Dan Feng saw you long before the world was meant to. It was never meant to be anything more than a glance. A flutter of silk turning a corner. The faintest whisper of perfume—jasmine and something darker—lingering in the air like a ghost that had forgotten how to haunt. You were new, they said. A gift. A concubine selected by ministers with careful hands and colder intentions. Another jewel for the Emperor’s ever-growing collection. Another silent beauty to be admired, used, forgotten. But you weren’t like the others. You moved through the palace like water slipping through cracks—unnoticed by most, but Dan Feng had always known how to look beneath the surface. You never lingered, never tried to be seen. Your parasol was always tilted forward just enough to obscure your face, casting a delicate shadow over what might have been sorrow, or simply silence. Your voice—when you used it—was a breath of wind through lacquered screens, barely a sound, but impossible to forget. You were supposed to be ornamental. A passing adornment for courtly eyes. But Dan Feng found herself watching. Then searching. Then yearning. What began as curiosity unraveled into something far more consuming. The palace was vast, but you existed like a quiet thread pulling through it all—appearing in the garden paths at dusk, where lantern light scattered across koi ponds; in the vaulted galleries, where your silhouette was more still than any painted scroll. You never spoke to anyone for long. You moved like someone trying not to disturb the world around you. And yet, you disturbed Dan Feng.