Rebirth of the Phoenix Empress

Late at night in the Cold Palace, only the wind slipping through wooden lattices could be heard. A sound that usually went unnoticed, yet tonight, it stirred one heart with a subtle tremor.

Empress Yun Qingyan sat alone before her calligraphy table, the oil lamp dimmed to just enough for visibility. Her eyes, half-lowered beneath weary lids, bore the weight of years that could never be penned with brush and ink.

A single blank sheet lay flat before her its pale white mocking the unrest inside her.

"Again..." Her voice was too soft to echo off the walls.

Her slender fingers brushed the paper lightly, then moved toward a small jade ring hanging from the corner of the desk. The tiny ring, polished for an infant, had been preserved with the care one might give a living being.

"He cried so softly... but those eyes were just like mine."

Her voice trembled slightly, her breath dissolving slowly into the silence.

"If he were still alive... how old would he be now?"

Her hand clenched. Fragments of dreams returned raging flames, a sleeping infant in her arms, and a scream slicing through the air.

A dream that never changed, no matter how much time passed.

She closed her eyes not to rest, but to avoid the empty truth before her.

"Is this... my punishment for being the 'bird in the cage' of the highest palace?"

---

Elsewhere in the palace, Xianlan sat before an old wooden chest in a hidden chamber. The lanternlight cast her shadow across the wooden wall. The faded cloth in her hands still carried a faint scent of sandalwood.

The fan wrapped carefully in silk bore the motif of a winged dragon clearly not the emperor's, as it faced away from the imperial throne's direction.

"Mother... did you love someone before becoming a consort?"

Her slender fingers traced the fan's edge.

"Or was that the secret... that led to your death?"

She murmured, her gaze softer than usual.

She was beginning to understand the inner palace far more than when she first returned in time.

"It's not just a battlefield for women... it's an altar where hearts are sacrificed."

---

At a camp outside the capital, Li Wenlong sat by a fire that had burned halfway down. In his hand was the tiny infant ring just returned from verification at the old registry.

The engraving matched the royal emblem not of a branch, but the 'Great Seal' itself.

On this starless night, the fire's glow brought more clarity than the fog in his heart.

"I once believed I was born to protect Xianlan..."

"But if I'm not Yu Fei's son if the empress is my mother why does no one remember me?"

"Are my memories real? Or were they crafted to bury something deeper?"

He held the ring up again, feeling a chill pierce to his bones.

"Or is this... my own cage?"

---

At the western manor of the capital, Wen Yuchen laid a sheet of paper on the table one he had smoothed over so many times he could feel every fiber.

The list of dismissed imperial physicians from the Jian Si year had only one name blotted out in black ink.

"Zhao Yun..."

The vanished name belonged to the man on duty the night of the fire.

"If we find him... the truth will soon surface."

Wen Yuchen stood, pulling his cloak tightly around him. His eyes were calm, yet alight with resolve.

"Whoever crafted this illusion... I'll tear it down with my own hands."

---

At Jiang Xinluo's residence, she stood silently before a hidden drawer that concealed a faded map drawn in light ink.

One route traced from the Empress's quarters, past the incense archive, to the southern gate an uninspected path.

It was not an escape route

But a path "to the heart of the inner palace."

A soft knock sounded. Xianlan stepped in, cloaked in light silk. Her eyes held a calmness that even Xinluo could feel ripple through the air.

"Do you believe... that some truths will force us to choose between love and the empire?"

Xinluo paused, then moved to retrieve a dark cloth pouch and handed it over.

Embroidered on the fabric was a single word:

"Wen."

"Then what will you choose, Princess Xianlan?"

…

Xianlan accepted the pouch and replied softly:

"I choose never to leave anyone else in a gilded cage again."

---

Moonlight filtered through the window bars.

The shadow on the floor was not merely that of the lattice it was the shadow of a "gilded cage" that could not be seen with the eyes, only felt in the heart.

And in that shadow...

A faint breath stirred from a bird still alive

A bird waiting to spread its wings…

And fly.

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