The Grey Shadow in an Old Dream
Within the long-silent Yuechi Palace, morning light filtered softly through latticed wooden screens.
The chill of late spring drifted in with the wind, stirring the sheer white silk curtains curtains that swayed slowly, like the breath of someone whose presence had faded with time.
Bai Yuening sat alone upon a sandalwood chaise inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
The grand chamber, once adorned in lavish splendor, now echoed only with quiet.
In her slender hand, she gripped a crimson-sealed letter so tightly her fingertips trembled.
The parchment had come directly from her homeland from the court of the Bai Kingdom that once sent her as a symbol of alliance… and now sought to control her fate from afar.
She had read the words again and again.
Even the edges of the paper were wrinkled from her grip, as though on the verge of tearing.
"You are to prepare for a new engagement,
with the heir of the Wen family from Xianyu.
This union will benefit the future of both kingdoms."
To others, the message might appear nothing more than diplomatic formality.
But to Bai Yuening, those words were a dark hand reaching toward her heart.
She lifted her gaze slowly, letting her eyes drift past the fluttering curtains toward the garden courtyard beyond. Sunlight touched the gravel stones softly, leaves rustled in the hush of morning but within her chest, a hollow rang louder than any breeze.
Her lips parted slightly and then, a faint laugh escaped her.
It was not the laughter of a noble princess.
It was the sound of a woman
who no longer knew which bitterness to laugh at first.
"They've placed me on the board like a pawn…
Do even my own affections no longer belong to me?"
Her voice fell into the air, unanswered save for the wind, which did not cease.
It felt as though her heart had been sealed within a glass cage.
Every gaze measured her.
Every step was charted.
Yet no one ever asked had she ever wanted to stand in this place at all?
She closed her eyes. Long lashes cast pale shadows upon cheeks grown colorless.
And in the silence, memories stirred not in fragments, but as a full current,
rising like a tide from some deep and inescapable pool.
Memories so vivid… they could have been yesterday.
In her youth, she had been the radiant princess of Yueling, praised for her beauty and wit.
Though born in golden halls, she had never been drunk on glory. Once, while passing the mirrored corridor in the palace of Xianyu, she had stood behind a curtain's shadow, watching a southern delegation welcomed in grand ceremony.
Among them stood a man opposite Xianlan, the princess of the host kingdom.
That was the first time Bai Yuening laid eyes upon Wen Yuchen.
At first glance, he seemed like any other noble calm, composed, unassuming.
But his eyes his eyes were different.
They were gentle,
not toward the world,
but toward the one standing before him.
That was the moment she saw him smile.
Not for her.
But for Xianlan.
She hadn't known what stirred within her
Was it irritation?
Or something far more dangerous?
But after that day, she began to notice
which hall he passed through,
which courtyard he crossed,
and every time his gaze accidentally strayed toward her… even for a heartbeat, her heart trembled.
She told no one.
She barely understood it herself.
She was a proud princess, an envoy of high birth,
yet her heart wavered… for a man who had never truly seen her.
In her youth, Bai Yuening had known how to protect her image and power.
She had chosen to appear superior decisive, untouchable.
But each time he remained silent, each glance he never returned,
only deepened a private wound no one ever saw.
"I will rise to stand at your level."
"Or at the very least…
I will make you look up and see me."
That single thought became the seed of the grey shadow that had grown ever since.
Within the quiet of Yuechi Hall, the shadows of trees outside danced across the dragon-phoenix carpet. Birdsong drifted from afar, but within her… all was still.
Bai Yuening stood before an old brass mirror.
She touched the ends of her hair gently but not even that softness could erase the sorrow in her eyes.
In the glass, her reflection showed a woman still poised, still beautiful but beneath the surface, she was worn, and silent, and endlessly tired.
"You are to prepare for a new engagement…"
The words from her homeland's royal court echoed again in her mind
an edict that felt less like a command and more like a brand seared upon the heart of a woman who had never once been allowed to choose for herself.
Bai Yuening gave a faint laugh. It was cold so cold that even she felt its chill.
She lifted the letter once more, read it one final time… then folded it with deliberate care and set it aflame atop a golden candlestick.
The fire rose in silence, devouring the decree from faraway power.
