Rebirth of the Phoenix Empress

The sound of footsteps echoing across the jade floor of the Imperial Archives at midnight was not the usual authoritative march of officials at work. Rather, it was soft whisper like the lingering voices of the dead, of those once alive but long erased from history, as though they had never existed at all.

The flickering light of oil lamps suspended from the high vaulted ceiling danced along the ancient beams, casting long and twisted shadows of the history ministers gathered silently in the corners of the chamber. The floor, cold as a tomb, shimmered faintly beneath the glow. Towering shelves lined every inch of the walls, packed tightly with scrolls, wooden tablets, and records stacked so high they nearly touched the roof beams. The air was thick with the scent of aged ink and brittle paper like the smell of secrets buried long ago, yet never truly gone.

Wen Yuchen stood unmoving before Archive Shelf No. 18 the one sealed off since the year of Jian Si, the same year the fire consumed the Palace of Consort Yu Fei.

His long, elegant fingers honed through over a decade of drafting imperial decrees and official reports now carefully cradled a timeworn wooden tablet, recently unearthed from the back basement that had nearly collapsed under termite rot and decay.

Upon the tablet were faint lines of archaic calligraphy, inked by a brush so fine that time itself had nearly swallowed its script. He had to squint to make out the text, aided only by the dim flame of the oil lamp, which sputtered and burned low.

Three court historians remained utterly still in the room. Each kept their head bowed, their gaze fixed on the documents in their hands. Not one dared to move. Not one dared to breathe too loudly. For they all knew they stood at the edge of a truth no one wished to unearth.

At last, Wen Yuchen spoke.

His voice was deep and cold, slicing through the thick, dusty air like the blade of an executioner.

"Year of Jian Si. Fourth month… the day the fire engulfed Consort Yu Fei's palace."

He paused briefly, then shifted his eyes to the bottom-right corner of the wooden tablet.

Under the dim light, a faded imperial seal came into view etched in the shape of a plum blossom enclosed within a delicate frame.

"A command… to erase the name of an imperial physician from the official court registry."

The words, though quietly spoken, fell heavy as iron.

A ripple ran through the chamber. The air itself seemed to freeze. No one responded. Even their breath turned still.

Wen Yuchen's gaze lingered on the seal. His voice, though hushed, grew tighter.

"This isn't just a clerical omission… It's the erasure of a person. An entire existence removed from the record as if they never were."

His hand trembled slightly as he turned the tablet, catching sight of a second, fainter seal beneath the first.

A pattern carved with unmistakable elegance one he could never forget.

"The seal of the Secretariat… under the direct authority of the Imperial Consort."

His voice dropped even further, as if the air itself swallowed the words before they could take form.

Lips once accustomed to reciting edicts and declarations now struggled to shape a name buried in shadow for fifteen long years.

"…Noble Consort Gui… you orchestrated this from the very beginning, didn't you?"

On the far side of the palace, the former residence of Consort Yu Fei stood in silence as though it had been cut away from the fabric of time itself.

Though over fifteen years had passed, no one dared to utter its name above a whisper. All remembered too well how, on the night flames consumed it whole, the Emperor had issued an imperial decree: none were to speak of it again not even in passing.

And so, silence became its shroud. The halls were left to decay, overrun with dried vines that slithered up the walls, curling like claws of the forgotten. What remained resembled a tomb more than a palace a place meant for mourning, not for memory.

Soft footsteps echoed lightly across cracked ceramic tiles.

Jiang Xinluo walked, cloaked in the plain garb of an inner court maid. A gray veil covered her head, dimming even the light in her eyes. In one hand she held a small lantern, lit with scentless oil. In the other, she gripped a tiny iron key entrusted to her by Xianlan herself, along with words that still rang unceasingly in her ears:

"My mother didn't die because of fire alone.

It was a trap set deliberately."

Xinluo had heard the rumors, many times over the years. Even among the ranks of spies, no one ever truly believed that Consort Yu Fei's death was an accident. Everything had been too… perfect. Too orchestrated. Not the randomness of misfortune, but the craft of premeditation.

