FOUR YEARS LATER
EMPEROR LIANWEI POINT OF VIEW:
Four years. It had been four years since i Shen vanished from my world, and yet not a day passed where I didn’t see her in every shadow, every gust of spring wind, every sharp turn of moonlight through the palace corridors. I had burned bridges. Threatened ministers. Defied my mother, and my crown. I had refused every political match, exiled every na whispered near mine. I had waited, searched, and punished this land and myself in equal asure for letting her go. And then the ssage ca.
A traveler. A scholar from the mountains. He spoke of a woman with storm gray eyes and a voice soft as mist. She healed the sick. She wore no royal clothes but moved like soone who had once commanded a court. They called her a ghost with kind hands. I knew. I knew it was her.
"Well, well, well." Zeyrith drawled in my mind, too lazy to pretend he hadn’t been watching drown in obsession. "The ghost finally leaves footprints."
"She’s alive." I whispered, voice hoarse with sothing old and raw.
"And still hiding from you, emperor love struck." The god snorted. "You going to storm her village with a bridal procession or finally use your brain?"
I ignored him. My hands already moving, retrieving the ring from the lacquered box beside my desk. A relic of my ancestors. A gift from one of the empire’s ancient guardians. A single enchantnt remained dormant within its band: ’One illusion. Onetruth concealed’.With a single breath, I slipped the ring onto my finger. Pain lanced through my chest like a dagger. My reflection shimred in the mirror.
Gone was the black hair of my line. In its place, blonde. Bright as sumr wheat, tousled like so wayward traveler. My eyes turned faintly greenish blue, the color of distant rain.
"Disguise mode activated." Zeyrith muttered. "You look like a lost foreign prince from a romance scroll."
"Good."I said "That’s exactly what do I need."
I fastened my cloak. Packed nothing but necessities. No crest. No seal. No mark of crown. Just . Searching for her. And this ti, I wouldn’t let her vanish. The path to the mountain village was steep, treacherous, and choked in mists that clung to your skin like breathless ghosts. I passed no guards. No gates. Only silence and the rare flicker of light through cabin windows. I traveled under a false na. A traveling healer in search of herbs and peace. But I had co for her.
The villagers were wary at first. Until I gave dicine to a coughing child. Until I fixed the splint on a hunter’s arm and refused coin. Word spreads fast in places like this They told about her in hushed tones, as if afraid even saying her na might offend the wind.
"She ca years ago. Quiet girl. From nowhere. Didn’t ask for anything but a roof to sleep under."One of them said.
"Knows every herb in these mountains."Another said and smiled.
"Heals like a temple priestess. Talks little. Works much. Keeps to herself."Third one said.
"So say she lost soone in the capital... That’s why she hides."Fourth one words confird my intuition.
I listened. And the more I heard... The more sure I beca. A woman who only smiled at children. A healer who stitched wounds with the kind of hands that once held calligraphy brushes.
"That’s her." The thought was like fire through my ribs. "That’s i Shen."
The villagers didn’t know her past. But I did. I asked where she lived. They didn’t give directions but I didn’t need them. I followed the feeling. Like a compass in my chest, swinging wildly, finally pointing north and then I saw her.
Across the small footbridge at the village edge, crouched beside a sick elder, applying salve to his chest with careful hands. Her hair was longer. Lighter. Dyed with mountain herbs, but even sun bleached and wind tangled, I knew. She looked... tired. Older in ways pain makes people older. But gods help , she was beautiful. And I couldn’t move.
My heart thundered like war drums. My legs locked in place. My breath caught in my throat. Because this wasn’t so illusion anymore. It was her. Alive. Helping. Smiling faintly at the elder’s groan of relief. Still kind. Still real. Still mine.
"Oh." Zeyrith whispered, suddenly dead quiet in my head.
"She really did beco soone... better than the world deserved. Don’t ss this up, Lianwei."
I didn’t answer. I stepped forward. One step, then another. She hadn’t seen yet. But she would and when she did... I prayed the gods gave better words than I would ever had before. One step. Then another. The wooden boards beneath my boots groaned softly, each creak echoing louder in the stillness than I wanted. She hadn’t looked up yet, her head bent low, fingers moving with gentle certainty as she pressed salve into the old man’s chest. Like she belonged here, like this was her world now.
My throat tightened, a weight settling deep in my chest. I pressed my palm against my heart, desperate to steady the wild storm beating inside. I hadn’t rehearsed this mont. No polished words or grand speeches. Just the ache of years twisting into sothing raw and unbearable.
Two steps closer. A breath. And then the world shifted beneath . The mist curled thick and suffocating. The ground swayed, unsteady as a ship caught in a tempest’s grasp. I stumbled. A startled shout broke the quiet. The old man’s eyes widened in alarm as I faltered, the word I’d ant to say slipping away, swallowed by the sudden darkness closing in at the edges of my vision. My knees buckled. I crashed down hard, the bridge groaning in protest beneath my weight, splinters biting into my palms. The world tilted, twisted, swallowed by shadows and fog. And through the haze, her face. Pale. Worried. It was last thing I saw before I lost consciousness.
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