The silence was suffocating, thick enough to choke on. It pressed down on the room like a blade suspended mid-swing—sharp, merciless, and waiting to fall.
Lianxue's hands trembled as she slowly extended the small copper hairpin. Blood, dark and partially dried, clung to the delicate floral engraving along its length. It glinted in the low lantern light, dull and damning.
Three pairs of eyes remained fixed on her, hard and unblinking. The men said nothing, their silence louder than any accusation. They expected defiance. They expected trickery. But instead, they were handed a hair pin.
"A hairpin?" Jinhai's voice broke the silence like a thunderclap, scoffing in disbelief. "What does that prove?"
"I-It's… copper," Lianxue stammered, her voice barely above a whisper. Her words shook as much as her outstretched fingers.
She trailed off, swallowed by the weight of their scrutiny.
A beat passed. Then another.
The blade that had rested against Ming'er's pale throat lowered—just barely. Mo Qianshi's lips curved into a slow, venom-laced smile as he stepped forward. He moved like a predator, fluid and calculated, plucking the hairpin from her hand. His fingers brushed hers for the briefest second—cold as polished jade.
"Copper, is it?" he murmured, voice too gentle to be anything but dangerous. "And what would a cheap, bloodied copper hairpin be doing in Princess Hana's chambers?"
The shift in atmosphere was instant.
Li Jinhai and Wei Yichen exchanged a glance. It wasn't just another accusation or performance. This time, there was evidence. Something none of them had expected.
Mo Qianshi turned the ornament in his fingers, studying it like a puzzle piece before slipping it into the wide sleeve of his robe. The stained copper vanished from sight, as if it had never existed.
"Well." He turned his gaze back to Lianxue, amusement dancing in his eyes. "Perhaps you're not completely useless after all, Princess Hau."
The mockery in his tone was unmistakable.
Jinhai let out a humorless snort, and the tension in the room shifted from fury to mockery. Their eyes turned cruel—like nobles watching a jester stumble through a routine, too pathetic to be taken seriously.
Ming'er was shoved forward without warning. She stumbled, and Lianxue barely managed to catch her, the force of the push dragging them both to the floor. Their heavy silk robes tangled, and the loud thud of their collapse drew peals of laughter from Qianshi and Jinhai.
It wasn't just cruel. It was deliberate.
Lianxue winced but quickly turned her attention to Ming'er. Her hands moved with a delicate kind of urgency, checking the girl's thin arms beneath her sleeves for bruises.
"Did they hurt you?" she whispered, her voice cracking.
Ming'er didn't answer, but her wide, watery eyes spoke volumes.
Only one man did not laugh.
Wei Yichen stood apart from the others, arms folded neatly behind his back. His gaze was focused, sharp, cutting straight through the act.
There was something unreadable in his expression. Curiosity. Suspicion. Doubt.
"Hau Lianxue," he said suddenly, his voice slicing through the room like drawn steel. "Did you hit your head?"
The world tilted.
Lianxue blinked. Her thoughts scattered in a hundred directions. Was it a trick question? A test? Her mind raced through the fragments of her new reality. This wasn't a dream—she had died. Or had she? No, that was her old life. Her old self. Sara, the forgotten retail girl, was gone. Only Lianxue remained.
The jewels in her hair trembled as she shifted slightly, the faint sound chiming like distant bells. Ming'er reached up to touch her own throat, rubbing the place where death had so nearly kissed her.
Lianxue's eyes darted toward the men, desperate for an anchor. She didn't know the right words. Didn't know what Lianxue would say. What was expected of her in this moment?
"Princess Hau?" Wei Yichen prompted again, and there it was—that flicker of concern.
"She's playing a new trick," Jinhai muttered from behind Yichen. "She always was clever enough to fake tears when she needed them."
"Clever?" Qianshi echoed with a snort. "That thing couldn't lie straight in a coffin."