The wooden floor creaked faintly beneath her feet as she pushed open the grand hall's sealed doors. The old wood crumbled under her touch, revealing raw grain long since decayed a testament to its age and abandonment.

At once, the stale scent of old cypress ash flooded out, mingled with mildew and layers of undisturbed dust.

She did not flinch.

Had anyone seen her at that moment, they would never have guessed she was one of the most elusive agents to ever hide within the palace walls. Her face, veiled in gray, showed no trace of hesitation. Her eyes were still sharp with recognition, not surprise.

"Nothing stays hidden from a place's memory," she thought. "Walls remember."

She paced slowly, taking in every angle of the room. Then her gaze stopped at one corner of the floor, where the wood was subtly different in color. Paler. Cleaner. No dust. Barely noticeable to an untrained eye.

But to her it screamed.

She knelt and drew a slender knife from beneath her left sleeve. With patient, practiced precision, she wedged the blade beneath the panel and lifted.

The wood gave way with a soft groan, as though the room itself exhaled.

A hidden compartment revealed itself below.

Within it rested an old, darkened iron box, nestled among ash and forgotten air. She opened it carefully, and a gust of old pine hit her stronger than she expected. Gray flecks of ash drifted up like ghosts.

Inside, there were only two things.

A list of the inner palace maids once assigned to Yu Fei's residence.

And a duty roster from the night of the fire.

Xinluo picked up the first document with utmost care. Her eyes scanned the names with speed, trained from years of reading under duress. And then she froze.

There it was. A name.

It shouldn't have been there.

But it was.

…Or perhaps someone had wanted it to be seen?

The name had been struck through with thick, dark ink so heavy it nearly bled through the parchment. But not heavy enough to fully conceal the letters beneath.

"Imperial Physician… Zhao Yun," she whispered.

Her hand went cold.

Chills surged from the nape of her neck all the way down her spine.

"The physician who served the Consort…

And the one who disappeared with the child…

Could they be the same person?"

Thoughts surged. Pieces long scattered began to thread together. What Xianlan had feared… might no longer be mere speculation.

It could be fact.

Within the Golden Jade Hall, golden lanternlight shimmered across polished wood floors. The Imperial Study once a sanctuary of calm and command for the Emperor now sat cloaked in a silence so heavy it felt as though the shadows of the past had devoured it whole.

Emperor Li Sicheng sat motionless before his writing table. His hand rested lightly atop a scroll, one delivered directly from Li Wenlong circumventing the secretariat entirely.

His expression remained composed, the kind of imperial calm all outsiders had come to recognize. But within his eyes, a ripple had begun. Like still waters disturbed by an unseen wind.

With steady hands once unwavering he slowly unfurled the scroll, reading each line with meticulous care. But when his gaze reached the final paragraph, his fingers began to tremble.

"Special Report: Imperial Physician Zhao Yun was covertly dispatched to the frontier following the fire at Consort Yu Fei's residence. No record of resignation, no official demotion, no mention in the royal registry beyond the fourth month of the Jian Si year."

The Emperor's eyes widened, slowly but undeniably.

The silence within the study thickened.

The hand that once held the imperial brush with certainty now quivered, barely able to grasp its weight.

"Why… why did I never know this?" he whispered almost to himself, the words barely leaving his throat. "Why… on that day… was there not even a body for me to say farewell to?"

"Was it because I believed… that forgetting was the way of emperors?"

But then, his own heart contradicted him.

"Or perhaps… I simply chose to forget because it was easier to survive that way."

Li Sicheng closed his eyes.

His breath grew shallow, ragged. The chill of the past surged upward, piercing him in the chest like a dagger sharpened by time.

Images returned unbidden.

Yu Fei, clad in mist-blue silk, holding a swaddled infant in her arms, turning back to smile at him—before being swallowed by flames.

No fire from that night… could compare to the fire that now burned within his chest.

