The moon hung low over the Imperial Capital, veiled in soft clouds that drifted like forgotten dreams. Its light bathed the roofs of the city in silvery fire, casting shadows that whispered of long-lost truths. Beneath the grandeur of jade towers and crimson-tiled temples, a lone figure walked the silent alleys of the Eastern Quarter.
Dressed in humble scholar's robes, his face partially veiled by a travel-worn bamboo hat, Zang Xuan passed like a ghost through the night. No one recognized him. No one dared look twice. And that was exactly how he wanted it.
But deep beneath that calm exterior, in the silent core of his soul, the name Yang Xuan still burned like a brand.
Prince of the Eastern Palace.
Son of the Dragon Throne.
Heir to an empire that once bent heaven and earth to its will.
And now… nothing more than a fugitive masked in civility.
Ten years ago, his world had ended in a single night. The screams still echoed in his dreams—the clash of steel, the smell of burning silk, the laughter of the traitor who sat now upon his father's throne: Duke Yan Luo, the so-called Regent of Xuanlong.
But time had not eroded Yang Xuan's will. It had forged it.
He paused before an abandoned shrine tucked between two merchant stalls. The wooden dragon perched atop its roof had long lost its eyes, but it still bared its fangs toward the heavens.
"A shrine to the Storm Dragon…" he murmured, voice low and coarse from months of silence.
He stepped inside.
The dust clung thick to the offering table, and cobwebs draped from the once-sacred bell. A single flick of his sleeve sent it ringing. The sound was soft, almost hesitant—like the spirit of the shrine itself had forgotten how to roar.
Yang Xuan knelt, pulling a small jade talisman from his sleeve. It bore the crest of the Eastern Palace: a five-clawed dragon circling a radiant sun.
He placed it on the altar. "I return not in power… but in purpose."
The air stirred. Faintly.
Then silence.
He rose. The time for praying to forgotten gods had passed.
---
Hours earlier...
The gates of the capital had opened with little resistance. To the world, Zang Xuan was a mere scholar returning from the northern provinces to take the Imperial Examinations. His papers were forged, his background obscured by a labyrinth of aliases stretching back years. Not even the palace's famed Shadow Guards had sensed a threat.
That was good.
The blade of vengeance struck best when unseen.
Still, the city had changed.
Ten years under Duke Yan Luo had turned the once-majestic heart of the empire into a den of fear and opulence. Gold flowed freely through the upper courts, but the people starved. Soldiers marched in the streets not to protect, but to watch. Even the monks at the Sky Temple no longer chanted for peace—but for "stability."
Yang Xuan's fingers curled as he watched a beggar beaten by guards for speaking ill of the regent.
He had no sword.
Yet.
But his rage… his rage was polished steel.
---
By sunrise, Zang Xuan stood before the gates of the Examination Hall, surrounded by other scholars with ink-stained fingers and hopeful eyes.
He blended in easily.
Nobody noticed the slight shift in his stance, the way his weight was distributed—balanced perfectly, like a warrior.
Nobody saw the thin scars on his left hand, marks from training with celestial steel.
Nobody suspected that one of them was a prince reborn, cloaked in shadows and crowned in silence.
The proctor called his name.
He stepped forward.
"Name?"
"Zang Xuan," he answered, voice calm.
"Province?"
"Northern Border, Liaosheng County."
The proctor grunted, unconcerned. "You may enter."
Yang Xuan stepped into the courtyard where the exam would begin—where his path back to the court would be paved with ink and wit, not blood.
Not yet.
But the heavens stirred.
High above, a lone cloud darkened, coiling into the faint outline of a dragon.
---
Later that day, as he finished the final stroke of his essay, Yang Xuan felt the shift in the wind.
An old man approached his desk. Not a proctor. Not a servant.
But someone wearing a plain robe that didn't fit his aura of cold power.
"Your writing," the old man said, placing a hand lightly on the paper, "smells of fire."
Yang Xuan didn't look up. "Fire burns what needs to be cleansed."
The old man smiled, and in that smile… was recognition.
Not of his face.
But of his fate.
"I once served your father," the man whispered.
Yang Xuan's hand froze mid-stroke.
"I am called Master Kong. I wait in the Ashen Pavilion. Come before dusk… if you still remember the taste of vengeance."
Then he vanished, leaving only a faint scent of sandalwood in the air.
That evening, with the ink of the past still drying on his hands, Yang Xuan walked once again into the twilight—toward the Ashen Pavilion, where his true path would begin.
Toward rebellion.
Toward war.
Toward the throne.
And above him, the moon rose anew.
Not silver.
But red.
Like blood.