Soft morning light filtered through the frosted glass panes of Hualan Palace. The sun had not yet risen fully, but its pale gold rays reached across the polished floor, stretching long and slow like fingers brushing against old memories.
Xianlan sat at the center table of her chamber.
Everything around her was still—too still, perhaps. The air carried no scent, the silence unbroken by birdsong or footsteps. A teapot sat undisturbed, untouched. Her hand rested beside a small jade ring, its surface cool beneath her fingertips.
It was not an unfamiliar object.
"This ring disappeared after my mother was accused…" she whispered to herself.
The soft murmur barely disturbed the silence.
She lifted the ring, turning it gently in the light. There, at the base, barely noticeable unless one looked closely, was a chipped corner—no bigger than the tip of a fingernail.
"But the chipped corner at the base—that's something I remember clearly."
She examined it again, this time more closely. Inside the groove that once secured the ring to a chain, a faint red thread still clung. It was nearly invisible, as if time had tried to erase it. But it remained.
The same red thread her mother, Consort Yifei, used to tie the ring to her fan—a small gesture, a quiet habit.
A memory.
"If this ring has found its way back…" Xianlan murmured, eyes narrowing, "then someone who once stood beside Mother… must still be alive."
Her hand closed around the ring slowly.
—
That night, Xianlan moved through the palace like a shadow.
She wore no jewelry. Her robe was dyed in muted gray, with no crest or embroidery. Her hair was tied in a simple knot. She held no lantern, only a small lamp wrapped in silk to soften the light.
Her destination was the old archive hall—one long abandoned after the fire at Chi Yu Gong.
It stood deeper in the palace grounds, rarely patrolled, its doors swollen from moisture and age. She slipped inside and made her way to the final chamber, where her mother's journal had once hinted at a hidden compartment.
Click…
Beneath a loose floor tile, she found it.
She pulled away a wooden plank, its underside darkened with time. Inside the hollow space lay dust-stained parchment. Her fingers trembled slightly as she retrieved them.
The ink was faint, but the handwriting was clear.
Rushed. Slanted. Urgent.
At the bottom, a single signature remained.
"Yan."
—
Suddenly, the faintest sound of steps reached her ears.
She extinguished the lamp instantly, plunging the room into darkness. Her breathing slowed, her body tensing as she slipped behind a wooden screen.
Silence.
Then—
"Princess…"
The voice was low. Careful.
"I'm not here to harm you."
There was a pause.
"I… was the one who sent you the ring."
Her eyes narrowed.
That voice—
She stepped out slowly, her silhouette barely visible in the moonlight that filtered through the cracked window.
And then she saw the speaker's face.
Liu Meirong.
Her mother's trusted maid.
The same woman who had vanished without a trace eight years ago.
—
Elsewhere in the palace, Jiang Xinluo returned from the Noble Consort's residence.
In her hand was a small tea cloth—aged, patterned in a design used only by senior maids. She had taken it discreetly from the servant's quarters, her instincts leading her to compare it with something else.
"If this cloth matches the one found near the document fire…" she whispered to herself, "I'll know exactly who planted the false evidence against Xianlan."
Her pace quickened.
—
Later that night, in the privacy of her quarters, Jiang Xinluo lit a single candle.
She did not reach for her encoded spy scrolls.
Instead, she penned a different letter. One not addressed to Jianrong's court. One that bore no seal. One written in her own hand.
She signed it with an alias—one used only when she needed to vanish.
And at the end, she added:
"If any more intelligence leaks into the inner palace without passing through me, I will assume my homeland no longer seeks the truth."
Then she folded the paper and sealed it.
Tonight, she was no longer the obedient envoy.
She was something else.
A woman beginning to believe that perhaps… the one framed in this game had never been guilty at all.
—
The next morning, in the Crown Prince's residence, Feng Yuhan sat by the window.
A scroll lay open in front of him.
One name stood out.
"Liu Meirong."
He reread it twice.
"She vanished for over half a decade…" he muttered, "…yet now she reappears at the old archive with a jade ring in hand."
His eyes darkened.
"Who… is sending people back to her now?"
—
A rustle of robes.
Wen Yichen entered the chamber quietly.
He did not bow.
They no longer stood on formality in private.
"You've started to feel something for her," Wen said softly.
Feng Yuhan didn't answer.
Instead, he lifted his sandalwood fan to his lips.
His voice was low. Contained.
"I've never let anyone overlook the silence I wield…"
He paused.
"But she…"
His fingers tightened slightly on the fan.
"…she hears my silence as if it were a voice calling her to play her hand."
—
That evening, in a soundproof chamber hidden deep within Hualan Palace, Xianlan sat across from Liu Meirong.
The older woman's face was thinner than she remembered. Her once-dark hair had silvered, and her eyes bore the shadows of years lost. But her voice remained steady.
"After the Consort was imprisoned," Meirong said quietly, "I tried to send messages. Letters. Anything."
She looked down.
"But they silenced me. Servants bound by the inner court's orders. I was taken… buried in a false tomb beneath a disused residence."
Xianlan's lips parted, shocked.
"They let everyone believe you were dead?"
Meirong nodded.
"I lived among shadows. Until recently…"
Her voice softened.
"Someone came. Dressed in the seal of the Crown Prince."
She looked up.
"He released me. And returned this ring to your hand."
Xianlan's heart lurched.
Her breath caught.
"Feng Yuhan…" she whispered.
Her mind reeled.
"Why…?" she asked aloud, her voice barely a whisper.
But in her chest, a voice answered.
A voice not spoken aloud.
A voice that had been there all along.
And finally, she had begun to hear it.
"This chapter has been updated with improved narrative and deeper character perspective. The plot remains unchanged."
*********************************************************************************************************
✨ Thank you for reading this chapter of Rebirth of the Phoenix Empress!If you're enjoying Xianlan's journey, please add this story to your Library, leave a comment, or tap a heart 💖 — your support truly fuels the fire!