*Modern world *
Yue Lian.
The rain had been falling for three days without mercy. it washed the city in silver and shadow, blurred the skyline into something distant and unreachable.
From my window, the world looked as though it existed behind a veil—untouchable, unreal.
I sat cross-legged on my bed, a worn novel resting in my hands. Titled The Cursed Emperor.
Its pages were yellowed with age, the edges soft from time and countless readings. When I lifted it closer, it carried the scent of old paper—and something else. Something faintly metallic. Ancient.
The emperor in the story had lived for a thousand years. Cursed by a witch, he could rule but never produce. He could love, but never keep it.
His sixteen bride, yue Lian.
She had drowned the night before their wedding.
Her body had sunk beneath a lotus-filled pool, white petals closing over her like a shroud.
I traced her name with my finger on the page.
"Yue Lian."
The sound lingered in the air.
Thunder rolled outside, low and deliberate.
The room flickered with lightning. And then
—
The pages began to move.
At first, it was subtle. A tremor.
A shiver through the spine of the book. But there was no wind. My windows were closed.
One page turned.
Then another.
Faster.
The paper fluttered violently, flipping forward and backward until the words blurred into motion.
A faint golden light began to seep from the center seam, thin as a thread at first—then brighter. It spread across the ink like molten sunlight.
My breath stilled, the air felt charged. Alive.
I should have dropped the book. Instead, I reached out.
The moment my fingers brushed the glowing page, lightning split the sky. The crack of it shook the walls, rattled the glass, silenced the rain.
For a heartbeat, I saw her.
A girl standing beneath an endless moon. Silk clinging to her skin. Water at her feet. Lotus blossoms drifting like pale ghosts around her.
Her eyes were closed. As if waiting.
The light burst outward.
Wind roared through my apartment though nothing had opened. My hair lifted from my shoulders.
The rain beyond the window froze mid-fall, suspended in impossible stillness. Sound collapsed into itself.
Then there was only moonlight. Endless. Blinding. Cold.
It swallowed me whole.
When I opened my eyes again, the scent of lotus drifted through unfamiliar air.
A bronze mirror stood beside a carved wooden bed. Silk curtains stirred gently, though no storm raged beyond them.
The ceiling above was painted with constellations I did not recognize.
Someone was weeping in a low, trembling voice.
I turned my head. The movement felt wrong—too light, too weak. My arms were delicate, my fingers long and soft, unmarked by the calluses I used to have.
My heart stumbled.
This wasn't my room. This wasn't my body either.
A shadow approached the bed. A girl in plain robes knelt beside me, her eyes red from crying.
"Miss Yue Lian…" she whispered, voice shaking. "You're alive."
Her words barely made sense, yet something deep within me shivered at that name.
Yue Lian.
The same name I had spoken of before lightning swallowed me.
I tried to sit up, but my body answered with pain. The girl rushed to support me, fear flickering across her face.
"Please, don't move. The physician said your soul barely clung to your body. Heaven must have taken pity on you."
Heaven… pity… soul.
Her words pressed against my chest like a weight I couldn't name.
Before I could speak again, the door slid open.
Two older women stepped in—one with authority written in every line of her face, the other with a smile too sweet to be kind.
The first was draped in dark silk embroidered with golden plum blossoms. The second wore pale green and pearls that glittered like frost.
"Lian'er," said the first woman, her tone trembling between relief and disbelief. "You scared us all. The emperor's wedding decree nearly became a funeral notice."
The second woman lowered her eyes, hiding the sharpness in them.
"Fate is cruel," she murmured. "To return from death itself… perhaps Heaven has other plans."
Their words passed over me like waves. I nodded faintly, pretending to understand, my mind spinning between two worlds—one filled with neon lights and phones, and this one where silk rustled and titles weighed like chains.
After they left, the young maid—her name, I learned, was Xiao Ran—helped me lie back down.
Outside, the rain had stopped. The moon floated high, pale and perfect.
"Miss," she whispered, tightening the blanket around me, "they say His Majesty himself sent a priest to pray for your soul."
His Majesty.
The cursed emperor.
The man from the story.
I stared at the ceiling painted with dragons and clouds, and for the first time, I felt the pulse of another life beneath my skin—slow, fragile, and terrifyingly real.
If this was a dream, Heaven had written it too beautifully to be undone.