Zhang Yue reached the Zhang Mansion just as the last rumbles of thunder rolled into silence. The night air smelled clean,wet earth and cypress leaves. But something felt off. The grand stone gate stood taller than she remembered. The walls gleamed under lantern light, pristine, unmarred by time or city dust.
She paused at the entrance, blinking at the calligraphy over the archway,it looked hand-carved, old, and freshly lacquered.
"Crimson ironwood manor." She read them in the faint yellow light of the lantern hung over the entrance.
Before she could make sense of it, a sharp cry rang out.
"Young Miss!"
Two maids,young women in traditional robes,rushed out from the corridor, their faces pale and frantic.
"Young Miss, where were you? We've been searching all day! You vanished without a word!"
"What,?" Zhang Yue looked around, baffled. "I, I was at the shrine. I just came down the hill…"
They didn't hear her. Or maybe they didn't understand.
"Master is furious! He's blaming your uncle,again. Please, come inside quickly!" They immediately showed her the way, by bringing the lanterns to the front.
"Wait, furious? Why? I didn't do anything this time," she muttered, still half in disbelief. "Well, not that bad…"
The maids exchanged nervous glances as they ushered her through the side entrance, into a hallway she didn't recognize. It looked like the Zhang mansion, but not quite, the tiles were different, the wood richer, more polished, the architecture too… classical. There were no electric lights. Just soft pools of warm gold flickering from lanterns.
She stepped inside the main hall,and froze.
Her grandfather stood at the head of the room in full formal robes, his posture rigid, eyes blazing with worry thinly disguised as anger.
She recognized him immediately. Same silver hair, but with crimson streaks, same hawk-like stare that could pierce through walls. But he looked different. Stronger. Younger. Like he'd stepped out of a photograph taken before she was born.
"You dare to laugh?" He barked, voice rough, but shaking at the edges. "You disappear for a whole day and come back drenched in dirt and mud?"
Zhang Yue blinked. "Grandpa?"
She meant it like a question. Her voice cracked at the edges.
"I haven't seen you like this in years… You look good," she added quickly, trying to soften him. "Very emperor-like. And what's with these hair color streaks?"
Her grandfather narrowed his eyes but didn't interrupt. She could tell, beneath the fury, he had been scared.
Then someone moved from behind the curtain.
"Yue'er!" His voice cut through the tension like a bell. He rushed forward and gripped her shoulders. "Are you alright? You disappeared on the way here. I searched the entire province!"
Tall, stiff-shouldered, a commanding presence. Zhang Yue was shell-shocked.
The man had a familiar gait, a sharp nose and jawline that echoed through generations,but he wasn't from her world. She'd seen him before. In the Zhang mansion's ancestral wing, in an old oil painting layered with dust and reverence. He died over a hundred years ago. An old portrait hung in the Zhang family museum,Zhang Yanjun, the young general of the Northern Campaigns. Long believed to have died in his late twenties.
The only difference was his black hair with crimson streaks.
"Am I dreaming?" Zhang Yue's heart dropped. Her mouth felt dry.
She looked between him, her grandfather, and the room. A chill danced up her spine.
"Grandpa, do you mind if I ask your name?" Her eyebrows knitted together in suspicion.
"You don't remember us?" Grandpa Zhang asked, exchanging looks with his son.
"Wait. What year is it?" Zhang Yue was a bit hesitant, but still went for it.
Her uncle paused, confused. "Yue'er… what do you mean?"
"Oh no," she whispered, almost laughing again. "Oh no, no, no. Please don't tell me it's…"
She turned, scanning the faces around her,some familiar, some distant echoes. The entire place felt like a dream wrapped in another dream. The world tilted.
"Okay. Okay, Yue. Calm down. You drank the wine. You fell asleep. You're probably hallucinating. None of this is real." Zhang Yue tried to make sense of her surroundings.
Her grandfather's voice snapped her out of it. "I have already asked you to be careful. She is already unwell and escaped grave illness. She doesn't have any power residue to find her even if she goes missing. How can you be so careless?" Her grandfather was clearly scolding her uncle, who remained silently. He looked guilty indeed.
"Unwell, me?" Zhang Yue asked herself. "When did I fall sick?
"Take her to her room. Let her rest. We'll talk in the morning." The moment Elder Zhang's voice rang, the maids entered the living room and began to escort her to the inner chambers of the mansion.
"Wait! Grandpa, Uncle, just one thing,was there someone else who came by tonight? A man? Tall, traditional robes, quiet voice… he said that he is a cousin from the North?" Zhang Yue tried to fish out the memory of the man whom she met at the temple.
"Did you meet anyone from the Qing family? Did they try to take you away?" Zhang Jun was visibly disturbed.
"No, no. He kinda took away my bag and other stuff."
"A thief? Who dared to rob my grandchild?" Elder Zhang raised his voice.
"He didn't say his name, said that he is a cousin from the North side, and came to attend the ancestral rites."
Uncle Yan frowned. "There was no ancestral rite and I swear, no one came by."
She swallowed hard. And looked around. The mansion does look like her ancestral home, but there was no sight of electricity. Instead everything was lit by lanterns.
"Your wish is granted." A voice rang in her blurred memories.
"You're saying that no one has visited us today and there are no ancestral rites either?"
"I swear." Her uncle tried to convince her.
Of course.
He wouldn't come by like that. That too, in the ancestral shrine. Dared to offer a drink which is older than her ancestors. No human would do such a thing but he did.
Because he wasn't… human.
She looked around the living room and then slowly to her curious uncle and grandpa, her lips turning into a smile.
"That Wu Qian Jun, he messed with the wrong person."
"Yue'er, what are you saying? Fear rippled in Zhang Yan's voice as he recalled the doctor's words about his niece, who came back from the brink of death.
She clenched her fists. "That bastard. He really sent me back."