They were turning on one another. Doubting. Questioning. Lianxue felt the ground shift beneath her—a sliver of opportunity. She didn't have long.
Drawing a breath, she pressed one trembling hand to her temple. Her voice, when it came, was barely audible.
"Brother Wei… to answer your question…"
She paused, letting the silence settle. Then: "I think I must have. I don't remember anything before waking today."
Tension rippled across the room like a gust of wind across a pond. Her voice cracked on the last word—just enough. She didn't need to fake the tears; they came on their own, summoned by the ghost of her old life. Sara, the girl no one cared for. Sara, alone in every room she ever entered.
Now here she was again, on her knees before men who hated her, in a body not her own, accused of a crime she couldn't comprehend.
The silence stretched dangerously long.
Yichen's eyes never left her. He was still, calculating.
Jinhai looked appalled. "Memory loss? How convenient."
"She's not that good an actress," Qianshi added, but his smirk faltered ever so slightly.
Lianxue turned to Ming'er, her fingers seeking the maid's once more. They were small and trembling but warm.
"Forgive me for ignoring your advice," she said quietly. "Shall we return now?"
Ming'er blinked. Then, as if breaking from a spell, she nodded fiercely and shot to her feet, tugging at Lianxue's hands gently.
"Yes, Young Miss! Come on! Back to your room—you've overexerted yourself again!"
Together, they rose, skirts rustling in thick folds. Lianxue didn't dare look up. She kept her head bowed, her breath short, as she shuffled toward the door. The silk felt too heavy. The silence felt like a storm waiting to crash.
Behind her, the three men said nothing.
The doors shut behind them with a groan. The tension did not leave with the girls.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Then Mo Qianshi let out a slow exhale, the corner of his mouth twitching. "Well," he murmured, "that was… enlightening."
Jinhai grunted and turned away, the hard clap of his boots against hard wood flooring echoing across the chamber. At the low table, he nudged a fallen teacup with his foot. The porcelain rolled in a slow circle, smearing a ring of red across the tile before settling. Still bloody.
"She's hiding something," he muttered.
Yichen walked to the wall where the incense burner had shattered. Ash clung to the lacquered wood like a stain. He touched it gently, rubbing the soot between his fingers, then dusted his hand clean with a flick.
"No signs of struggle," he said. "And no scent of a spell used recently. No forced entry. Everything's too… still."
"Too clean," Qianshi agreed, lifting a cushion half-heartedly before letting it fall. "But blood leaves trails even the clever forget. Always does."
Jinhai folded his arms, brow furrowed. "Princess Hana wouldn't have opened her door for just anyone."
"She only had to think she was safe," Yichen said softly.
All three began moving—circling, watching, sifting through the clues like generals over a battlefield.
"That hairpin," Qianshi mused. "Copper. That's not something anyone in Hana's station would own, let alone keep in her room."
"It was planted," Yichen said immediately. "Left deliberately. Not by accident."
"Planted," Jinhai echoed, "and yet missed by us."
"She found it," Qianshi pointed out. "Held it like a weapon."
"She held it like poison," Yichen countered.
"Poison can be a weapon," Qianshi said, amused.
"I'm telling you," Jinhai growled, "They left it behind knowing she'd find it—or that we'd find it."
"She didn't seem to know anything about it," Yichen said, but there was no certainty in his tone.
"She wants us to think that."
They lapsed into silence once more.
Then Jinhai looked up sharply. "We need to move. Whoever set this up, they'll be covering their tracks already. We wait too long, the evidence vanishes."
"Or is buried," Qianshi added, strolling toward the window. The courtyard outside was ghostly in the lamplight—quiet, untouched. "And what do you think, Wei?"
Wei Yichen didn't answer right away. He stood in the center of the room, eyes trained on the broken charm hanging from the far wall. What had once glowed with a protective talisman's light now lay inert, cracked down the middle.
"We begin tonight," he said finally, voice soft as steel.