The world spun in a whirlwind of moonlight and screaming.
Jiao Shui didn't even know whose scream it was. Hers? One of the men? The system?Honestly, all three were likely.
The balcony shattered under their combined weight, and gravity yanked them downward through broken beams and clouds of dust.
Song Lingfang held on to her left hand.Emperor Yang refused to release her right.
Three assassins fell with them, slicing at the air as if they could cut gravity itself.
[System: Host is experiencing unexpected flight.][System: Survival probability: Fifty-fifty.][System: Mostly fifty.]
Jiao Shui shrieked louder.
The courtyard rushed up toward them, stone tiles shining like a hard, unforgiving slap from fate.
"Hold on to me!" Song Lingfang shouted.
"No—hold on to me!" Emperor Yang barked.
"HOW ABOUT SOMEONE HOLDS ON TO THE GROUND?!" Jiao Shui screamed.
The three assassins adjusted in midair, forming a deadly triangle around them.
Then everything happened at once.
When they were a breath from hitting the ground, Emperor Yang kicked off a falling beam, twisting midair and pulling Jiao Shui into his chest as they landed hard against a cushioned canopy that had once covered a ceremonial lantern display.
Song Lingfang landed beside them, rolling to absorb the impact. His sleeve tore, revealing the hidden bracers strapped beneath—steel, polished, deadly.
The assassins weren't so graceful.One crashed into a stone statue.The second hit a tree.The third landed with a crunch that echoed.
Silence.
Then:
Jiao Shui groaned."Are we dead? Did we die stylishly?"
[System: Host alive.][System: Unfortunately.]
Emperor Yang loosened his grip around her waist—but only slightly.
"You are unharmed," he said, checking her like she was made of thin rice paper. "Good."
Song Lingfang approached, brushing dust from his hair. "Her pulse is fast, but she's stable."
Jiao Shui glared."Maybe because people KEEP TRYING TO KILL ME."
Song Lingfang knelt beside her."In your past life, you carried something priceless. Something powerful."
Emperor Yang shot him a lethal look."Enough."
"No." Song Lingfang's quiet tone sharpened. "She deserves the truth."
Jiao Shui sat up, heart racing."What truth?!"
The historian looked at her with a softness that shouldn't have survived the chaos.
"You are the reincarnation of the Moonbound Maiden," he said."The keeper of the Celestial Tear."
Jiao Shui blinked."The WHAT now?"
Emperor Yang rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Lingfang, she just fell off a balcony. She does not need celestial nonsense right now."
"But she must know," Song Lingfang said firmly. "The assassins are not after her. They are after the Tear."
Jiao Shui waved her hands frantically.
"WHAT TEAR? I've cried plenty today but none of them were apparently magical!"
Song Lingfang leaned closer."It is not a tear you shed. It is a tear you carry."
Her stomach dropped.
Inside her?That sounded like organ theft waiting to happen.
Before she could panic further, a faint rustle snapped all three heads upward.
Dozens of masked assassins stood on the rooftops above the courtyard, encircling them like wolves around fallen prey.
One stepped forward, voice cold as midnight.
"Hand over the girl."
Emperor Yang stepped in front of her.
Song Lingfang mirrored him from the other side.
Jiao Shui stared at the assassins cresting the rooflines like a flood of shadows.
"I vote we run," she whispered.
[System: Host has chosen the very correct option.]
"Agreed," Song Lingfang murmured.
"No," Emperor Yang said, drawing his blade. "We stay and fight."
Jiao Shui smacked his shoulder. "THERE ARE FORTY OF THEM!"
His tone didn't waver. "Then we kill forty."
Song Lingfang narrowed his eyes. "We can't win this. Not here."
The assassins leapt down.
Emperor Yang raised his blade.
Song Lingfang grabbed her arm.
"Jiao Shui—close your eyes."
"Why?!"
"Just trust me."
She shut them tight.
A flash of silver light tore through the courtyard.
Wind howled.Energy crackled.Stone trembled.
Jiao Shui felt herself pulled forward by a force that hummed in her bones, the world bending, folding, twisting—
And then everything went still.
Silent.
Weightless.
[System: Host has been transported.][System: Welcome to Hidden Sanctuary.]
She opened her eyes.
She wasn't in the palace anymore.
She was sitting in a glowing moonlit cave—soft light dripping down the walls like liquid silver. Pools of white lotus water shimmered in the darkness.
Song Lingfang knelt beside her, breath uneven from the effort of teleportation.
The Emperor was nowhere in sight.
Jiao Shui's heart slammed her ribs.
"What… what did you do?"
Song Lingfang looked at her, eyes dark with something ancient.
"I saved you."