The eastern archive of the Tianyu Palace was a labyrinth of shadows, its bamboo shelves sagging under the weight of centuries. Dust motes danced in the faint moonlight that slipped through cracked shutters, painting the air with a ghostly glow. Lin Feng knelt among the scrolls, his oil lamp a trembling beacon in the dark, its flame casting flickering shadows across his furrowed brow. The jeers of the Royal Assembly echoed in his mind—Prince Zhao's venomous laughter, the courtiers' scornful whispers—but here, in this forgotten sanctum, he felt a flicker of freedom. A modern engineer reborn in a world of cultivators, he was a stranger to qi, yet his mind was a forge, hammering ideas into shape.
The archive was a treasure trove, but it was also a maze. Scrolls in ancient scripts, their characters curling like dragon tails, taunted his ignorance. Some spoke of the Tianyu Kingdom's founding, when the First Emperor bound spiritual veins to jade obelisks, coaxing rivers from barren earth. Others detailed cultivation techniques, their diagrams of meridians a cruel reminder of his own sealed channels. Lin Feng's fingers trembled as he unrolled a scroll on the western provinces, where drought had turned fields to dust. The rivers, once mighty, had been diverted by a warlord's greed centuries ago, leaving villages to wither. His engineer's mind churned—channels, sluices, a waterwheel perhaps, powered by the kingdom's abundant qi springs. The idea was simple, yet in this world of swords and spiritual might, it felt like a spark in a storm.
The Jade Pendant at his chest pulsed, its warmth a quiet companion. Since his mother's death, it had been a silent relic, but tonight it seemed to hum, as if stirred by the archive's secrets. Lin Feng traced its cracked surface, its runes faintly glowing under his touch. What are you? he wondered, recalling his mother's final words: "It will guide you when all else fails." The pendant's heat flared briefly, then faded, leaving him with questions but no answers. He pushed the mystery aside; knowledge, not mysticism, was his weapon now.
Hours bled into the night as he pored over scrolls, his sketches on silk growing more intricate. A qi-powered waterwheel could draw from underground springs, its arrays channeling spiritual energy to turn gears. The design was rudimentary, but it was a start—a defiance of the court's dismissal. Yet, the archive was forbidden to a disgraced prince, and discovery would mean punishment, perhaps banishment. The risk gnawed at him, but so did the memory of his mother's frail hand, pressing the pendant into his palm. Endure, she had whispered. Survive.
A faint creak shattered his focus. Lin Feng doused the lamp, plunging the archive into darkness. His heart pounded as footsteps echoed, deliberate and soft, from the hall beyond. He crouched behind a shelf, the pendant warm against his chest. The footsteps paused, and a voice, low and weathered, cut through the silence. "Who dares trespass in the eastern wing?"
Lin Feng's breath caught. The voice was not a guard's but carried the weight of authority, tempered by age. He peered through the shelf's gaps, glimpsing a figure in faded armor, his hair streaked with gray. Elder Mo, once a general of the Tianyu armies, now a shadow of his former glory, disgraced after a failed campaign. Rumors whispered he haunted the palace's edges, a relic like the archive itself. Why was he here?
"I know you're there," Elder Mo said, his voice gruff but not unkind. "Show yourself, or I'll drag you out."
Lin Feng weighed his options. Fleeing risked exposure; honesty might earn mercy. He stepped into the moonlight, clutching his sketches. "It's only me, Elder Mo. Lin Feng, the Fifth Prince."
The old general's eyes narrowed, studying him. His face, lined with scars, held no mockery, only a weary curiosity. "The Useless Prince, skulking in forbidden halls? What game do you play, boy?"
"No game," Lin Feng replied, his voice steady despite the tremor in his hands. "I seek knowledge to serve the kingdom. The west starves while my brothers bicker. I would see it thrive."
Elder Mo snorted, but his gaze lingered on the sketches. "Serve? With scribbles? The court calls you a cripple, yet you speak with fire. What use is fire without qi?"
Lin Feng met his eyes, a spark of defiance rising. "Fire needs no qi to burn, Elder. It needs only fuel—and purpose."
For a moment, silence hung between them, heavy as the archive's dust. Then Elder Mo's lips twitched, not quite a smile. "Bold words for a prince with no power. But boldness alone courts death. The palace has eyes, boy, and not all are kind."
He turned to leave, then paused. "Your mother… she had that same fire. Be careful it doesn't consume you." With that, he vanished into the shadows, leaving Lin Feng with a racing heart and a question: Did he know her?
As dawn's first rays pierced the archive's shutters, Lin Feng gathered his scrolls and sketches, the pendant's warmth a quiet pulse. He slipped out, unnoticed by the waking guards, but the encounter with Elder Mo lingered. A disgraced general, a forgotten archive, a humming pendant—threads of fate were weaving, though he could not yet see their pattern.
Outside, the chrysanthemum gardens glowed under the rising sun, their petals a silent echo of his mother's love. Lin Feng's gaze drifted to the distant west, where starving villages awaited salvation. I'll find a way, he vowed, his engineer's mind alight with possibilities. But in the palace's heart, another figure watched—a woman in merchant's silks, her eyes sharp as jade, her presence unnoticed by all but the wind. Li Xiyue, daughter of the Cloudveil Trading House, had come to court with her own ambitions. And in Lin Feng, she saw a spark worth watching.
The game of thrones had begun, and the Fifth Prince, though scorned, was no longer invisible.