Peace returned to the empire like a song that no one quite remembered how to sing.
The courtyards smelled of new rain, petitions were shorter, laughter returned to the barracks.
Yet inside the Eastern Palace, Li Cheng Cheng sometimes paused mid-step, as if listening to something that no one else could hear.
> System 003: Mission integrity — complete. Host's spatial anchor destabilizing. Dimensional drift imminent.
The voice came like wind through glass.
Each time she heard it, the world seemed to shiver—just slightly—and the candles along the corridor flickered as though startled.
---
Li Yun noticed first in small things.
One evening her reflection did not follow her hand across the mirror.
Another night, as she poured tea, the steam rose in the shape of distant constellations he did not know.
Her eyes, once only dark, now held a dusting of light, like rivers reflecting a far-off star.
"Are you well?" he asked, forcing steadiness into his voice.
"I'm fine," she said, smiling as though to convince them both.
But when her fingers brushed his sleeve, he felt the faintest tremor—as if her touch came through water.
---
A week later, while she tended the plum trees in the outer garden, Li Yun stood on the balcony above the courtyard.
The evening sun spilled through drifting petals, gilding her hair, and for a moment he thought he saw a thin halo of silver thread weaving through her shadow.
He blinked, and it was gone.
Something in his chest tightened.
That night he could not sleep.
---
He rose before dawn and wandered the silent halls.
The moon hung low over the lake, white as frost.
A faint hum vibrated in the air—soft, mechanical, inhuman.
Following the sound, he came upon the secluded pavilion where she often went to meditate.
Inside, she knelt before a shimmer of light suspended in mid-air.
Strands of symbols—foreign, fluid, luminous—spiraled around her like ribbons of code.
Her voice, calm and wistful, drifted through the air.
"System, prepare next world initialization. Seal all emotional residue from this realm… after I say goodbye."
> System 003: Confirmation pending. Host emotional volatility detected.
Li Yun froze. The words made no sense and yet struck him like arrows.
Next world? Seal emotional residue?
He took a step forward. "Cheng Cheng?"
The shimmer fractured instantly, collapsing into a wisp of light that vanished into her palm.
She turned, startled, eyes wide with something between guilt and sorrow.
"Your Highness—"
"What was that?" he demanded, though his voice broke midway.
He looked at her—really looked—and saw that faint star-dust still trailing from her sleeves, fading even as he watched.
"You're leaving, aren't you?"
Silence stretched. The wind moved through the pavilion, scattering the fallen petals between them.
---
"I was supposed to go quietly," she whispered at last.
"There was to be no pain, no memory left behind."
Li Yun's heart stuttered. "Who are you?"
For a long time she said nothing.
Then softly: "Someone who borrowed a life to right what was wrong. The real Lady Yan Ruo rests now. I came only to finish what she could not."
Her voice trembled. "And now my time here is ending."
The world tilted around him.
He thought of the first day he saw her—serene and clever, yet carrying a grief he could never name.
He remembered her saving his life, her laughter, her tears beneath the rain.
Pieces fell together, forming a truth too vast for words.
"You're not of this world," he murmured.
She shook her head once. "No."
"And when you go… will I remember you?"
"Perhaps only in dreams."
---
For a moment neither moved.
Between them hung the weight of everything unsaid.
Then he stepped forward, gripping her shoulders, afraid that even that touch might dissolve.
"Don't go," he said hoarsely. "Not yet."
Her eyes shimmered like wet silk.
"I can't stop what's coming. The system has already begun the transfer."
> System 003: Temporal anchor deteriorating. Host, please initiate farewell protocol.
She exhaled a trembling laugh. "Even the heavens are impatient."
Li Yun's fingers tightened around hers.
"If the heavens take you," he whispered, "then I will chase them."
Her reply was a tearful smile. "You would cross worlds for me?"
"In this life or the next," he said, "I will find you."
The words hung between them, a vow bright as dawn.
---
Above the pavilion, the first crack of thunder rolled through the clouds.
