The memory of snow still clung to your lungs when the palace gates yawned open, a stone beast swallowing the dawn. It devoured the light, leaving only a chill, oppressive shadow in its throat.
Your breath caught as Chu Hongying reined in her horse. The steed reared, its muffled whinny a perfect echo of your own loathing for this gilded cage. The clatter of her armor as she dismounted was a sharp, metallic shiver down your spine. The three behind her followed. Shoulder to shoulder, they stood—a four-edged war-sword unsheathed, its cold intent aimed at the empire's heart.
And as she stepped into the shadow—
Thump.
A heartbeat, clear and alien, yet perfectly in time with your own.
Her eyes met Shen Yuzhu's. A fleeting touch in the air. No words. You held your breath with them. This was not a chain; it was a choice, to face the coming storm as one.
Inside the Hall of Golden Chimes, the air was still and heavy. Walls of black jade, mirrors that warped the candles into shadows. You felt the distortion in your gut.
The new Emperor sat enthroned high above, his face a mask, his fingers tapping the armrest with an unbearable, predatory patience. To his left, the Seventh Prince toyed with a jade ring, a smirk playing on his lips—a man watching a play whose final act he had already read.
A eunuch's shrill voice cut the silence, listing the charges: "...colluding with the Northern Di!"
Then, he unfurled a document. The parchment crackled, a dry, sinister sound.
"By the evidence... the edict was issued three days ago... However, according to secret reports—"
A deliberate pause. Your lungs forgot the air.
"On the very next day, Di medicine was discovered in the Northern Frontier army! The timeline was evident. The proof was irrefutable!"
"The next day?"
The thought screamed in your mind, mirroring the reel in Chu Hongying's. The timeline was impossible! The records were forged! This was not slander; it was a cage, meticulously constructed with a "fact" she could not refute. You felt the warrior's disgust for this venomous manipulation of truth.
As she looked up, her gaze swept over a swaying bronze lamp, its light skimming the shadows behind the throne.
You couldn't tell if it was the flicker, or if someone in those deeper shadows—had smiled a fraction before the Emperor.
Clang.
Her metal heel struck the floor. The sound jolted through the hall, and through you. Her voice was a spearpoint, clean and sharp, slicing through the stifling air:
"So His Majesty's decrees can race the very hours, keeping pace with the 'next day'? Could it be these jet-black mirrors reflect not human hearts, but only the arbitrary chronicles of power?"
Dead silence.
The words hung there, a rock thrown into a stagnant pool, and you felt the ripples disturb every heart in the room. A few old ministers twitched, but under the Emperor's glacial gaze, their words died. She had torn the veil. The verdict had been written long before this trial began.
The Emperor turned. His gaze landed on Shen Yuzhu, his tone deceptively mild, a silken noose.
"Minister Shen, you tell us. Is this medicine good, or evil?"
For a moment, you forgot to breathe.
You watched that familiar back—
The man who had taken an arrow for her on the frozen lake. The man who had brought medicine on a snowy night. Now he stood a half-step from the Dragon Throne.
"Minister Shen, you tell us."
The whisper of doubt was an icicle in your veins. He is the Emperor's man. Was it all a record? A ledger for this inquisition? The thought was a poison. If you could not trust him now, the isolation was absolute.
Shen Yuzhu stepped forward, the flawless official. He bowed, his voice steady as carved jade: "Your Majesty, medicine has no inherent good or evil; only benefit and cost. I took it because, at the time... the benefits outweighed the risks."
Hidden in his sleeves, his fingers dug into his palms. You could almost feel the sharp, private pain of his choice—the excruciating weight of her versus the twisted "order" he had once served.
"A fine answer," the Seventh Prince chuckled, his jade ring spinning. "Elder Brother, with a mind like Minister Shen's, if he truly wished to collude, what Helian Sha sent would hardly be a vial of medicine, but our very heads."
His tone was light, but his eyes, sharp as needles, swept over the "evidence."
"Moreover, this chain is so interlocked, the timeline so seamless... it's as if someone took the conclusion and performed a play for us."
