nod from him and a knowing, discreet glance from the innkeeper. Alone on her balcony, she looked out at the city. For ten years, she had been a saint in a cage. Now, she was a hunter on a leash. The thought filled her with a cold, weary rage.
In another inn, just two streets away, Xue Lian finished tucking a blissfully exhausted, sleep sated Xue An into bed. She stood by the window, looking out at the same lantern lit city, her maternal joy giving way to the cold calculations of an Empress. Her investigation would begin in earnest tomorrow.
Under the same unfamiliar moon, two queens occupied the same small city, each unaware that a decade of silence, of sacrifice, and of secrets was on the very brink of being shattered.