Day 4, 4th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Taishan Province, Tian’an Sect
We entered the eastern receiving hall of the Palace of Peonies—the Empress’ special residence.
The hall stretched for miles; a long, gilded chamber used exclusively for internal harem affairs. Both the exterior and interior screamed opulence in a way only royalty with far too much money and far too little self-awareness could achieve. The marble flooring was patterned with hypnotic swirls of greens, ambers, and pale blues, each curve lovingly chiselled, like the stone itself had once been water. I imagined the stone craftsmen who built this monstrosity had probably lost their sanity around the halfway mark.
Ju Ying pattered ahead of me, light-footed and irritatingly graceful. Her cotton shoes were elegant; dove-grey silk with golden embroidery, each step quiet and assured. Mine? A mess. I had tied twine around my feet in a last-minute panic like a poorly packed dumpling. Thankfully, my skirts were just long enough to hide them.
As per our sect’s customs, my shījiě had convinced me to wear the proper ceremonial attire: a tri-layered outfit in cream-white, daffodil yellow, and baby pink. And of course, that ugly wooden hairpin. The word convinced didn’t quite capture the violence of the moment. She practically threatened me to get into the dress; else she’d make me write out the history of Huadu Sect by hand. A crime against time and tendon health. Fortunately, Qi Qi had a spare outfit. Or maybe she just pitied me. Hard to tell.
Ju Ying, of course, looked like she had just stepped out of a portrait by some divine artisan. Her gown floated around her as though she’d bribed the wind itself. Baby pink silk danced with embroidered white begonias, and her sleeves shimmered with silver thread. Her hair was artfully swept into a loose bun held up by three solid silver hairpins. I had to admit; the pins were a nice touch. Not that I’d ever tell her that. She already walked like someone who knew she could outshine a sunbeam.
The Blossom Chief glanced over her shoulder. If stares could generate soundwaves, she was sending a tsunami of anxiety in my direction. I responded with a very mature expression. Something that fell between the categories of Stop Looking and If I Trip on This Floor, I Will Blame You for Eternity.
Since the ceremony, our conversations had been limited to essential communication. That is, if you could call sharp glances and vaguely civil grunts ‘communication.’ We spoke only about the Emperor’s upcoming banquet, and even then, we were barely cordial enough to prevent either of us turning into an active volcano.
Still, I followed her.
I saw Empress Huangmei.
In Huadu Sect, we had many rumours about our reigning monarchs. No one knew where they originated—probably whispered by some traumatised courtiers—but everyone passed them on like sacred scripture. Naturally, no one would dare voice their opinion openly. Not unless they had a death wish or were planning to fake their own death the following day.
One favourite tale involved a young girl who dared talk back and got her tongue cut out and her eyes scooped like melon balls. Another claimed the Empress practiced dark arts and had hexed the Emperor into marriage despite looking like a boiled pig. Yet another whispered that her sneer alone could stop a man's heart mid-beat.
So, naturally, I expected a monster.
Yet the woman seated on the gold throne was the exact opposite of ugly. And this is why you never trust rumours.
Empress Huangmei’s obsidian shēnyī spilled around her like liquid night. Her blood-red lips weren’t overly plump or too thin; just perfectly sculpted into a line of disdain. She wore a frown like a crown, and had perfectly shaped, crescent eyebrows.
But it was Empress Huangmei’s eyes that were her primary feature. They were cataloguing. Dissecting. Devouring every detail. And the more she stared, the more my existence withered like a sunburnt sprout. I never felt so unimportant in front of anyone.
The Empress stroked her gold-gilded armrest. “Blossom Chief Ju. And…” Her pale hand hovered out to me like a falcon tracking prey.
“This is Alchemist Su Tang, Your Majesty,” Ju Ying said. Ju Ying gripped my arm tightly. I didn't know if it was steady herself, or to steady my legs that felt like wobbly poles of jelly.
But the Empress ignored her, and her eyes stayed on me. I suddenly found the mirror-glossed floor incredibly fascinating. It reflected light in such poetic, metaphorical ways. Ways that didn’t involve being vaporised by a royal death glare.
The Empress purred. “I see. Her parentage?”
Ju Ying removed her hand from my arm, a quiet sign of trust or surrender. I pressed my lips more firmly together. Her shoulders relaxed a little in response, probably because she knew that I wasn't going to blurt out something stupid.
Then the Blossom Chief bowed and said with forced grace, “I do not see why that is important, Your Majesty.”
The sound came like thunder. The Empress slapped her bamboo fan against the armrest. Ju Ying jolted like lightning ran through her veins. My legs twitched instinctively, desperate to flee.
Taking this job had been a bad idea.
The Empress leaned forward. “Her parentage?” Again, slowly. Like she was asking a child what two plus two was, but the consequence for getting it wrong was death.
