The flames licked at the crimson silk of her bridal robe, turning its embroidered phoenix into a screeching specter of agony. The air reeked of smoke and betrayal, heavy with the sound of splintering wood and distant, mocking laughter.
Feng Ziyan stood in the center of the blazing Phoenix Temple, her body trembling—not from fear, but fury. Her vision blurred from smoke and tears, not because she was afraid to die, but because she had died long before the fire was lit.
She had died the moment she saw the man she loved—her betrothed—place the dagger into her cousin's hand. The same cousin who now stood at the threshold, face half-lit by flame, wearing Ziyan's golden phoenix crown.
"Why?" Ziyan choked, coughing blood as the floor crumbled beneath her knees.
Yurou laughed sweetly, the way she always did when feigning innocence. "Because you were too perfect. Too powerful. You were born to rule, Ziyan—but what use is a queen who doesn't know how to kneel?"
Behind Yurou stood her uncle, her so-called family, all of them wearing the same expression: smug satisfaction. They'd planned this together. Her fall, her disgrace, her death.
She looked past them to the man who had once promised to protect her until death.
His silence screamed louder than fire.
With her last breath, Feng Ziyan laughed. It was bitter, raw, and burned hotter than the flames.
"Burn me now," she hissed. "But I swear upon the blood of the phoenix, I will return. And when I do, I will end every last one of you."
The fire swallowed her whole.
—
Thirteen years earlier.
Feng Ziyan bolted upright, gasping for air as if dragged from deep water.
She lay on a rough stone floor, the cold biting through her thin ceremonial robe. Her fingers trembled as they gripped the base of an ancient altar—one she remembered only from faded childhood memories. It was the Phoenix Shrine, hidden in the forbidden woods behind Feng Manor.
But it was more than that. This place was the beginning.
It was here, at thirteen years old, that her spirit had first been broken. The night her family began to chip away at her destiny, casting her aside as unworthy.
But now, her soul burned anew.
"I… I'm back," she whispered, voice hoarse, fingers curling into the dirt. "I'm really… back."
Memories came crashing in—visions from her future life, a lifetime that had now unraveled like a thread. Her cousin's treachery. Her uncle's deception. Her own foolish heart that trusted a man unworthy of her love. She remembered every betrayal, every knife in the back, every poisoned cup.
Tears blurred her vision—but this time, they weren't tears of sorrow.
They were tears of fury.
"I will not be weak again."
A strange heat flickered inside her chest, as if something ancient had stirred. Her soul trembled. She felt it—her soul space—something that should've remained sealed until adulthood. It cracked open like an egg under divine pressure, revealing a golden flame coiled like a sleeping bird.
A voice echoed in her mind, low and feminine.
You've died once. Now rise, Phoenix Child.
The fire surged, burning through her veins like molten gold.
She stumbled to her feet, panting, heart thundering like a war drum. She was thirteen again, yes—but she was not the same girl. Not anymore.
She remembered the future.
And she was going to change it.
—
Morning light spilled through the courtyards of Feng Manor, warm and deceitful. Inside the manor, rumors flew: the Young Miss had been found passed out in the shrine. The old priests claimed it was a miracle. Some whispered it was the beginning of madness.
Ziyan sat quietly before her bronze mirror, her young face pale but eerily composed. Her maid, Little Lian, fussed nervously with her hair.
"Young Miss, you shouldn't have gone to the shrine alone," she whispered. "What if something had happened to you?"
Ziyan's lips curved in a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Something did happen, Lian. I died. But now I've returned."
The maid blinked in confusion, taking it as the rambling of a shaken girl. But Ziyan wasn't shaken. She was sharpening herself like a blade.
Outside her chambers, a servant announced the arrival of her cousin, Feng Yurou.
Ziyan's eyes flickered with shadow.
Let the games begin.