"I let them burn her… without even knowing…"

His voice was barely more than a sigh, lost in the stillness of the study.

The eyes of a ruler once calm and resolute now glistened red, as though mourning anew for a loss long buried.

"Yu Fei… I once swore I would protect you… but in the end, I turned my back."

He clenched his hand into a fist. The wooden floor beneath his feet creaked softly, echoing the fracture within.

But even amid that fragile sorrow, a new fire lit within his eyes.

A fire no decree could extinguish. No law could suppress.

A fire of resolve.

"If the truth has been buried in ashes…

Then I will be the one to uncover it."

Moonshadow Hall lay in tranquil silence beneath the glow of a flickering lantern. The amber light filtering through the aged window panes offered no warmth against the cold of the night.

At the far end of the hall, within the study room, Xianlan sat quietly upon a cushion of fragrant straw. The hem of her deep violet cloak trailed along the polished wooden floor. In her lap rested a timeworn journal, retrieved from an old chest in the Empress's private storeroom.

The spine was brittle and near falling apart. Each page bore elegant, firm strokes the handwriting of Yu Fei, the mother she had barely known.

Xianlan read in silence, as if afraid even the act of turning a page might disturb the lingering voice of the past captured within the paper.

"Mother… what did you leave behind for me?"

The entries were filled with grace, every word tinged with the faint scent of ancient incense. She read steadily, eyes tracing memories frozen in ink until she reached the final page.

No title.

No recipient.

Not even a signature.

Only a single poem:

"When stars fade behind the shroud of mist,

Who dares speak of fire within fate's path?

If the plum sheds petals beneath a moonless sky,

Who will count the scent of blood in the bedchamber?"

Xianlan's hand trembled faintly as she finished reading. She closed her eyes, exhaling slowly, the breath thick and weighted. Her eyes burned.

"This isn't a poem… it's a final voice.

A last cry from someone erased from the world."

Footsteps echoed outside the hall, then stopped.

The door slid open gently. A breeze swept in, laced with the scent of ink and parchment, carrying with it the breath of night.

Li Wenlong stepped into the room. His black armor had been removed, replaced with a plain robe of a soldier. In his right hand, he carried a small iron box. On his left arm, a faint scar from the border war had yet to fade.

He said nothing as he approached.

Xianlan looked up slightly. Her gaze met the box in his hand then froze when he lifted the lid.

Inside was a tiny iron ring, slender as a teardrop's edge, engraved with a lotus blossom so finely etched it might have been carved by the hands of gods.

At the sight of it, her breath caught in her throat.

"That… it looks just like the ring I had as a child…"

"Yes," Wenlong said softly. "And… it's sized for an infant."

His voice trembled not from fear, but from the crushing weight of truth beginning to descend.

Xianlan reached out slowly, her fingertip grazing the edge of the ring. Her fingers were cold. She hadn't noticed.

The room held its breath.

"Where did you find it?" she asked.

"In a box the Empress kept… beneath a yellow swaddling cloth. Beside it was the royal consort's hidden seal," he paused, eyes narrowing. "That ring… should not have been in your mother's chambers."

Silence stretched between them again.

Then he looked at her truly looked at her for the first time without the veil of the word "siblings" between them.

"Xianlan…" he spoke slowly, "we may not be children of the same mother."

She did not answer at once. Her eyes did not waver. But in their depths stirred something that reached the marrow.

She spoke, barely above a whisper.

"If that's true… then the reason my mother was killed…

may not have been vengeance."

Wenlong nodded faintly. A shared understanding passed between them—one no words could contain.

"It was erasure… meant to bury the truth."

Outside the window, a palace lantern flickered once then trembled with the wind.

The light that had once burned steadily…now quivered.

And the shadows that had long lain dormant…began to stir once more.

Not with the sound of war.

Not with the clash of spears.

But with the footsteps of the dead returning to leave their mark upon every corner of the imperial palace, ready to upend the fate of all who once lived beneath the reign of silence.

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