The Blossom Chief remained silent.
What was Ju Ying waiting for? I tried to catch her attention, but her eyes were closed. She was meditating. Or malfunctioning.
Seriously? Right now?
This was no time for meditation.
I flicked a glance at the Empress. Her eyes bore into me like twin daggers. I couldn’t stall any longer.
I bowed low. “I’m born from a flower, Your Majesty.”
As all alchemists of Huadu Sect are supposed to be.
The Empress didn’t flinch. She slowly stood, towering in her throne robes like a deity judging whether to smite or spare me. Then she let out a sigh, soft but devastating. Her face, previously strained in thought, resettled into something like detached cruelty.
At last, she spoke, “The floral arrangements?”
My shījiě finally gathered enough courage to speak again. She curtsied so low I thought she might disappear into the floor tiles.
“Your Majesty, I call this creation Breaking of The Dawn.”
I almost wanted to applaud her for saying a full sentence without a voice crack.
With a wave of her hand, the centrepiece appeared. It was a polished bouquet arranged atop a glass table, all carefully curated for optimal visual impact. Auspicious blooms, seasonal favourites, and the kind of symmetry that would make a geometrician weep.
We had spent hours designing it. More accurately, she spent hours explaining how my suggestions were ‘too unconventional’ whilst she triple-checked her imaginary checklist. Personally, I thought the piece lacked flair. It was more ‘required reading’ than ‘divine revelation.’ But at some point, I gave up arguing with her.
The Empress gestured to a lady near the edge of the hall. If not for her gesture, I wouldn’t have even noticed that she was there. The lady was so pale that she might blend into the background and had red-rimmed eyes like she'd just finished sobbing through a tragic opera. Her mouth was pinched into a tiny line, as if she'd swallowed every complaint she ever wanted to say and was still digesting them.
Her hànfú was in shades of light green with a forest-hued overcoat and embroidered with chrysanthemums that gave the gave the false impression of liveliness. The sash tied around her waist trailed like ivy, a final poetic touch to the tragic maiden ensemble.
She inclined her head slightly, her jade hairpins chiming like tiny bells. “My decision will be the same as yours, Your Majesty,” she said, voice sweet and melodious.
Based on my superficial understanding of the situation, I suspected that this young lady had some statue. Coupled with her age, she was likely the eldest daughter of the Emperor: Princess Changping. Other than the Empress, Princess Changping was the other organiser for the Emperor’s birthday. This came as a surprise, considering the Empress’ obvious dislike for the quiet girl.
The Empress seemed determined to get an answer out of the princess. “Tang Shiqi, I value your opinion,” she said with the warmth of a snake sunbathing on cold marble. “What do you think of the floral arrangement?”
The princess set her teacup down with all the ceremony of someone being asked to jump into a tiger’s mouth. She stood slowly, brushing invisible dust from her silk hànfú. Her movements were deliberate, her posture perfect. The very picture of filial obedience.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
The sweet melody came again. “May I say anything?”
The Empress gave a bitter laugh with a smile full of bone-white teeth. “Of course.”
The princess tilted her head. “What if it offends Your Majesty?”
The Empress’ smile began to twitch; either from her inability to continue the act, or that her face muscles were beginning to strain. “Having an opinion is my gift to you.”
Ah, yes. The royal permission to speak one’s mind, guaranteed to expire the moment you did.
“If Your Majesty insists,” the princess said, because clearly she wanted to live dangerously today.
She descended the dais like a drifting petal, garments flowing like water over stone. Like a poem.
She began, “These designs are suitable. The clever use of purple peonies shows that the Blossom Chief understands auspicious flowers. The sunrise elements represent the nature of the Emperor’s reign. And roses are a favourite of the Emperor’s—”
“I didn’t ask for a lecture,” the Empress snapped, slicing the air with her words. “I asked for your opinion, Tang Shiqi.”
The princess faltered, bowed slightly, and clenched her fists so tightly her knuckles paled. Blood had drained from both her face and her slender arms until she looked like a ghost.
“I think…” she said, voice thin, “it’s one of the most beautiful and suitable floral arrangements I have seen, Your Majesty.”
The Empress tapped her finger against the throne. Then she rose, her dress rustling like a storm building. Her steps echoed as she approached the bouquet.
“It is rather fitting. Ticks all the boxes, doesn’t it?”
My eyes widened as her fingers stroked one of the roses. Then, without warning, she ripped the bud from the stem and crushed it.
“But I don't like it!” she roared.
Sticky nectar seeped between the Empress’ fingers. For good measure, she raised her palm and summoned flames, real fire, to finish off the bouquet like a pyromaniac chef flambéing dessert.
We hit the floor. I smashed my knees into the tiles and the shock ricocheted up my spine. Pain sang like a temple bell.
Don’t cry.
