The Cold Palace.
The room was dim, the candlelight trembling against walls worn with time. The scent of damp wood and faded incense clung to the space, suffocating in its stillness. A soft, broken sound reached his ears—a woman's weeping.
Shi Yao turned.
A figure sat curled on the floor, her silken robes dirtied and torn. Her trembling hands clutched a faded hairpin—the only remnant of an affection long lost.
Concubine Li.
The moment he looked at her, the memories surged—fragments of her anguish, betrayal, and longing flooded his mind, pressing into his own thoughts until he could barely breathe.
She had once been adored, cherished—only for that love to be cast aside like a forgotten trinket.
Her friends whispered behind locked doors, her maids avoided her gaze, and the emperor—the man she had once worshiped—had abandoned her to this decaying prison.
Her sobs grew softer, turning into whispered words, fragile but laced with bitterness.
"Were you also abandoned?" she asked the darkness. Her voice cracked, raw from nights spent pleading for someone to return.
The candle flickered unnaturally, the flame twisting as if in response.
Shi Yao felt it then—a presence, a stirring within the artifact. It was listening.
"They won't be happy either," she murmured, her fingers brushing against the candle's surface. Her touch was gentle, almost reverent, but beneath it burned the weight of a soul shattered.
The air thickened, swirling around them.
The candle breathed.
It understood her pain.
It fed on it.
And then, as if awakened from its long delirium, it granted her wish.
The Cold Palace darkened, the walls shifting, the floor stretching into something infinite.
Shi Yao's pulse quickened. He knew this feeling now—the unravelling, the distortion.
Concubine Li's sorrow had woven itself into the candle's grudge, and now, they were all trapped within its endless dream.
Concubine Li stood before him, her presence more defined than before, as though grief had solidified her existence here. But her eyes… they burned with something more than sorrow now.
Shi Yao could barely breathe. The weight of the dream pressed into his mind, forcing thoughts that weren't his own—memories not his own.
Suddenly, he saw it.
The past unfolded before him as if stitched directly into the dream.
Concubine Li, once resplendent in silk and jewels, laughing under lantern-lit halls. She had danced in the emperor's embrace, whispered words of devotion, dreamed of a future by his side.
But dreams shattered.
Whispers spread—envy, jealousy, schemes.
Her trusted friends turned away. The emperor's gaze cooled.
Then, the decree. The Cold Palace.
Shi Yao felt the ache of it—the slow, bitter realization that love had never truly belonged to her. That loyalty was illusion.
And then, in the depths of her despair, the candle had spoken.
"They abandoned me, too."
Shi Yao shivered. The candle was conscious, trapped in its own endless dream, waiting for someone. But now—together—they had forged something monstrous.
"This place… it isn't just my sorrow anymore," Concubine Li whispered. "It's everyone's."
Shi Yao's pulse quickened. The dream wasn't just her —it had expanded beyond her, beyond him. It was consuming.
They weren't merely trapped.
They were becoming part of it.
The candle flickered wildly, its glow pulsing in time with Shi Yao's heartbeat. The subspace stretched, pulling all who entered deeper into the layers of illusion.
Shi Yao took a step back.
He had to wake up.
But here, in this place, waking up wasn't enough.
Escape wasn't easy.