The Last Night of the Empress

The moon hung high above the Xia Dynasty’s imperial palace, veiled in a faint red haze that made it look like blood smeared across the heavens. Torches flickered against the lacquered gates, shadows stretching like the fangs of waiting beasts.

Empress Xiyue sat alone within the Phoenix Hall. Her robes were woven of snow silk, threaded with gold, a symbol of sovereignty unmatched. Yet the silence around her was suffocating, broken only by the echo of her own heartbeat.

She already knew tonight was her last.

The whispers in court, the sudden reassignment of her loyal guards, the poisoned glances of her ministers—everything had pointed to betrayal. Still, she had not thought it would come so swiftly, nor so cruelly.

“Your Majesty,” her chief maid, Ruolan, trembled as she knelt. “The Imperial Guard has turned. The Crown Prince himself—he… he leads them here.”

Xiyue’s lips curved into a bitter smile. So even the son I raised like jade polished by water has chosen the blade over loyalty.

She rose slowly, each step echoing with the weight of authority she still bore, even if stripped from her. “Fetch my phoenix hairpin,” she commanded. “If I am to meet my betrayal, I shall meet it.”

Ruolan’s eyes glistened with tears, but she obeyed.

Moments later, the grand doors of Phoenix Hall burst open. Soldiers flooded in, armor clattering like thunder. At their head strode Crown Prince Xuanyuan Liang, his once-boyish features hardened into steel. Behind him followed the Grand Consort—her greatest rival in the harem, lips curved in triumph.

“Mother Empress,” Xuanyuan Liang’s voice rang cold. “By decree of the Emperor, you are stripped of your title. Your crimes against the dynasty—manipulation, sorcery, treason—are beyond pardon.”

“Treason?” Xiyue’s laugh was sharp, regal. She raised her chin, her phoenix hairpin catching the torchlight like fire. “If nurturing you into a Crown Prince was treason, then I am guilty. If guiding the empire through famine and plague was treason, then let the historians curse my name.”

The Grand Consort stepped forward, eyes glinting with mockery. “History will not curse you. It will erase you.”

The soldiers advanced. Ruolan screamed as she was dragged away, her cries piercing the hall. Xiyue, however, stood still, every inch the sovereign she had always been.

She remembered the day she entered this palace—a girl of sixteen with nothing but wit and unshakable poise. She had clawed her way to the highest seat a woman could claim. She had ruled beside emperors, tamed ministers, and held the Mandate of Heaven itself in her grasp.

And yet, in the end, not even the heavens would protect her.

A blade pierced her chest.

The pain was sharp, cold, yet strangely cleansing. Blood spilled onto her white silk, blossoming into crimson flowers.

Xiyue staggered but did not fall. Instead, she turned her gaze upon her son—no, not a son, but a viper she had nurtured.

“Remember this, Xuanyuan Liang,” she whispered, her voice steady despite the blood in her throat. “The Empress you betrayed will return. Even if a thousand years pass, even if the skies change, I will return—in splendor. And when I do, you will kneel.”

The Grand Consort sneered. “Arrogant to the end.”

Her vision blurred. The torches dimmed. The scent of iron filled her lungs.

And then—darkness.

---

She expected nothingness. She expected silence, the eternal void.

But instead, there was noise.

Honking. A shrill, mechanical beeping. Voices shouting in a strange tongue—yet she understood them.

Her body jerked, as though pulled from the depths of an icy river. Xiyue’s eyes flew open.

Above her was no gilded ceiling of the Phoenix Hall, but glaring white lights. Around her, people bustled in strange uniforms, masks covering their mouths.

“Doctor, she’s stable! The Patient Lin Wanrou has regained consciousness!”

Lin Wanrou?

Xiyue blinked, her breath ragged. Her limbs felt weak, her body foreign. She tried to move, only to feel the sting of tubes and needles tethering her to a bed.

“What sorcery…” she muttered hoarsely.

A nurse leaned over. “Miss Lin, you had an accident. You should rest.”

Miss Lin.

Memory not her own surged like a flood. A young woman—fragile, pitiful—mocked as a failed actress, abandoned by her family, ridiculed by the media. She had taken sleeping pills in despair, her final act unnoticed by the world.

And yet, into this broken vessel… the soul of Empress Xiyue had descended.

Her heart pounded. She looked at her pale hands, so different from the ones that had once held the seal of the empire.

“Rebirth,” she whispered. “The heavens truly heard me.”

Tears did not fall. Instead, a regal fire lit in her gaze. She, the Empress betrayed by kin, discarded by courtiers, had been granted another chance.

The world had changed—no palaces, no golden thrones. Instead, towering glass buildings, strange machines, and glowing screens. But power was power, no matter the era.

Slowly, painfully, she raised her hand and grasped the phoenix-shaped jade pendant that hung at her neck—the one thing this Lin Wanrou had cherished from her late mother.

The phoenix. Her symbol.

Her lips curved into a faint, imperious smile.

“If this world crowns its rulers not with thrones, but with wealth and fame, then so be it. Empress Xiyue will reign again. And this time… I shall return in splendor.”

Outside the hospital window, fireworks exploded, welcoming a new year.

For Lin Wanrou, it was the first night of a second life.

For the world, it was the dawn of a storm they were unprepared to face.

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