The capital had gone quiet.
Not the tense quiet of curfews or closed gates, but the soft lull of a city exhaling at last — lanternlight swaying in warm breezes, distant laughter threading through streets, the faint pluck of a lute from somewhere near the river.
Hei Long sat alone in his study.
Before him: a wooden box, carved with phoenix feathers and bound with a silk ribbon.
It had been untouched for years.
He pulled the ribbon free.
Inside lay letters — each sealed but never delivered, written at moments when silence had seemed safer than truth.
The First Letter: To Mu Yexin
The parchment smelled faintly of plum blossoms, the ink faded in places where the brush had hesitated.
Yexin,
I once thought you were dangerous because you saw through me.Now I know you were dangerous because you saw me.
