The afternoon bell hung silent, its chime delayed by some unseen whim of the heavens, when the first ripple hit the rear palace. It wasn't a crash or a wail to shatter the peace—no frantic shouts echoing off the rafters, no flurry of skirts and sandals as maids bolted like deer from a hunter's shadow. The halls held their breath, as always: silk slippers sighing over polished stone, silver trays tinkling with the weight of untouched fruits, tendrils of incense curling upward like lazy secrets from hidden braziers.
But in the tight squeeze of the corridor flanking the southern garden path, where sunlight dappled the walls through vine-choked arches, a young laundry maid froze mid-stride. One second she was there, arms laden with crisp linens, humming a half-forgotten tune under her breath; the next, her world tilted.
Those passing by caught only the stutter—a falter, like a skipped heartbeat. "Watch your step," one murmured, but she didn't hear. Her hand shot out, slamming palm-flat against the wall, nails scraping faint grooves into the cool, unforgiving stone as if it could anchor her spinning thoughts. Her breath snagged, ragged and wrong—not the sharp gasp of a twisted ankle, but a shallow rattle, like wind trapped in a hollow reed. The air around her thickened, pressing in, heavy with an invisible weight that no one else felt.
The basket tumbled from her grip with a muffled thud, robes unfurling in a cascade of pale silk and cotton, blooming across the floor like spilled entrails of some forgotten ritual. They pooled at her feet, innocent and mocking.
"Are you unwell?" The voice came soft from a nearby scullery girl, edging closer with wide eyes, hand half-extended in hesitant concern.
The laundry maid's lips parted, words forming on her tongue—and then her body betrayed her. A sway, subtle at first, like a reed bending in a sudden gust. Her knees unlocked without mercy, folding inward with a traitor's grace. No scream ripped from her throat, no desperate claw for purchase. She just... crumpled. Slumped against the wall in a slow, deliberate unraveling, her body sliding down inch by inch until she pooled on the stone amid her fallen charges, limbs splayed awkward and limp.
Gasps rippled outward—sharp intakes from the cluster of maids who rushed in, skirts hiked as they dropped to their knees around her. Hands fluttered: one pressed to her forehead, cool and clammy; another gripped her shoulder, shaking gentle. "Girl? Speak to us!"
But her skin was already whispering its own betrayal. Not the angry red bloom of a bruise, not the feverish flush of heatstroke. Something colder, stranger—a faint silver-gray sheen seeping from beneath, like mercury threading veins just under the surface. It started at her wrist, delicate and insidious, tracing faint paths toward her elbow; a mirror echo bloomed at her ankle, pale and ethereal, almost pretty in its wrongness. Moonlight trapped in flesh, cool to the touch when fingers brushed it.
Her own hand twitched, weak as a dying moth's wing, clutching at her sleeve as if to hide the invasion. Eyes glassy, she managed a thread of sound, voice frayed to a ghost: "I was... bitten." A pause, breath hitching again. "Something small... didn't see it. Quick as a shadow..."
They searched—frantic pats over her robes, peering at hems and cuffs, overturning the spilled basket for hidden culprits. Nothing. No fat bee buzzing vengeful, no scorpion curled triumphant in a fold. No puncture wept blood or pus. Just the air, laced with a fleeting sweetness—delicate as morning dew on a thorn, floral yet hollow, vanishing like smoke when they leaned in to sniff.
Panic bloomed quiet but swift, whispers chaining from mouth to ear: The garden path... she came from there... something in the vines?Word snaked upward through the palace veins, faster than any runner, until the corridor transformed. Ordinary servants melted back, heads bowed, yielding space to the hush of authority.
Jinshi was there in moments—his arrival a ripple rather than a storm, steps measured and unhurried, robes whispering like conspirators against the stone. His face held that polished calm, a mask of composure etched from years of crises, but his violet eyes ignited the instant he dropped to one knee beside her. Gaoshun loomed at his shoulder, a granite sentinel, gaze already dissecting the scene: floor for scuffs, walls for cracks, the garden archway yawning innocent beyond.
Jinshi's fingers—long, precise—tilted her wrist into the light, tracing the silver creep with a feather's touch. No angry welt rose in protest. No heat radiated from the skin. Just that eerie chill, the gray hue pulsing faint like a tide under ice, inching onward with lazy determination.
"This is not a wasp," he murmured, voice low and edged with steel, meant for the man at his back.
Gaoshun dipped his chin once, sharp. "Nor any garden ant. No burn flares. No venom's instant bite."
Jinshi's gaze lifted, snagging on the open archway where afternoon sun slanted bold, gilding motes of pollen in lazy spirals. The air hummed wrong there—not laced with threat, not fouled by poison's rot. Just... off-kilter. Alien, like a melody played half a note sharp, jarring without alarm.
"Send for Maomao," he ordered, rising smooth, the command slicing clean through the murmurs.