It was beneath the arching eaves of the Lotus Pavilion that whispers tended to grow teeth.
Lin Qiyue stood in the shadow of the roof's delicate latticework, where pink blossoms drifted down like dying stars. The air was thick with summer warmth, the silence broken only by the soft trickle of a koi pond and the occasional chirp of hidden crickets. It was a place designed for beauty, for quiet reflection.
It had once been her sanctuary.
Now, it was her stage.
"Did you bring it?" she asked quietly.
Mingzhu nodded, carefully unwrapping a small folded bundle of silk from inside her sleeve. Within lay a string of carved amber prayer beads—modest at first glance, but nestled inside the center bead was a sliver of powdered root from the Zhenmu flower. A slow-acting hallucinogen. Harmless in small doses. Untraceable. It muddled the mind subtly, increasing forgetfulness and paranoia.
"Enough for how long?" Qiyue asked.
"Two months if dosed in tea," Mingzhu replied. "If she uses her personal incense burners, perhaps less."
Qiyue's fingers closed around the beads. "Good. Have them left in her meditation chamber. Tell the servant it is a gift from the Temple of Silent Mercy—she visits often enough they won't question it."
Mingzhu looked uneasy. "Do you think it will work?"
"She poisons with arrogance," Qiyue said. "I will poison with faith."
Her eyes narrowed toward the distant pagoda where the Empress Dowager kept court. "Let her begin to doubt what she sees. Let her think shadows move behind her. Let her forget which secrets she told and which she merely imagined."
---
Later that evening, Qiyue was summoned not by the Emperor, but by his newest favorite: Consort Yue.
The girl was seventeen at most. Her face was all peach-skin glow and pouty innocence, the kind that cloaked dangerous ambition behind soft eyes and laughter.
Qiyue entered the Fragrant Wind Pavilion where Consort Yue lounged among embroidered cushions like a cat raised on compliments.
"Ah!" Yue exclaimed, clapping her hands. "So you're the legendary Concubine Lin. I've heard such interesting things."
Qiyue bowed. "Your Grace flatters me."
"I do nothing of the sort," Yue said sweetly, sipping wine from a porcelain cup shaped like a plum blossom. "They say you were once the Emperor's favorite. That you had wit sharper than any blade, but no luck in your womb."
Qiyue's smile was cold. "The palace favors fertility over loyalty."
"How tragic," Yue said, though her tone lacked sympathy. "And now, after all these years, you return like a faded painting. A memory brought to life."
She was trying to goad her.
Qiyue played along.
"Memories are dangerous, Your Grace," she said softly. "They often carry truths no one wants to remember."
For a heartbeat, the girl's gaze wavered.
Then she smiled again, bright and empty. "Well, we shall see how long you last this time."
"I plan to stay long enough to be forgotten again," Qiyue replied. "People remember threats. They ignore ghosts."
---
That night, as the moon rose full and pale above the imperial gardens, Qiyue lit a candle at her writing desk and began to draft her first letter.
It would be delivered by hand—no palace courier, no signature.
It was addressed to General Wei Xian.
Her former betrothed.
The man she had been forced to reject to enter the palace.
The man whose younger brother died during a border skirmish after the Emperor delayed military reinforcements—choosing to focus on a summer hunting banquet instead.
She began simply:
> "General Wei, There is a rot at the heart of the Golden Court. You know it. I know it. Let us speak plainly…"
When the letter was finished, she sealed it with wax and pressed a simple mark: a phoenix's feather. Not her family crest—long stripped from her—but a symbol known only to Wei Xian and herself, from a time before ambition poisoned everything.
---
In the southern corridors of the palace, a maid stumbled while serving the Empress Dowager.
A faint crack echoed as the prayer beads dropped to the floor, scattering under a table leg.
The old woman's eyes narrowed. "Where did these come from?"
The maid stammered, "A gift… from the Temple, Your Majesty."
The Dowager's wrinkled hands scooped the beads up. She stared at them long.
Then, with a huff, she placed them on her altar and lit incense.
Smoke curled upward.
Invisible.
Sweet.
And laced with the first thread of madness.
A