The Day Her Name Was Erased
The imperial decree arrived at dawn.
Frost still clung to the stone steps when armored soldiers forced open the gates of the Shen residence. Their boots crushed fallen leaves, the sound sharp and merciless in the quiet courtyard. Shen Lianhua stood beneath the eaves, fingers clenched inside her sleeves, watching red tassels sway from spears tipped with steel.
Her mother was pushed to her knees first.
"By order of the Vermilion Throne," the commanding officer announced, unrolling a scroll edged in gold, "General Shen Qiming is accused of treason against the dynasty. His title is stripped. His estate confiscated. His name erased from the imperial records."
Erased.
The word echoed louder than the clatter of armor.
Servants were dragged away, screaming. Chests were smashed open, silk torn apart, ancestral tablets thrown to the ground. The plaque bearing the Shen family name was ripped from its place above the hall and shattered against the stones.
Lianhua did not move. She did not cry.
She watched.
The officer's gaze finally fell on her. His eyes lingered, assessing, calculating.
"The daughter," he said. "Too young for execution."
Her mother lifted her head sharply, hope flashing for a single heartbeat.
"Send her to the inner palace," the officer continued. "Registered as a servant of the lowest rank."
The hope died.
The palace was not mercy. It was a slower sentence.
Hands seized Lianhua's arms. As she was pulled away, she looked back once—at the broken doorway, the scattered ashes of scrolls, the place where her father's name had been.
In that moment, something settled quietly in her chest.
If the world wished to erase her name,
then she would carve it back into history—
even if it had to be written in blood.