The world outside Emperor Ming's study had not yet decided what kind of day it wished to be. The early light slanted through the paper windows, painting long bars across the lacquered floor: gold, quiet, uncertain. Ming sat at his desk with a brush lifted above an unfinished document, though his eyes were fixed on a point somewhere beyond the walls, as if the horizon itself had slipped out of reach.
It was happening more often.
The quiet blankness.
The drifting thoughts.
The unsettling sense that his own memories were retreating into dark corners.
He did not hear the footsteps until a voice pulled him back.
"Ming. Oi. Ming."
He blinked slowly, surfacing as though from deep water. Someone was calling him. Someone familiar.
"Yaaa… what's up?" he replied, turning in his chair.
General Fang stepped inside, wearing a smile that looked polished rather than natural. Fang had been beside Ming since they were boys; he could command battalions and negotiate courts, but he had never learned how to hide sorrow from his closest friend.
"The general had a child last night," Fang said lightly. "Tomorrow he's announcing the heirship to the court. You remember that, right?"
Ming stared back, searching for the meaning of the words. General. Child. Heirship. The ideas brushed against familiarity but refused to assemble, slipping apart like water on glass.
"Ah… that." Ming exhaled. "I think… I don't remember."
Fang's smile faltered. Only slightly, but enough to show the truth. He had prepared himself for this. They all had. Still, hearing the emperor say it aloud struck something deep.
He straightened and tried again, with a brightened tone that fooled neither of them.
"Well… Yulan was searching for you earlier," he said. "Said she wanted to see you."
Ming's expression softened, the fog in his mind thinning just a little.
"Really? Those two rarely come to see me nowadays."
A soft, nostalgic laugh slipped out. Fang bowed, offering a dignified retreat before emotion overtook him.
Ming watched him leave, unaware of how the general's shoulders tightened with every step.
---
Elsewhere in the imperial compound, in one of the smaller mansions surrounded by spiraling corridors, Chen knelt in a shadowed corner where the guards would not notice her. She had wed Ming ten years ago and shared with him triumphs, hopes, and now the creeping darkness behind his eyes.
Quietly, she cried.
"Mom? Mom!"
The small voice pulled her back. Chen wiped her tears with her embroidered sleeve before turning.
Yulan stood at the entrance, hair tied in two loops, gaze sharper than any child's should be.
"You cried again," Yulan said. "Why are you crying this time?"
"Tired," Chen answered, forcing a gentle breath. "Only tired."
Yulan did not believe her. The child had Ming's intuition and Chen's stubbornness.
"Father said he misses you. He asked for us both. Uncle Ki is coming too."
Chen's heart tightened at that name.
Her younger brother. The one who had made the decision she still could not forgive, even if logic said he had done what was right.
Still, she nodded. Yulan tugged her toward the dresser.
Chen dressed with deliberate grace, choosing soft autumn gold. Her beauty had only deepened with age, but her eyes remained shadowed. Yulan watched quietly, as though guarding something fragile.
When they stepped beyond the palace gates, the morning light catching their hairpins, a figure dropped from a courtyard tree with a soft thud.
"Hello, sister," Ki greeted.
Chen flinched. She swallowed the rising tear and straightened.
"Greetings, Martial Commander," she answered, voice flat.
Ki sighed. In battle he was fearless, but here he felt sixteen again, standing before a sister whose grief he had helped create.
"You still haven't forgiven me," he said. "But it was the emperor's final wish."
At the word emperor, Chen's knees buckled. She fell to the stone path.
"Mom!" Yulan cried.
Chen clung to her daughter. Ki moved to help, but she recoiled.
Then a warm, steady hand touched her shoulder.
"Be careful, young lady," a gentle voice murmured.
Chen froze.
Ming stood there, dressed simply, wearing that half-smile that belonged to a man meeting a stranger. Yulan and Ki straightened immediately.
Ming looked around as if trying to orient himself.
"Chen. Chen…" he repeated, tasting the name.
Chen rose shakily. Ming looked at her with soft admiration that felt painfully unfamiliar.
"More beautiful than before," he said.
Her composure shattered. She collapsed into his arms, sobbing. He held her reflexively, one hand steady on her back, the other trembling with uncertainty.
Yulan was pulled back by Ki and Fang, both men struggling to keep their own grief contained.
---
Later, Ki led Yulan up a cliffside path overlooking the imperial terraces. Autumn leaves spiraled down like drifting embers. Yulan wiped her eyes, then gasped softly.
"Wow, Uncle Ki… the leaves are so pretty."
Ki stood beside her.
"Beautiful indeed," he murmured. "Isn't it, brother?"
He did not mean Ming.
He meant the true emperor. Chen's older brother. The one whose last command Ki had carried out with loyalty and regret.
Behind them, Fang suddenly stopped. His façade cracked. He turned and fled down the path, shoulders shaking.
Yulan watched him go. Ki remained still, weighed by truths he could not share.
"Uncle," Yulan whispered, "why did Father look so strange today?"
Ki inhaled slowly.
"Because adults carry things they cannot put down."
"Like secrets?"
"Sometimes. Sometimes memories. Sometimes regrets."
Yulan looked up at the sky.
"Will Papa forget me too?"
Ki closed his eyes.
"No," he said. "Never you."
---
By nightfall, Ming felt clarity return. He walked to the Drifting Wind Palace and found Chen and Yulan in the gazebo beneath lantern glow.
Chen rose quickly. "Ming, you should rest."
"I wanted to see you," he said. The uncertainty in his voice only deepened her tenderness.
Yulan rushed to him. "Papa! Will you eat with us?"
He blinked, then nodded.
Chen took his hand. His fingers curled around hers with instinct older than memory.
They ate under drifting lantern light.
Yulan's quiet laughter.
Chen leaning gently against Ming.
Ming watching them both as if memorizing a dream he feared might fade.
For a few hours, the world held.
---
Later, when Yulan slept and Chen rested with her head in his lap, Ming looked out over the silent palace. An autumn leaf lay on the floor beside him. He lifted it.
Something about it tugged at a buried memory.
A voice whispered in the darkness of his mind:
"Ming… remember who you are. Remember what you must protect."
He opened his eyes.
Chen stirred. He brushed her cheek, feeling warmth and sorrow entwined.
"I will remember," he whispered, whether to her or to himself he could not say.
Below the cliff, Fang wept unseen.
Ki stood watching the sky, carrying an unspoken guilt.
And through the empire's halls, the old stories stirred again, waiting for the next fracture.
In a world of drifting memories and fragile bonds, even love was not safe from the fall.