6.The Shadow That Remains (Rongxu Jing)

The final night at Xunyue Cottage left behind a silence that words could never reach. The sky hadn't yet lifted its veil when Zhenyu returned to Lianyu Pavilion.

Dawn hesitated behind the mist clinging to the palace courtyard, wrapping the stone tiles like a mourning shawl.

Her steps were light, yet deliberate.

Her hair was tied in a simple knot no ornaments. No luxury of a concubine, only the gaze of someone who had shed all doubt. She had not fully recovered, but she had found the center of her strength.

In her hands, Rongxu Jing was wrapped in white silk threaded with silver. But ever since the soul-binding ritual in Xunyue Cottage, the mirror had not been still. Its surface rippled endlessly, as if it were breathing alive, waiting to speak.

Inside her chambers, Zhenyu closed the door softly and placed Rongxu Jing onto a silk mat.

She sat cross-legged before it, inhaling deeply.

"Qingyin," she whispered. "Are you still there?"

The mirror said nothing. But the surface trembled.

Not a reflection. Not a shadow.

But… a door.

Zhenyu didn't know when the world around her vanished, or if she had fallen asleep. Her body remained seated before the mirror, but her consciousness was pulled inward into a realm beyond time and shape.

Above her, the sky was black night that rejected dawn. Beneath her, gray earth, smooth and cold, held no texture, no boundary.

In the center of that realm, someone stood.

A girl in white robes, hair cascading to her chest, gray eyes without shine, lips neither smiling nor angry. Only stillness… a silence too heavy to bear.

Zhenyu took a step forward.

"Helian Qingyin," she spoke, her voice muffled.

The girl did not move, but the air around them changed. The silence was no longer hollow. It pressed inward like an old wound touched without permission.

"You stole my body," Qingyin finally said.

Zhenyu did not argue. She lowered her head. "Yes. But not to rob you of your life… only to save my own."

"This body isn't yours."

"I know," Zhenyu replied gently. "But no one ever cherished this body before I came."

Qingyin's eyes shifted.

Her gaze quivered like water touched by wind. "I loved it… this body. I wrote poems on the window, sang without voice. I cradled my belly every morning. I believed… I would be a good mother."

Zhenyu stepped closer.

"I know about the fifth poison. About that night. About the blood that never became life."

Qingyin looked down.

Her thin arms wrapped around herself. Beneath her robe, a wound on her abdomen glowed faintly—not blood, but a deep red light, like the remnants of an unfinished nightmare.

"No one came to me that night," she whispered. "Not a single soul. This pavilion was cold. I pounded the walls, but the maids were asleep… or pretending. I was alone. I bled. And I… died."

Zhenyu held her breath.

"Tell me everything," she said softly.

Qingyin raised her hand.

The space around them shifted.

Memories of the past bloomed slowly.

Lianyu Pavilion shimmered with lanterns, the gentle sound of a zither in the distance, and the scent of plum blossoms filling the air.

Zhenyu watched a younger Qingyin seated on the floor, writing poetry while holding her swollen belly. Her smile was gentle. Her hand trembled with each stroke of the brush, yet her eyes glowed with hope.

But when night fell—

From the kitchen, a maid brought a cup of tea. No one questioned it, except the fragrance was… too strong. Qingyin drank it without suspicion.

Soon after, her body convulsed.

She collapsed.

Blood flowed between her legs.

She crawled. She pounded on the doors. She screamed but her voice did not come out.

No one answered.

Zhenyu covered her mouth. Her breath was shallow.

"If I had been in this body then," she whispered, "I would have broken that door down. I would have pulled you off that floor… and held your hand until morning came."

Qingyin turned.

For the first time, their eyes met without walls between them.

"Why don't you just leave?" Qingyin asked quietly. Her voice was fragile, but not weak. "Rongxu Jing can only hold two souls for so long. One must fade."

Zhenyu replied, "Because we are not finished. You and I… are not enemies. We are two wounds. And if two wounds are brought together, perhaps… they can heal."

Purple light enveloped them slowly. The ground beneath their feet turned into a glowing circle etched with ancient symbols: two dragons circling an open eye.

It didn't burn. It healed.

Qingyin stood still.

Then reached out her hand.

Zhenyu took it.

And for a moment, the two souls no longer stood in conflict.

They stood side by side.

Zhenyu awoke with a gasp. Her breath came in short bursts.

Sweat clung to her temples, but her body felt light. Rongxu Jing vibrated softly before her—like a cat purring.

She touched the mirror.

And for the first time, its surface showed no longer two reflections.

Just one.

But stronger.

More whole.

This body may not have been hers. But now… its wounds were hers, too.

In Ji Pavilion, Ji Suling gazed at the sky from a stone balcony.

"They say… she speaks now," the maid reported.

Ji Suling raised an eyebrow.

"So, her tongue has awakened… Then it's time to make her bite it off herself."

She turned toward the golden mirror in her chamber.

Its reflection shifted.

A woman in white robes stood behind her.

But Ji Suling didn't notice.

Because often, your greatest enemy isn't the one you see but the one that lingers behind a spirit that refuses to leave.