It began with a whisper. A trader fleeing the southern pass spoke of a rebel prince seen in the Wuyuan Forest. A surviving noble from a burned border town claimed the Empire's enforcers had been driven back by peasants armed with strange tools and stranger leadership.
But the whisper turned to a name.
Yun Zhen.
The prince who was supposed to be dead.
The boy accused of regicide. The shadow the current Emperor had buried… now walking, breathing, leading.
In the Heart of the Empire — Xuanjing Imperial City
The palace of the Yun Empire loomed like a gilded prison over the city of Xuanjing.
Within the vermillion walls, ministers whispered in narrow corridors. Eunuchs traded rumors behind embroidered screens. Courtiers bowed, but always with one ear tilted for scandal. And at the heart of this gilded viper's nest sat the ruler of it all:
Emperor Yun Taoxiang.
The sixth emperor of the Yun Dynasty. Cold-eyed. Calculating. Paranoid.
He sat upon the Dragon Throne, fingers drumming lightly on the carved jade armrest, as the Grand Chancellor Zhou Weimin read from the latest intelligence scroll.
"Your Majesty, Commander Meng confirms the presence of a hidden settlement in the Wuyuan region. He encountered organized resistance, traps, misdirection, coordinated movement."
Yun Taoxiang narrowed his eyes. "A village frightened off imperial cavalry?"
Zhou Weimin hesitated. "There are claims that the leader… is your nephew. Yun Zhen."
The court froze. Silence reigned.
The name had not been spoken in court for six years. Not since the Assassination of King Yun Daoyi, Yun Zhen's father, the late Crown Prince. The Emperor leaned forward, voice low.
"Impossible."
Minister of War Xue Yilang stepped forward, voice grave. "Your Majesty, if the Prince is alive—and gathering followers—this is no minor rebellion. It is a symbol. A threat to your rule."
Minister of Justice Tan Shixun added, "If the common folk believe the prince lives, especially one accused unjustly, unrest will spread. Already the north has been difficult to control."
"Should we not verify it first?" came a hesitant voice, Minister of Agriculture Lin Qibao. "Perhaps it is only a rumor."
The Emperor silenced them all with a glance.
"No rumors survive long in my Empire unless someone fans them."
He stood, silk robes trailing like a specter's shroud. "Yun Zhen died. His bones were never recovered because traitors burned his body. That is the history. That is what the people were told."
"And if history is proved a lie?" Xue Yilang asked carefully. Yun Taoxiang turned away, staring out the open window toward the cloudy skyline of Xuanjing.
"Then I will write a new one. With fire."
That night, within the secret chambers below the palace, a masked courier knelt before a cloaked figure. The Emperor's voice echoed from behind the lattice.
"Send General Qiu Wensheng and two battalions east. Clean the forest. No survivors."
The courier bowed. "And if the prince truly lives?"
"Bring me his head."
"But…if it is the prince, the people may..:"
"Then we burn their villages too."
Across the empire, the news spread like wildfire despite the court's attempts at suppression. In Yunbei Town, old men whispered of a golden boy with storm-gray eyes, returned from the grave.
In Huilong Village, children played "Rebel Prince" in the fields, pretending to fight off imperial taxmen with wooden swords.
In Jiangdao City, hidden scholars began circulating old songs—ballads once written about Yun Zhen's righteousness before his father's death.
And in the mountain monasteries of the White Lotus Sect, monks stirred uneasily. "The balance is shifting," their leader said. "And history reclaims its own."
In the eastern annex of the palace, behind silken screens and guarded doors, a young woman listened as her attendants whispered the rumors.
Princess Yun Meixiu, the Emperor's niece, sat unmoving, her brush suspended above a scroll. Yun Zhen was her brother.
They had grown up together, children of rival factions within the same royal clan. She had cried when they told her he died. She had believed he was framed but learned long ago that belief was dangerous in the Yun Court. Now she wasn't so sure.
That night, when her attendants slept, Yun Meixiu lit a forbidden lantern and wrote a coded letter. The seal she pressed into the wax bore a simple character: "Truth."
Back in Xingzhao
Song Lian watched the forest, unease tightening in her chest. Liang Cheng had intercepted a message tied to a dying hawk. He handed it to her with wide eyes. She read it once. Then twice.
Yun Zhen approached silently behind her, gaze questioning. She handed him the scroll. His jaw tightened.
"It's begun, hasn't it?"
She nodded.
"They know you're alive."