Lin Yue died on an ordinary Tuesday.
Not during an accident that made the news.
Not in a dramatic blaze of sacrifice.
Just a quiet, unremarkable death—one that would be forgotten before the day ended.
She remembered the ceiling light.
Too white.
Buzzing softly.
She remembered thinking that the calendar on her phone had not been updated yet.
Tomorrow's date still blank.
Then everything went dark.
⸻
When she opened her eyes again, the first thing she noticed was not pain.
It was silence.
Not the dead silence of hospitals, but the kind that pressed against the ears—heavy, disciplined, deliberate. The silence of a place where sound was allowed only when permitted.
Lin Yue lay still.
She did not scream.
She did not sit up.
She had read enough stories to know that panic was pointless.
The air smelled different. Not sterile. Not modern. There was incense in it—thin, bitter, mixed with the faint scent of old wood and iron.
She slowly turned her head.
Wooden beams.
Curtains embroidered with cloud patterns.
A ceiling too high for a common residence.
A historical setting.
Her first thought was absurdly calm.
*So it finally happened.*
Transmigration.
She exhaled, steadying herself.
"Miss Lin?"
A soft voice broke the silence.
A girl in pale servant robes stood by the bed, eyes wide with relief. She looked young—too young to be an actress, too sincere to be a hallucination.
"You finally woke up," the girl said. "You collapsed during morning rites. The physician said your pulse was unstable."
Morning rites.
Lin Yue searched her memory.
And memories—foreign, orderly, intrusive—slid into place.
Lin Yue.
Age nineteen.
Low-ranking palace attendant assigned to the outer courtyards.
No notable background.
No recorded influence.
A disposable character.
Her lips curved faintly.
"How long was I unconscious?" Lin Yue asked.
The girl blinked. "Half a day."
Half a day.
Lin Yue nodded. "What day is it today?"
The servant frowned, puzzled. "The seventeenth day of the ninth month, of course."
The ninth month.
Her chest tightened.
Slowly—very slowly—Lin Yue lifted her right hand.
There was something resting against her palm.
A thin, rectangular object.
Cool.
Smooth.
Paper.
She unfolded it.
⸻
It was a calendar.
Not a phone screen.
Not a notebook.
A single sheet, bound at the top, written in clean, printed characters.
Year: **Yonghe, Ninth Year**
Month: **Ninth Month**
Day: **Seventeenth**
There were no notes.
No explanations.
No glowing messages.
Just dates.
Lin Yue stared at it for a long time.
Then, with a breath she did not realize she was holding, she reached up and flipped the page.
The paper resisted slightly—like it was not meant to be touched before its time.
Then it turned.
The date changed.
**Eighteenth.**
Nothing else happened.
No voice.
No system notification.
No dramatic announcement.
The servant girl watched, confused. "Miss Lin…?"
Lin Yue lowered the calendar.
Her heart began to beat faster.
This was wrong.
In the stories, there were always instructions.
A mission.
A task.
A chance.
She flipped the page again.
**Nineteenth.**
Again.
**Twentieth.**
The calendar moved forward.
And only forward.
Lin Yue stopped.
A chill crept up her spine.
"What year did you say it was?" she asked quietly.
The servant answered without hesitation. "Yonghe, Ninth Year."
Lin Yue closed her eyes.
Yonghe, Ninth Year.
She knew this year.
She had read it.
Not in a book she loved.
Not in a story with a happy ending.
It was a historical tragedy novel she had dropped halfway through.
A story famous for its cruelty.
A story where a minor prince was erased so completely that later historians debated whether he had ever existed at all.
Her fingers tightened around the calendar.
Prince Shen Rui.
⸻
That night, Lin Yue did not sleep.
She waited.
When the oil lamp dimmed and the palace settled into its rigid breathing, she rose quietly and slipped out into the courtyard.
The moon was high.
She unfolded the calendar again.
The date was still **Twentieth**.
She waited.
Hours passed.
Her legs ached.
The night grew colder.
She stared at the calendar until her eyes burned.
Nothing changed.
Then—just as dawn began to lighten the horizon—the page trembled.
The date shifted on its own.
**Twenty-first.**
Lin Yue staggered back.
Her breath caught in her throat.
It moved.
Without her.
The calendar moved forward whether she touched it or not.
History was not waiting for her decisions.
Time was not negotiable.
⸻
The next few days passed in a blur.
Lin Yue tested it.
She warned a fellow attendant about a punishment she knew was coming.
The punishment still happened.
She altered the placement of ceremonial trays, hoping to delay an imperial inspection.
The inspection arrived on schedule.
Every attempt failed.
Every change corrected itself.
It was as if the world had a memory—and she did not belong to it.
On the twenty-fourth day, she did something reckless.
She stood in the rain outside the Eastern Archives.
She knew what would happen.
She knew that Prince Shen Rui would pass through the covered corridor at the third watch.
She knew that this meeting was not recorded in history.
Which meant it did not matter.
Or so she thought.
The guards frowned when they saw her, but a soaked palace attendant was not worth attention.
She waited.
Then footsteps.
Measured.
Unhurried.
Lin Yue looked up.
The man who walked beneath the corridor roof did not look like someone destined to vanish.
He was tall, dressed in dark robes trimmed with muted silver. His posture was straight, his expression distant—not cold, but reserved, like someone accustomed to being overlooked.
Prince Shen Rui.
He did not notice her at first.
She was just another attendant in the rain.
Then he stopped.
His gaze shifted.
And met hers.
For a brief moment, the world stilled.
Lin Yue felt something tighten in her chest—not fear, not hope.
Recognition.
Not his.
Hers.
She lowered her head immediately.
Proper.
Invisible.
Footsteps resumed.
He passed.
Lin Yue did not move.
She waited until the sound faded, until the rain soaked through her sleeves, until the calendar in her hand warmed against her skin.
She unfolded it.
The date remained unchanged.
No warning.
No reaction.
But Lin Yue knew.
She had seen his face.
And history had not stopped her.
⸻
That night, she sat by the narrow window of her quarters.
The calendar rested on her lap.
She traced the dates with her finger.
She knew what was written ahead.
War.
Political betrayal.
An unnamed death on an unrecorded battlefield.
Prince Shen Rui would vanish.
No monument.
No mourning.
Lin Yue leaned her forehead against the cool paper.
In every story she had read, this was the moment where the heroine would vow to change everything.
She did not.
She exhaled slowly.
"If I can't change history," she whispered to the empty room,
"then I won't fight it."
The calendar lay silent.
Tomorrow's date waited.
Lin Yue closed it gently.
She would stay.
Not to save him.
Not to rewrite fate.
But to witness.
Because when history erased him—
Someone should remember.
⸻
Outside, the palace bells rang.
The day moved forward.