The days bled into each other, stitched together by routines Li Hua knew too well, measured breaths, sterile sheets, and the faint rustle of paper between her fingers.
She made stars.
Folded and creased with the same precision as always, each one a small rebellion against the emptiness. Her jar of paper constellations grew heavier, even as she felt lighter. Not with hope, hope was a luxury she'd stopped affording herself years ago, but with something quieter. A numbness that pressed against her ribs like armor.
The nightmares didn't return.
Not once.
For seven days, sleep was just that, sleep. No flashes of red, no distant echoes of gongs, no throne rooms drenched in accusation. Just darkness. Empty, uncomplicated, forgettable.
Dr. Lin's visits grew more frequent, her questions woven with false warmth, each word polished to perfection like glass beads strung together to form a necklace Li Hua refused to wear.
"How are you sleeping, Li Hua?"
"Any unusual dreams lately?"
"Do you feel more… grounded this week?"
Li Hua's answers were clipped, her voice soft but cold, like frost on metal.
Fine.
No.
I'm grounded enough, thanks.
She kept her face blank, her walls high. The less Dr. Lin knew, the easier it was to pretend. Pretend that everything was fine, that she wasn't haunted by the ghost of a Princess whose name she didn't even know.
The only comfort, if she could call it that, was the absence of him.
Zhou Ming.
A week without his rehearsed smiles, without the slick charm he wore like a second skin. No birds' nests wrapped in hollow gestures, no carefully crafted words designed to sound like care but taste like ash.
It was almost peaceful.
Her mother still came, though. Always with fresh fruit she never ate, always with words that filled the room but never reached her. The conversations were the same, shallow puddles masquerading as depth.
"You should try eating more, Hua'er. Look at you, so thin."
"The doctor said fresh air might help. Maybe we can wheel you to the garden next time?"
"Zhou Ming's been busy with work. Such a hardworking boy, isn't he?"
Li Hua nodded where she had to, smiled when it was expected. But inside, she felt nothing. Just the steady hum of time passing, like background static.
....
The wheels rolled over the smooth hospital corridor, their faint squeak swallowed by the sterile walls. Li Hua didn't protest when the nurse came, her face stitched with a polite smile and words rehearsed too many times to sound genuine.
"Fresh air will do you good, Miss Li."
Li Hua didn't argue. Didn't nod either. She simply sat, letting herself be maneuvered like a fragile artifact on display, her hands resting motionless on her lap. Fingers pale against the thin fabric of her blanket.
The garden wasn't much, a manicured square framed by hedges, patches of grass too green to be real, as if the world itself was trying too hard. Benches lined the paths, some occupied by patients with hollow eyes and others with nurses pretending their smiles could mend what medicine couldn't.
The nurse parked her near a bench, under the brittle shadow of a tree that had forgotten how to bloom.
"Call me if you need anything, Miss Li."
Li Hua didn't respond. The footsteps faded, leaving her alone with the faint rustle of leaves and the distant murmur of other lives continuing, indifferent to hers.
She stared at the ground. The cold, cracked asphalt beneath the wheelchair, veins of gray running through it like fractured promises. The edges blurred slightly, not from tears, she'd long since run out of those, but from the weight pressing behind her eyes, heavy and familiar.
The weight behind her eyes grew heavier, pressing like a tide she couldn't hold back.
And then,
Silence.
Not the sterile quiet of hospital walls, but something denser, woven with the hum of life. When Li Hua opened her eyes, she wasn't in the garden anymore. The cracked asphalt was gone, replaced by uneven cobblestones slick with dust and the faint shimmer of heat. The air smelled different, spiced, earthy, tinged with something metallic.
She was in the middle of a street, the crowd surging around her like she was invisible.
People bustled past, their clothes foreign yet familiar, robes of muted silk, hair pinned with jade and gold, voices rising in gossip, sharp and cutting. She didn't move. Couldn't. She wasn't part of this world, just a shadow stitched into its fabric.
".…Did you hear? The Third Princess is being exiled."
The words hit her like cold water.
Li Hua's head snapped toward the voices. Two women stood near a vendor selling steamed buns, their faces animated with intrigue.
"Left Prime Minister herself came to support her son, begging the Empress."
"Begging? Hah! More like saving face. Her precious son asked for a divorce right there in court!"
"No wonder. Rumor says he's in love with General Shen's daughter. The Third Princess was just… a burden."
The words blurred after that, the crowd swelling, voices overlapping. Li Hua's heart raced, but her body remained frozen, tethered to this nightmare.
Then she saw it.
A sedan chair, carried by four men, its crimson curtains heavy with embroidered phoenixes. The crowd parted, bowing slightly, heads low in respect, or was it disdain?
As it passed, the curtain shifted, just a sliver, but enough.
Eyes met hers.
Chen Yuze.
His face was carved from ice, beautiful and distant, features sharp under the shadow of the silk canopy. There was no recognition in his gaze, because she didn't exist here, but something twisted in Li Hua's chest all the same.
Regret.
Rage.
Longing.
She tried to call out, but no sound came. Only the drum of her own heartbeat, echoing louder than the crowd.
And then, darkness again.
But this time, it followed her like it wasn't ready to let go.
The darkness didn't swallow her whole this time.
It shifted, like a thin veil pulled back, revealing chaos underneath.
Li Hua blinked, her breath caught between worlds. The bustling street was gone, replaced by the crumbling dignity of what once must've been grand, a mansion, its gates wide open, but not in welcome. Servants scattered like leaves in the wind, their hurried footsteps mingling with the sharp cries of brokers, selling what had once been loyal lives. Furniture was dragged out, porcelain shattered, silks torn apart, all stripped of meaning the moment value was attached.
The air smelled of dust and desperation.
Li Hua's eyes settled ahead, drawn by something invisible yet undeniable.
There, amid the ruin.
A figure crumpled on the stone steps. The Third Princess.
She wasn't the poised royal Li Hua had glimpsed before. Now she was just a woman, her dark hair splayed like ink against the cold ground, lips tinged pale, her elaborate robes stained with dirt and something darker, blood? Maybe. It didn't matter.
Beside her, a man knelt.
He was beautiful, not in the delicate way of fragile things, but in the tragic way of something too exquisite to last. His fingers brushed the Princess's hair with a tenderness that didn't match the chaos around them. His touch was reverent, like she was both fragile glass and the last thing tethering him to this world.
Li Hua didn't know his name, but whispers filled the empty spaces.
"Xu Tianyi… such devotion. Even after everything."
"Imagine staying with a fallen Princess. He could've left—no one would blame him."
"She lost her temper with Chen Yuze, demanded he take back his divorce request. Foolish. Slipped and fell right in front of everyone."
"And yet, Xu Tianyi stays."
Li Hua's jaw clenched. Their voices were sharp, slicing through the fragile remnants of dignity scattered on the ground like broken glass.
She looked at the Third Princess again.
Not the incompetent royal they gossiped about. Not the fragile woman lying motionless on the cold stone.
Just someone who'd fallen, literally and figuratively, while the world stood by to watch.
And in that moment, Li Hua felt something foreign and fierce coil in her chest.
Not pity.
Recognition.
The darkness crept back, softer this time, as if reluctant to let her go.