The air in Nan Shu hung heavy with wood smoke and memory.
Ziyan walked past broken fences and shrines to forgotten ancestors, her cloak brushing cracked stone. Once, this had been a thriving border town—bartering silks and sweet rice down dusty lanes. Now, even the wells were silent.
She carried a scroll case—notes from Duan Rulan's cousin recounting how General Zhao had spread false rumors and sacrificed their village to cover his military failures. But Duan Rulan herself was still missing. No trail, no scent.
Only the wind… and a child's silence.
At the edge of the courtyard, beneath a half-dead persimmon tree, the little girl waited. The village chief had asked Ziyan to watch over her—his final act before heading north for supplies. She hadn't spoken a word since Ziyan arrived.
She was no older than seven. Thin as a sparrow. She clutched a battered straw doll with missing arms and stared as if Ziyan were a ghost.
Ziyan crouched beside her. "May I sit with you?"
No response. But she didn't run either.
They sat in silence, a stillness made sacred by sorrow.
Then came the familiar pulse—heat under Ziyan's skin, as if her blood were remembering something before her mind did. She clutched her palm.
The phoenix emblem flared—not with light, but with memory.
She stood in a scorched rice field.
A younger version of the girl stood barefoot outside a crumbling farmhouse. Her mother poured rice water into a chipped bowl. Her father coughed blood behind a curtain. Soldiers passed with orders barked in General Zhao's name.
Then famine.
Then death.
And finally, soldiers again—this time with torches, looking for hidden grain. The girl was shoved beneath floorboards, clutching her straw doll in silence while boots stomped above.
When they left, the village was ash.
Ziyan gasped as she returned to the present. The courtyard shimmered in the heat. The little girl hadn't moved, but her eyes—widened. She stared at Ziyan's hand, as if she'd felt the fire too.
Ziyan gently touched her shoulder. "I saw them. Your family. I remember them with you."
Still, no reply.
But then the girl leaned into her—silent, trusting.
Ziyan held her close.
That was when Feiyan called out from the gate.
"Ziyan! Shuye's here!"
Inside the crumbling tea storehouse they used as a makeshift base, Shuye stood near the fire pit, soaked with travel and dust. He handed Ziyan a golden-threaded scroll with Wei's seal.
"You look like you outran death," Ziyan said quietly.
"I might have." Shuye exhaled. "I had to get this to you."
He paused, glancing at Feiyan, then back. "It's about Zhao… and your father."
Ziyan tensed but nodded. "Go on."
Shuye opened the scroll, revealing a personnel ledger and correspondence from one of Zhao's aides. A letter, burnt at the edge, bore a line: "Li Wenxu agrees to silence the girl—just as before."
Ziyan's breath hitched. "He knew."
Feiyan stared. "Your father… agreed to let them exile you?"
Ziyan's voice was steady, but low. "Of course he did. He always chooses silence. Even when my stepmother twisted the court against me. Even when my sisters lied."
She turned toward the window, watching the mist curl along the distant hills. "He's the Minister of Education, but I was never anything more than an inconvenience in his house. Easier to cast me out than defend me. And now, I see why."
Shuye's gaze softened. "Wei believes Zhao and your father were working together to protect something bigger. Not just political legacy… but something ancient. Something tied to your phoenix mark."
Ziyan didn't reply at first.
Then, quietly: "And now that I'm back, they're afraid. Because the truth is harder to silence than a girl without a home."
That night, Ziyan sat beside the sleeping girl again. The doll still rested in her hands. The fire crackled low. Feiyan and Shuye remained silent, each processing what they had learned.
Ziyan watched the flames flicker.
"Let them try to bury me," she whispered. "Let them try again."
Feiyan murmured, "What will you do when we find Rulan?"
Ziyan turned. "Then I'll burn down every lie they've built on the backs of children like her."
Elsewhere in the Eastern Capital
In a sealed chamber in the Eastern Capital, Grand Commandant Zhao stood over a basin of ash. A masked monk whispered in an ancient dialect.
"She has reached Nan Shu," came the whisper.
Zhao's grip tightened.
"She's beginning to remember."
Zhao's eyes darkened. "Then we must finish the ritual. No phoenix will rise from this ruin."
He dropped a fragment of red wax into the basin.
"And if her blood remembers? Let it drown with her."
The basin flared. And the darkness pulsed.