Ju Ying dropped flat beside me, forehead pressed to the marble. “Please be calm, Your Majesty,” she murmured, hands in prayer, trying to fuse herself with the floor.
“Shut it!” barked the Empress. “After your horrendous design, you think you’re entitled to speak?”
My shījiě kept her face on the floor. I hadn’t liked her floral design, but hearing the insult made me wince. After all, she was my shījiě. Carefully, so that the Empress wouldn't see, I reached over and gave her hand a small squeeze. She turned her head. Despite everything, she smiled at me.
The Empress turned her fury toward Princess Changping. “You should be looking out for the Emperor’s best interest. Instead, you praise this ugly floral arrangement for his banquet?”
The princess remained kneeling. Still, she managed to lift her head. “Your Majesty, I know that I am not smart enough to be the manager. But I believe Blossom Chief Ju spent much care and time creating this…”
Wrong move.
My heart was a war drum. Blood pounded in my ears. I could barely breathe. Her Majesty’s stare slithered across the floor and wrapped around me.
The Empress laid her hand on my shoulder.
“If Ju Ying spent so much time this, surely her little apprentice must have some ideas. Am I right?” she cooed, patting my head with her manicured hand. I shook uncontrollably at each touch. I shot a look at Ju Ying. Her eyebrows were knitted tightly, and her worry waves were swimming in my direction.
Yet, Ju Ying replied with a prepared speech. “I beseech you, Your Majesty. She is a child–”
“A child? Then why is she here?” the Empress sneered, as if she wasn’t the one who had asked us to come. Her burning stare moved from me to Ju Ying, like a searching torchlight.
For once in my life, I was glad that Ju Ying was downgrading my abilities. After the fuss the Empress had made about Ju Ying’s floral design, I certainly did not want to show her mine.
But nothing could be hidden from the Empress. She reached down and yanked me upright. My legs wobbled like bamboo in a typhoon. Her eyes narrowed, dissecting me with all the warmth of a butcher examining a cut of meat.
“Show me your design,” she said.
I clenched my fists, trying to disguise the fact that they were trembling like reeds in a typhoon. I could feel every heartbeat in my knuckles. Not ideal, given I was about to cast a spell in front of the most temperamental woman in the empire.
With a breath, I raised my hands and let my magic spill across my fingertips. Light coiled and shimmered, coalescing in arcs of white that flooded the glass table in front of me.
I bowed low just as they taught in those etiquette scrolls I never quite finished reading. “Your Majesty,” I said as firmly as I could manage, “I would like to call this ‘Spring After a Storm.’”
The bouquet formed like a conjured painting: starry jasmines, bold purple peonies, magenta-tipped lilies, half-opened buds like sleepy children, dew-kissed carnations, and curling fountain grasses that danced like green fire. A bit of everything. Chaotic but intentional. It was a showy arrangement, which was why my conservative shījiě had been so opposed.
But if I had gambled right…
Not a word escaped the Empress. Nor the princess. For one second, I dared to believe I’d done it. I allowed myself a smug little smile. I knew it. Or… I mean, I suspected it with a high degree of guesswork and a touch of stalker-level flower knowledge.
The scent of jasmine had always followed the Empress like an obedient dog. Coupled with the flower that symbolised the Empress herself—a purple peony—and the innocent white lilies, The entire arrangement was one massive floral compliment to praise the Empress’ beauty.
It was risky, but unlikely she would be disappointed.
Empress Huangmei raised her fingers—those immaculately clawed, porcelain-painted fingers—and brushed a jasmine. “This is what I want,” she said. “This is suitable and beautiful.”
Her flushed cheeks betrayed her happiness. But I sensed a tinge of resentment underlined her words. She’d lost her chance to scold someone. Worse: she had to give me credit.
She spoke again, that same sweetness coating her venom like a candied poison. “Eight-thousand years’ worth of cultivation. That should be enough for your services.”
…
Hold on.
Did she say eight-thousand years?
I blinked, unsure if I’d accidentally dropped into a coma mid-kneel and hallucinated. That was enough cultivation to skip four alchemist tiers. That was the kind of reward people killed for. People plotted lifetimes for that kind of reward.
And here, the Empress was just giving it so freely. So easily.
Ju Ying’s cold voice slid into my daydreams.
“She doesn’t deserve a gift. She is already receiving a gift by being your servant, Your Majesty,” she said.
First the competitions, now this?
I was beginning to suspect Ju Ying, my dear shījiě, was on some crusade to make my life as difficult as spiritually possible.
The Empress didn’t move, but somehow her presence seemed to expand. Like she’d grown three times her size without lifting a finger. Just her existing was oppressive. Ju Ying tensed beside me.
“If you intend to reward her, do so after the ceremony,” Ju Ying continued, her voice more careful now, “Then, in the case that the ceremony is not to Your Majesty’s liking, you don’t have to give her anything.”
