Before he could step closer, a hand tugged the girl's sleeve. A maid.
"Miss Hua Rui, we shouldn't linger. The General is expecting us."
Hua Rui. The name echoed in his head like a gong.
Hua Rui? General's daughter?
No… it couldn't be.
But she turned one last time before leaving, as if sensing his stare—and their eyes met for half a heartbeat.
She didn't recognize him.
But he hadn't looked away since.
In the Inner Palace, the Empress heard whispers. About her stepson. About the Fourth Prince who walked like a ghost but saw too much.
"He doesn't speak in court, but I feel his eyes in every room," she murmured to her maid.
Her son—the Prince sat calmly beside her, sipping tea.
"He's just a shadow, Mother. He's no threat."
"He's a storm waiting for thunder."
She didn't like unknowns. And she especially didn't like sons she didn't birth.
Wei Li shouldn't have returned to the Inner Market. But he did. Twice. Then a third time.
Each time, he saw her.
Always helping. Always quiet.
Always surrounded by her family—though she seemed more like a shadow within it.
He watched her once from behind a tapestry stand, as she handed a beggar boy her steamed bun without a word.
She had no idea he was there.
She had no idea that the ghost of the Cold Palace was watching her the way a man might watch the first light of dawn after a decade of night.
"You said trust kills," he whispered to himself. "But what if it saves?"
The palace walls had ears.
And the Empress knew how to listen.
It began as a whisper—"The Fourth Prince lingers near the General's daughter."
A passing comment from a eunuch, a line hidden in a tea maid's daily report. But the Empress missed nothing. She sat, expression calm, running a jade comb through her hair as her eyes grew sharper by the second.
"Hua Rui…" she murmured, tasting the name. "That little weed still grows."
Her fingers paused on the comb. The Fourth Prince was unpredictable, hard to control—but if he formed bonds, real ones, he could become dangerous.
"Summon Gu Ruolan," she said softly. "It's time she fulfills her place.
Hua Rui should've noticed sooner. The same pair of eyes in the market. The same footsteps that always seemed a breath behind her. But they never approached.
Never spoke.
Until one evening.
It had rained earlier, and the stones were slick. She took the alley shortcut back to the manor alone—against her maid's protests. She heard them before she saw them—three rough men, grinning, knives gleaming in the moonlight.
"Pretty thing," one of them sneered. "Out here alone?"
She didn't scream. She dropped her basket and stepped back slowly. Then—
A blur of motion.
A flash of steel.
And silence.
The three men crumpled like cloth dolls.
She spun, heart racing, just in time to see a tall figure in black lower his sword. His face was hidden behind a hood and a half-mask. But his voice...
"You shouldn't walk alone at night," he said quietly.
"And you shouldn't stalk girls in markets," she shot back, breathing hard.
He paused.
Then, a soft chuckle.
"I suppose we're even."
She stepped forward, curiosity rising.
"Who are you?"
"A ghost," he replied, already turning away.
"Wait!"
But he was gone.
Only a single glove lay on the ground where he'd stood. She picked it up, frowning.
Why does your presence feel so... familiar?
Gu Ruolan stood in the Empress's private chamber, her usual spoiled expression carefully tucked behind a pretty mask of obedience.
"You called for me, Your Majesty?"
"Yes. My dear, there's talk of your engagement to the Fourth Prince being questioned by certain... lower branches of the General's house."
Ruolan's eyes flared.
"Her again?" she hissed. "She's nothing but a hidden wildflower."
"Then uproot her before she spreads."
The Empress sipped her tea, not looking up.
Ruolan's hands trembled slightly. Her mother had always told her the Fourth Prince was cold, unworthy—but she had seen him from afar now.
She'd seen the dangerous beauty in his sharp jaw, the power in his silence.
"He should be mine," she whispered.
"Then make him yours. Before the wildflower poisons the garden."