But it wasn't only the paper that burned it was the last flicker of hope she had kept buried within her.
She whispered softly, "Even my heart… is no longer mine, is it?"
Her long, slender fingers rested gently over her chest.
Her heart did not break like in a tragic play there were no sobs, no tears.
It was like glass with a fine, invisible crack… fracturing a little more each day
until, eventually, it could never be whole again.
The silk curtains fluttered with the wind, and the torchlight shimmered in her eyes.
The weakness once held within them… was now replaced with a quiet resolve.
If I no longer have the right to my own life…
then I shall become the one who controls the lives of others.
She reached for her brush.
The inkstone stilled for a breath, and then the first stroke took form upon the blank page.
"Have you ever seen me as anything but your enemy?"
"Or were we… never on the same side to begin with?"
She wrote without hesitation.
Her calligraphy was graceful yet unwavering.
And at the bottom, she signed:
"Shadow of the White Moon."
A name that was not hers.
A name known to no one.
A name that would become a voice within the silence of the imperial court.
Thus began a new game of strategy, not set in motion by Noble Consort Su Zhen or by any kingdom…
but by a shadow born from a dream that never came true.
—
The Next Morning – Wen Manor
Sunlight streamed gently through the wooden slats of the window.
It was a morning like any other and yet somehow, this one felt different.
A letter, unsigned and without a seal, had arrived.
Wen Yuchen sat in his study.
The golden light fell upon his shoulder,
casting the shadows of tree branches across the back of his pale grey robe.
He opened the envelope with steady hands,
but within… something shifted.
The handwriting was elegant yet no name marked its origin.
"Have you ever seen me as anything but your enemy?"
"Or were we… never on the same side to begin with?"
His eyes stilled.
He read it again, and then slowly closed them.
Silence filled the study.
He remembered… a woman who seemed outwardly cold like snow upon a winter river.
But in her eyes, there had been something else, something he had not understood back then.
It was not ambition.
Not jealousy.
But… a loneliness
buried beneath layers of frost.
"Shadow of the White Moon…"
He breathed the words, barely audible.
An old term from the noble houses of the northern realms used to describe women who refused to be known for what they were born as, and instead chose to be known for what they became.
"You're placing another piece on the board…"
His voice was as quiet as the wind, yet resolute in the chambers of his heart.
He did not know whether she had sent this message so he would see… or so he would understand.
But whatever her intent, those few sentences had stirred something within him something even he, master of strategies, could not entirely name.
"I know well… those who've lived their lives at the mercy of others
will, one day, want to claim their fate for themselves."
The voice echoed in his thoughts, like the shadow of someone long buried in memory.
He rose and walked toward the window, gazing out at the pale sky beyond a veil of morning mist.
And in the fog of remembrance, a vision surfaced of a girl in white who had never truly smiled.
Eyes that never begged for love… but never stopped waiting for it, either.
Yet when he thought back to where it all began… a quiet ache rose in his chest.
For in the end he had never truly stood by her side.
Even when she looked at him in silence, he had always turned toward another.
His fingers curled tightly around the letter.
Then he lifted his head, as though speaking to the heavens or perhaps to himself.
"I will not let you vanish into the shadows again…
even if you no longer seek the light I offer."
⸻
At that same moment, within Yuechi Palace…
Bai Yuening wore simpler garments than usual.
She had removed all her ornaments and laid them neatly upon a jade tray.
Her hair flowed freely down her back no crown, no pins, no emblems of rank.
She stepped toward her writing desk and retrieved a small wooden box.
Opening the lid, she revealed a strip of leather inscribed with coded symbols.
She did not reach for a calligraphy brush.
Instead, she took up a quill dipped it into black ink, and began to write another letter.
But this time,
the handwriting was not her own.
The words were brief.
The forged script flawless.
The content within was a direct order a command for covert movement within the Imperial Archive,
to retrieve duplicate documents recently compiled by the royal scholars.
She folded the letter,
pressed upon it the hidden seal known only to the Shadow Phoenixes a network of female spies from her homeland, long embedded in the capital of Nanyan.
"This plan… must succeed within three days,"
she whispered to herself.
Because after that… there would be no such thing as a "choice" left for her.
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