The air grew heavy, shimmering with light.
Li Cheng Cheng looked up; her outline flickered once, like a reflection on water.
"Then let this be our world between heartbeats," she said softly, "where your promise begins."
The hum around them deepened, as if the universe were drawing breath.
---
The thunder faded into a hush.
Every sound in the pavilion—the flutter of curtains, the rhythm of their breathing—slowed as if time itself held its breath.
Li Cheng Cheng's glow brightened until the air shimmered around her.
It was not blinding, only soft, like morning mist poured from the heavens.
Each pulse of light carried the scent of plum blossoms and something colder—the taste of farewell.
> System 003: Dimensional threshold forming. Host energy stabilizing. Final dialogue window open.
She closed her eyes.
"System," she whispered, "let him remember kindness, not pain."
> Acknowledged.
The light stilled.
When she looked at Li Yun again, tears trembled on her lashes, scattering into the glow.
"I was sent here to give peace," she said quietly. "But somewhere along the way, you became my peace."
He reached for her, fingertips brushing the edge of her sleeve, where substance thinned into silver motes.
"You think I will forget you?" he asked, voice raw.
"No. The world itself will remind me. Every time the wind moves through the plum trees, I will hear your laugh."
She shook her head, smiling through the shimmer. "You'll have an empire to rule, a future to guard. Don't chain it to a ghost."
"I would trade every crown to meet you again," he said.
The light trembled at his words, as if the sky itself listened.
> System 003: Warning—emotional synchronization exceeding safe parameters.
"Then promise me this," she said.
"When you dream, do not mourn me. Look forward. Somewhere, in another sky, I'll be walking toward you."
He bowed his head until their foreheads touched, the contact fleeting but eternal.
"Then I'll keep walking too," he murmured. "Even if it takes a thousand worlds."
---
The pavilion brightened; wind lifted every petal from the courtyard into a whirling storm of light.
For a heartbeat, everything—air, sound, and sorrow—was still.
Then the system's field unfurled, wrapping her in a spiral of radiant thread.
> System 003: Transfer in progress. Initiating memory partition.
She felt her strength dissolve into warmth, her senses slipping free of gravity.
The palace fell away like paper in water, colors bleeding into white.
Li Yun's face was the last image she saw—eyes full of storms, yet calm at the center, anchored by belief.
"Cheng Cheng!" he shouted as the light swept upward.
Her answer came on the wind, soft but clear:
> "Wait for me beneath the same stars."
And then she was gone.
---
Li Yun's POV
Silence.
Only the wind remained, scattering faint silver dust across the floor where she had stood.
He fell to his knees, staring at the place her shadow had been.
The world resumed its ordinary rhythm—the moon, the rustle of banners—but none of it felt the same.
When he looked down, one plum petal rested against his palm, faintly glowing.
It pulsed once, then dimmed, leaving behind the barest thread of starlight curling into his skin.
He closed his hand around it.
"She said she'd come back," he whispered.
And for the first time in years, the Crown Prince of the realm smiled, not with triumph, but with faith.
---
Elsewhere
Beyond that world, beyond the weave of time, the system's corridor unfurled like an endless ocean of light.
Li Cheng Cheng drifted through it, neither body nor spirit, only consciousness and memory.
> System 003: Mission 1 – complete. Preparing new coordinates. Host emotional imprint preserved as auxiliary data.
She thought she had left everything behind, yet warmth lingered at her fingertips—the echo of a hand she had once held.
"System," she asked softly, "can memories travel across worlds?"
> Data inconclusive. However, probability of emotional resonance between linked souls—high.
A faint smile curved her lips. "Then it's enough."
Ahead, new constellations shimmered—worlds waiting, lives undone, hearts needing peace.
She straightened, the remnants of sorrow becoming purpose once more.
> System 003: Destination loaded. Initializing World 2.
Light flared, and she stepped forward, carrying with her the promise that had crossed a kingdom and would one day cross the stars.
---
End Of The World 1