The candle in the Emperor's study burned low.
Outside, the palace was quiet. Too quiet.
Only the soft rustle of night wind moving through the bamboo garden could be heard, and occasionally the distant footsteps of night guards changing shifts. The Emperor sat alone at his desk, the scrolls in front of him untouched.
He had not read a single word for the past half hour.
His mind was somewhere else.
Lady Chen's words echoed in his ears.
> "Your Majesty… my father is preparing my younger sister's marriage.
To Empress Lian An's elder cousin brother."
The brush in his fingers had paused mid-air.
At first, he had thought he heard wrongly.
But Lady Chen had repeated it calmly, as if stating something simple — like discussing the weather.
And that was what unsettled him the most.
---
The Emperor's Confusion
The Emperor slowly set the brush down.
The Chen clan.
And the Lian clan.
Enemies for generations.
Political rivals. Court enemies. Openly polite, secretly hostile.
