The pain is still raw between my legs as I lie on the cold medical cot, the scent of medicinal herbs failing to mask the metallic tang of blood in the air. I can barely move without sending shooting pain through my body - pain from both the poisoned shard that grazed my heart and the brutal violation that followed.

Footsteps approach quietly. Not the heavy, deliberate tread of Shangjue-ge, but lighter, almost hesitant. I force my eyes open, expecting to see a servant with medicine, but instead find myself staring into the face of a ghost.

Gong Huanyu stands before me, dressed in black, his expression unreadable in the dim light. The man who should be dead is here, in the flesh, looking down at me with eyes that seem to drink in my vulnerability.

"You've grown, Yuanzheng," he murmurs, reaching out a hand as if to touch my face. My body remembers before my mind does - the way his fingers feel against my skin, the dangerous undercurrent in his gaze.

I shrink back instinctively, memories flooding back despite my damaged mind - fragments of a childhood promise, a butterfly in a glass case, a betrayal I can barely comprehend. My throat tightens with fear and something else I cannot name.

He smiles bitterly at my reaction. "You don't remember me completely, do you? How convenient for Shangjue to have you forget our connection."

His hand finds my ankle, fingers wrapping around it with a grip that is both familiar and threatening. "But I'm back now, little butterfly. And this time, no one is going to clip your wings."