In the days following the palace banquet, the atmosphere in the Chancellor's Residence was so heavy it felt like the suffocating stillness before a violent storm.
Father eventually learned the full truth of the old incident at Yunqi Mountain. That night, after we returned home, he listened in my room as I calmly recounted the chance encounter from five years ago. His face drained of color; the teacup in his hand trembled again and again, spilling tea over half his sleeve without him noticing.
"You… you child!" His voice shook, filled with both fear and heartache. "How old were you then? How could you dare go alone to save someone of unknown origin, covered in wounds… a person like that? What if she were a villain? What if she woke up and harmed you…" He couldn't go on. He only gripped my hand tightly, as if I would disappear the moment he let go.
"Father, it's all in the past," I said softly, trying to soothe him. "In that situation, I couldn't just stand by and watch someone die."
"But that was the Eighth Princess!" Father lowered his voice, eyes full of worry. "Now she's mentioned it in public. On the surface it looks like gratitude, but in truth… Yuzhi, don't you understand? She's telling everyone that you have a past with her, a bond, a debt! She's… she's marking you!"
Marking.
That word sent a chill through my heart.
"And the Third Princess…" Father's voice dropped even lower, carrying an indescribable complexity. "The way she looked at you at the banquet—I saw it too. That was anything but ordinary. Yuzhi, do you know what you look like now? Like a peerless piece of jade thrown into raging rapids. Reaching for you from all sides are not only hands eager to seize you, but also whirlpools that can grind you to pieces!"
How could I not know? I simply… had no other choice.
"Your mother discussed matters with your grandmother until late last night," Father sighed. "Although His Majesty did not make an immediate ruling on the Northern Border, the Eighth Princess's talk of an 'internal traitor' has had no small impact. The Eldest Princess's faction has been moving frequently of late. The wind at court… I fear it's about to shift. And your marriage…" He looked at me, helplessness in his eyes. "It's already an arrow on the bowstring."
Sure enough, the storm clouds were gathering.
In the days that followed, though I remained confined within the residence, I could clearly feel the outside tempests battering the high walls of the Chancellor's estate. Mother returned later and later from court, her brow drawn ever tighter. My second sister, Su Fei, came to see me more often, each visit bringing news more unsettling than the last.
"The Eighth Princess's residence has been swarming with visitors lately," Second Sister said in a low voice. "Many military officers and neutral officials have gone to call on her. The wound on her temple is almost healed, though it's said a faint scar remains. She doesn't care at all—she even calls it a 'medal.'" She paused, her expression strange. "She's also let word out that the wrongs of the Northern Border will be avenged, and that the rats hiding in the shadows will be dragged out one by one. Those words… sound very pointed."
"And the Eldest Princess?" I asked.
"The Eldest Princess is naturally unwilling to fall behind. Recently His Majesty ordered her to assist in managing the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Works—anyone with eyes can see it's a move to divide and balance power. The Fourth and Fifth Princesses have been bustling about at her side, causing no end of trouble for the Eighth Princess's camp." As she spoke, Second Sister glanced at me, hesitating.
"Second Sister, just say it."
"I've heard…" Su Fei leaned closer. "The Eighth Princess went to see His Majesty a few days ago. No one knows exactly what was said, but when she came out, His Majesty rewarded her with many things. There are rumors that the Eighth Princess… asked His Majesty for something."
Asked for what? My heart sank slightly.
"And the Third Princess," Second Sister's voice dropped even lower. "She's been keeping a very low profile lately, hardly seeing anyone except at court. But at the recent cabinet meeting on southern waterworks, several provisions in the final draft were old proposals of hers that had never been adopted before. That arrogant old Minister of Works barely objected this time." She looked at me thoughtfully. "Yuzhi, the Third Princess… she seems different from before."
She was different. The do-or-die resolve in her eyes when she looked at me at the banquet was still vivid in my mind.
I pressed a hand to my chest. The dull heaviness there—was it my old illness, or the ever-tightening sense of suffocation?
Father strictly forbade me from inquiring about affairs outside the residence, ordering me to "rest and recuperate in peace." But how could I be at peace? The medical texts and architectural treatises in my study could no longer hold my focus. I often sat by the window, staring blankly at the square patch of sky, unmoving for most of the day.
Late-summer thunderstorms came frequently. That afternoon, the sky was as dark as dusk, stifling, with muffled thunder rolling behind the clouds. I dismissed the maids and stayed alone in my room. The familiar tightness in my chest stirred again, my breathing growing uneven, as if the heavy air and the impending storm were pressing directly against my heart.
Irritability—a long-unfelt, almost explosive irritability—surged through my blood.
I thought of my previous life. Of construction sites, of moments when the pressure became unbearable, when I felt trapped in a cage of steel and concrete. I would put on headphones, find an empty rooftop, and move wildly to pounding music. It wasn't any formal dance—just an outpouring of emotion, an exile of the body, the soul struggling under gravity, desperate to fly.
Since crossing over, this frail body, these harsh rituals, this exquisite cage, had long since worn that wildness down to almost nothing. But now, on this oppressive afternoon before a thunderstorm, something suppressed for far too long suddenly slammed against my heart.
I pushed open the window. Damp wind rushed in, carrying the scents of earth and greenery. In the distance, lightning like silver serpents tore through the dark clouds.
There was no music. Only the ever-nearing thunder, the rising howl of the wind.
I closed my eyes, drew a deep breath, then slowly let it out.
Then I slipped off my light outer robe, leaving only a plain white inner garment. Barefoot, I stepped onto the cool floor.
The first movement was slow, like a butterfly ensnared in webs, struggling free of its first strand of restraint. My fingertips traced fragile arcs in the dimness, only to be abruptly driven forward by the surge of defiance within—no longer a gentle dance, but something shattered and reborn. As I spun, my loose hair flung outward like spilled ink, carving a breathtaking trajectory through the stifling air.
As the movements quickened, the poise drilled into me by ritual peeled away inch by inch. Raising my arms was not an invitation, but a piercing strike; arching my back was not submission, but overturning. Sweat soaked through the thin garment, clinging tightly to my slender back and waist, outlining startling curves. Every extension strained some inner limit; every turn carried the resolve of staking everything on a single throw.
It was a beauty impossible to categorize, shocking to behold. Fragility intertwined with strength, tameness coexisting with rebellion. Like a priceless porcelain vessel at the instant before it shatters, dazzling in its tragic arc—or like a bound phoenix, making its final, most brilliant struggle amid searing flames.
And all of it was reflected, in its entirety, in the suddenly constricted pupils of the eyes outside the door.