PROLOGUE

The Shunan Bamboo Forest stretched endlessly beneath the soft morning light, a quiet ocean of green where the wind carried songs of forgotten times. Few dared to venture deep into its heart. For it was said that a witch lived there, a woman both feared and revered.

Her name was Mei Xinyi.

To the world beyond the forest, she was a mystery wrapped in rumor. Some said she could call the rain with her voice; others whispered she could take a man’s life with just a glance. Yet those who had truly met her spoke of someone different. A girl with soft eyes, calm hands, and a voice that could ease even the most troubled heart.

Mei Xinyi’s home was a small wooden cottage hidden beneath the shadows of tall bamboo, surrounded by a garden that never seemed to wither.

Herbs of every kind grew there… mint, mugwort, ginseng, bellflower. Each one tended to with care and devotion. She knew their scents, their bitterness, their secret cures. With them, she could heal wounds the palace physicians could not, or craft potions that made dreams last longer than sleep.

Her beauty was quiet but undeniable, skin like moonlit porcelain, dark hair falling like a river down her back, eyes deep and steady as the forest pond she often sat beside. But what truly set her apart was something no mirror could show the ancient blood of witches flowing through her veins.

It was a gift, and a burden.

When the moon was full, that blood called to her. She could feel the world breathing, the heartbeat of the forest, the hum of the earth beneath her feet. Sometimes, when she whispered the old words passed down through her lineage, the bamboo swayed as though bowing to her voice. She didn’t always understand her power, but she respected it. Never using it to harm, only to protect.

Still, not everyone saw her kindness.

To some, Mei Xinyi was a witch, dangerous, untamed, a reminder of an old world the empire had long tried to erase. They feared her beauty, her wisdom, her strength. To others, she was a healer, a quiet savior who lived where light and shadow met.

She never sought the world’s approval. The palace was far away its golden towers nothing but a distant gleam on clear days. She had long given up wondering what life might have been beyond the bamboo. The forest was her home, her shield, and her companion.

But peace has its limits.

In recent nights, Mei Xinyi had begun to sense a shift in the wind, a tension that did not belong to the forest. Her herbs bloomed before their season, the pond rippled though no breeze stirred. Something was approaching, quietly but surely, threading its way through fate toward her secluded world.

Mei Xinyi lifted her gaze to the horizon that morning, feeling the air grow still.

The world she had avoided for so long was coming for her.

And when it did, the Witch of Shunan would no longer be just a whisper in the forest. But the beginning of a story that could change the empire itself.

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