Yīngtáo walked wearily back to her quarters.
Five months and two weeks had passed, yet no progress, only silence.
As she neared her door, she noticed a line of her mother's courtyard maids standing before her room, heads bowed, hands trembling.
Her eyes narrowed.
"Speak," she commanded impatiently.
One maid stepped forward, voice breaking.
"Gōngzhǔ Yīngtáo... your mother passed away this morning."
The words struck her chest like a blade. Yīngtáo staggered, then turned and ran toward her mother's courtyard.
Suicide. Another episode. Another fall into despair.
Her last words had been: "This ends it all."
Yīngtáo stood unmoving as she entered the burial hall, filled with generals and officials. She wore white, her hair neatly tied with the humble hairpins her mother once owned. Not glittering, not golden—plain. Like her mother herself. Born of nothing, carrying humility even to the end, her light stripped away not by the curse, but by the cruelty of people.
Yīngtáo knelt and lit the incense, bowing low. Around her, heads lowered in silent prayer.
"She was a good woman," a female official said, voice echoing sorrow through the hall. "A woman who suffered greatly from the loss of her child, and from a society that discriminated against her."
"We will all remember Mother Yun."
"Mother Yun, bless her soul!" the officials echoed together.
Yīngtáo clenched her fists. But she held her composure, refusing to weep before them. Rising with grace, she walked out of the hall, offering only a nod of appreciation.
Outside, her voice was cold and steady.
"Bring me my bow and arrow."
The guard obeyed instantly. Soon she was at the palace prison, standing before the cell of the man she still hated.
He looked up, startled after five months and three weeks without seeing her. His eyes carried a flicker of hope, though guilt weighed heavily upon him. He was frailer now, thinner, as though he had starved himself in penance.
"Bǎ—"
"That's not my name!" she snapped, her voice slicing the air like a blade.
He bent low to the floor, head bowed, surrendering.
"I have to let go," she said firmly.
He raised his head in confusion.
"I don't care about the consequences. I will make things right, and you will not hurt me again." She drew her bow, arrow aimed for his head.
A tear slid down his cheek. His trembling hands pressed to the floor as he closed his eyes, accepting death.
Yīngtáo saw them then—the shadows. Dark, whispering figures circling him, as though beckoning her to release. To end it. Perhaps this was the release her mother had longed for.
She let the arrow fly.
It struck. Lodging deep in his head.
His eyes widened, catching the dim light as his breath faltered.
"I am... truly... sorry... Bǎihé," he whispered, blood flowing as he collapsed lifeless.
Yīngtáo's legs buckled. She sank to her knees, clutching the iron bars, tears breaking free as his eyes dimmed forever.
Later, she found herself sitting in one of the palace gardens, the stillness almost too heavy to bear. She no longer cared about consequences. Her path was chosen.
Enough of lessons. Enough of watching the past.
She had seen every ancestor suffer under the curse—each given the chance to end it, yet each failing. Not because they could not, but because they were selfish.
None of that mattered now. She had endured her own share of suffering.
Not only would she channel herself into her past—
She would bring her past self to her.
She would not fail like the others.