Morning broke over the Thousand Star Court like a blade of light through silk.
Most of the guests had already departed, their carriages drifting down the cloud-paths in columns of golden mist. Only the core of the Ji Clan and a few allied sects remained within the estate's vast inner realms—enough to keep up appearances, but not enough to suffocate.
In the inner court, still veiled with the remnants of last night's spirit fire, Ji Yuanheng sat at the head of a long obsidian table, sipping morning tea brewed by a silent attendant. The tea was flawless. The temperature exact. The aroma subtle and refined.
But something was wrong.
It wasn't the tea.
It was the air.
The immortal realm around him—normally humming with subdued power—had a quiet tension, like a string pulled too tightly. The wind didn't blow as it should. The spirit beasts near the garden pond had not come out. Even the koi in the blessed water swam in strange circles.
Ji Yuanheng noticed. Of course he did.
He noticed everything—and dismissed most of it without concern. But today, a flicker of awareness gnawed at him.
He closed his eyes briefly, stretching his divine sense outward. The entire estate unfurled in layers of qi and light: white wards over the outer walls, golden sigils pulsing through the pavilions, the central formation glowing gently beneath the stone courtyard.
Everything was in place.
But then… a lapse. A skip. A flicker.
In the southeast wing—where the newlyweds' chambers lay—there was a disruption in the array.
Not a break. Not a surge.
A void.
As if something had passed through the formation in the night and left no trace behind, only silence.
His eyes opened slowly.
"Send Elder Chen to sweep the inner formation. Discreetly," he said to no one in particular. The attendant bowed and left at once, footsteps whispering over the marble floor.
Ji Yuanheng didn't move.
He simply stared into his cup as if it might answer him.
Elsewhere, Shen Liuyin sat in her private chamber, cross-legged on a cushion of white silk, her fingers resting lightly on a meditation seal. Sunlight streamed through the window lattice, dust motes dancing in the golden glow like tiny stars.
She wasn't cultivating.
Not truly.
Her eyes were open, focused on the plum tree beyond the window. A few blossoms still clung to its branches, though summer had long passed. The tree had been warded by the Ji Clan to bloom forever, an unnatural preservation of beauty.
Much like this palace.
Much like this marriage.
And yet things rot even when they look pristine, don't they?
Behind her, a maid stepped in quietly, holding a folded red sash.
"My lady," she whispered, bowing low. "Your morning garments."
Liuyin did not turn.
"I prefer white," she said simply.
The maid hesitated. "But the Consort's attire—"
"I was not given that title," Liuyin replied, voice soft and clear. "Was I?"
The maid flushed, mumbled an apology, and retreated, leaving the red sash folded neatly on a lacquered table. Shen Liuyin didn't look at it. Her gaze stayed on the plum blossoms outside.
In her inner sea, the phoenix bloodline stirred faintly—calm, watching, waiting. It wasn't time yet.
Not yet.
Back in the central pavilion, Ji Yuanheng stood before a floating formation disk, watching as Elder Chen carefully re-etched the fractured sigils.
"It wasn't sabotage," the elder murmured. "And it's not external. But something... interfered. A resonance from within."
Ji Yuanheng narrowed his eyes. "What kind of resonance?"
Chen hesitated, then turned the disk to reveal a shifting pattern in its center. A deep crimson pulse spun in slow arcs, too faint for most cultivators to even detect.
"Bloodline power," the elder said grimly. "Ancient. Suppressed. But potent."
Yuanheng's expression didn't change.
"Who entered the southeast corridor last night?"
The elder paused again. "No one, my lord. Not even you."
His jaw tightened.
Not even him?
Which meant…
He didn't finish the thought
Later that morning, the two met again. Not in privacy, but in the inner orchard, where decorum ruled and spies lurked behind paper walls and peach blossoms.
Shen Liuyin had come dressed in white again—simple, flowing, understated. Her veil was gone. Her hair was tied with a single silver pin. Her aura was calm.
She approached slowly, her sandals silent on the gravel path.
Ji Yuanheng was standing beneath a flowering tree, scroll in hand, though he clearly wasn't reading it.
They didn't greet each other.
No one expected warmth between them. But even the servants noted something strange in how they stood—too far apart for newlyweds, too quiet for enemies.
"You've chosen the wrong garden," Ji Yuanheng said without looking at her.
Her answer came with a faint smile. "I think this one is beautiful."
"It's mine."
She stepped closer. "So I suppose I should not disturb the trees, nor breathe too loudly. Am I allowed to stand here, my lord?"
He turned to look at her finally.
And for the first time, he saw something beneath her skin—not power, not anger.
Stillness.
A waiting.
Like the hush before a forest fire.
His brow furrowed. "You don't belong here."
"I never did," she agreed easily.
And that—that—should've made him dismiss her. Should've made him turn away. But instead, the memory from the night before crept back in.
The words.
The image.
The rain.
"Do you remember the girl who once knelt before you…?"
He watched her walk past him without another word. Her steps were light, unhurried. No power flared from her. No threat in her voice. And yet—
The very ground beneath her seemed to breathe.
The peach blossoms fell in her wake, quiet and red.
By nightfall, the eastern sky turned violet. Ji Yuanheng sat alone in the Moon-Viewing Hall, sipping tea again.
But this time… it was bitter.
A servant had brought the same leaves. The water was the same temperature.
But the taste was wrong.
His divine sense reached for the southeast wing again.
This time… it recoiled.
Not from fear. But from recognition.
Whatever energy dwelled there… he'd once known it.
Forgotten it.
Denied it.
And now—now it pulsed faintly through the core of his home like a forgotten promise made to the wrong girl, beneath the wrong sky.
He stared at the tea.
It had the scent of magnolia.
And blood.