He paused, tapped his ring. The gaze that flicked to the black jade walls seemed to pierce through to the vast shadow behind.
"I wonder... is that 'Chronicler' seated within this hall, or beyond it?"
You felt the unease shift through the court. He had pricked the fragile paper screen, and the darkness behind seemed deeper still.
The Emperor abandoned subtlety. His gaze burned into Chu Hongying, his voice dropping, laden with a psychic weight that pressed on your own skin:
"General Chu, I have heard that a heart of utmost sincerity can perceive truth within the mirror. Do you hear the sound within this hall?"
An eerie, absolute silence descended.
The black jade multiplied the candle flames, and the sound of heartbeats—thump... thump...—amplified in the confined space. You couldn't tell if it was hers, his, yours, or the ghost of a war drum from a snowy plain. The cold of power and the heat of memory collided, and you felt the suffocation.
Shen Yuzhu moved—a half-step, a bow, his body subtly shielding hers. His hand, clenched behind his back, was bone-white. You saw him using physical pain to anchor himself against the spiritual onslaught.
Just as the pressure threatened to crush your own will, Chu Hongying threw her head back. Her gaze fixed on the black jade wall behind the Emperor.
There, she saw her own pale, resolute face. Shen Yuzhu's tense profile. The Seventh Prince's knowing eyes.
To the reflection, and to the heart hammering in your own chest, she issued a silent, steel command:
"Silence."
There was no blast of light. Only her will, an arctic current, quelling the storm within. The pressure in the hall loosened, a string slackening, and you released a breath you didn't know you had been holding.
The Emperor rose. His fingertips tapped the dragon desk—tik, tok—like a hammer on a mirror.
"Loyalty and courage are commendable, yet pity the weight of emotion. When passion obscures the mirror, how can loyalty be discerned?"
The verdict fell: confinement for her, suspension for him.
[The human heart is a mirror, reflecting loyalty and treachery; yet the truth of the mirror lies ultimately with the one who looks into it.]
They bowed and withdrew.
Stepping out, the cold, sharp sunlight was a physical shock. You blinked with Shen Yuzhu, dazed, as the light refracted into a blinding white on Chu Hongying's armor—a searing memory of another snowy night, another glint of cold, unspoken apology.
She did not look at him.
The light was too bright. You had to squint.
You only heard the grind of armor, and the thought, clear and sharp in her mind—and now in yours:
If he is the Emperor's man, why did he stand in front of me?
You dared not think further. You gripped the haft of her spear with her, the cold, hard certainty of it.
Gu Changfeng let out a ragged sigh of relief you felt in your own lungs. "Whew! Finally out! Gotta have a drink or two tonight to calm the nerves!"
Lu Wanning, cool and grave, brushed invisible dust from her sleeves. "Our 'value' has been confirmed. From now on, we are all 'live pieces' on the board. There is no way back." The cold finality of her words chilled you.
As they passed the Seventh Prince, a thread of sound slipped into their ears—and yours:
"The mirror is not shattered, the game is not over. Play your pieces well."
Back in the hall, the light and shadow on the black jade walls had frozen. It reflected the solitary Emperor, and his smiling brother.
The stark white light, thrown back from the wall like a cold mirror, showed him—and you—the fleeting pain in his own eyes.
A whirling snow of years past. A mistake beyond atonement.
Just as the light faded, a faint "thump—" echoed from deep within the palace walls.
A heartbeat. Or the first crack in a mirror.
Chu Hongying's steps did not falter. She did not look back.
But the sound reverberated in the deepest part of your being, shattering the last vestige of hope for a "judgment from outside the mirror."
You understood, with her, in a moment of perfect, chilling clarity:
These halls of black jade, this entire imperial city, had never been capable of reflecting her truth.
They reflected only the image power desired.
The cold wind brushed your own cheek. And in that clarity, you made the vow with her:
"If the world lacks a mirror, I will take my heart as one.
If the mirror becomes a cage, I will be the one to turn the key."
And in that vow, the air turns still again—like snow.