The Empress gave a tight frown, but then she smiled. “I like the sound of that,” she said, eyes flicking over me like she was measuring me for a coffin. “I like the sound of that very much.”
Phew.
Her Majesty turned, her shoes tapping with precision against the marble, and glided back toward her throne. She clapped her hands lightly. “You have my permission to leave.”
As she spoke, a young Half-Immortal ran up, scroll in hand, face pale like she’d been hit with a snowball of anxiety. The Empress glanced at the document, then tossed it back at her like garbage wrapped in silk.
She turned back to us with a smile so bright I could practically hear teeth grinding. “Guards. Escort our guests out.”
The nightmare was over. At least, this one.
Ju Ying placed a hand at the small of my back and guided me out of the hall, her palm trembling against my spine.
***
Once we reached the southern border of Taishan, we hired a cloud to take us down to Huadu Sect.
Yep. Hired.
People who had the proper amount of cultivation would teleport instead of wasting a cent.
But oh no.
Not us.
We—the royal we, of course—had to pay for our heavenly transport because someone called Ju Ying, had personally stunted my cultivation growth with the efficiency of an overbearing aunt bottling up all the soy sauce for herself at family dinner. Thanks to her micromanaging and her relentless commitment. I was still a tier-two alchemist. That’s right. Two on a scale of nine tiers. Which conveniently meant that my teleportation range was… ten metres.
Max.
Ten tiny metres.
So, unless I was planning to arrive at Huadu Sect one sneeze at a time for the next three-hundred-years, a cloud was my only option.
I side-eyed Ju Ying, who sat still beside me, silent as an unopened scroll. She hadn’t said a word since we left the Empress’ hall. Just stared blankly into the swirling sky. Her expression was so unreadable, I briefly wondered if she’d astral projected into another dimension to scream privately.
Below us, thick grey clouds rolled like the bellies of dragons, angry and full of thunder. Lightning danced under our feet. The cloud we were riding began its descent, and I had to press my palm to the floor just to steady myself. The rain was already falling in sheets. Not a drip on us, of course—we were safely beneath a magic shield. A storm everywhere but here.
I watched the glimmering threads of magic encircling our floating cloud, and something inside me turned bitter. There was a good chance she was the one making the storm, too.
Of course she was.
Of course she could summon the weather to match her mood. Ju Ying: Blossom Chief, expert cultivator, cultivator of expertise, and unofficial patron saint of silent treatments. Her power could make flowers bloom and clouds cry.
But her specialty as of late, seemed to be her ability to ignore me and choose silence like it was a form of punishment.
“Blossom Chief Ju?”
A pause. “Not now,” she whispered.
“Why not now?” I asked, sharper this time.
Ju Ying didn’t reply.
“Why can’t you explain yourself?!” I shouted, loud enough to challenge the thunder that clapped around us. The air crackled. The storm answered in kind, lashing against the clouds like an argument waiting to happen.
Ju Ying still didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just sat there, head tilted to the sky, like she wanted the rain to melt her into the air.
I was told that coldness was something only felt physically.
But at that moment, even though she was less than a metre away, I never felt so distant.
SIDE NOTE: NAMES, NAMES, NAMES
- shīxiōng (師兄) – martial older brother(s); males of similar rank.
- shījiě (師姐) – martial older sister(s).
- shīdì (師弟) – martial younger brother(s).
- shīmèi (師妹) – martial younger sister(s).
- zhǎngbèi (长辈) – the martial senior of the sect.
- zōngzhǔ (宗主) – this term is used to address the leader of the sect.
- xiānshēng (先生) – this term is used to address a male master, but under the rules of martial world, it can be considered gender neutral.
- fūjūn? (夫君) – a formal term used for husbands.
- fūrén (夫人) – a formal term used for wives
- xiōng (兄) – a formal term used between males of similar age.
- āyí (阿姨) – an affectionate term given by the niece to their auntie on their mother’s side.
- xiǎojie (小姐) – a formal term servants used to address their young female masters if they have a good relationship with their master.
- gōngzǐ (公子) — a son of duke or high ranking official.
- huángjiāshǐzhě (皇家使者) — Royal Emissary.
- měirén (美人) — a beautiful person; pet name.
- xiǎo (小) — small; added to a person’s name to show endearment or youth.
- ér (兒) — a term of endearment, usually added to the last character of a person's name.
- jiě (姐) — older biological sister; a friendly term for older female friends.
- mèi (妹) — younger biological sister; a friendly term for younger female friends or children.
- dì (弟) — younger biological brother; also used as a friendly term for younger male friends.
- yéyé (爺) — grandfather; the father’s father; shows familiarity with a respected elder.
èrgōngzǐ (二公子) by servants or outsiders, because èr (二) means “second/two”.