The road to Mount Yanshui was cruel and winding.
The higher they climbed, the thicker the mist became — not a soft, drifting fog, but something heavy, as if the very air refused to breathe. Trees arched overhead like twisted fingers. Even birds refused to sing.
"They say the monks here practiced strange rites," Feiyan muttered, her hand never far from her sword. "Some worshipped an older Heaven. One that didn't answer to kings."
Shuye gave a nervous glance up the mountain path. "Then why are we going there?"
Ziyan walked ahead, eyes fixed on the rising trail.
"Because someone is hiding answers in places no one dares to look."
They arrived at the gates just before dusk.
The ghost monastery loomed ahead like a broken memory. Its stone walls had long since cracked. Charred wood jutted from collapsed corridors. The ancient lotus crest above the entry was nearly erased by weather — but Ziyan recognized it. A version of that symbol once adorned her grandfather's personal sigil, long abandoned.
"Strange," she murmured. "The Li family stopped using this seal two generations ago. Why would it be here?"
No one answered.
The gate creaked open without touch.
Inside, time felt suspended. The air was colder than it should've been, and every step echoed too long.
"Stay sharp," Feiyan whispered. "This place isn't just ruined. It's watching us."
They passed through moss-covered courtyards and collapsed dormitories. Broken statues of bodhisattvas stared blankly into overgrowth. One shrine had been defaced—its face carved out, replaced with a cracked mirror.
In the main hall, beneath the scorched mural of the Lotus and the Phoenix, lay a sealed door. A faded inscription read:
"To the one who bears the flame, speak and pass."
Ziyan stepped forward.
As if guided, she whispered the name only her mother used when comforting her:
"Ziyao."
The door groaned open.
Inside was a hidden sanctum.
The chamber was small, circular — walls lined with worn tapestries depicting celestial battles, forgotten queens, and women crowned in flame. At the center sat a pedestal. Upon it rested a scroll sealed in blood-red silk, pulsing faintly with heat.
As Ziyan stepped forward, something shimmered on the wall behind it — a mirror not of silver, but obsidian. It showed not her reflection, but a burning palace, and within it, a child watching flames dance from behind a lattice screen.
Feiyan touched her shoulder. "Ziyan, your nose…"
She wiped it. Blood.
Ziyan's eyes locked onto the scroll.
She touched it — and the world exploded.
She saw a woman crowned in red, standing on palace steps.
She saw a masked figure — silver-eyed — handing over a scroll sealed with the Li sigil.
She saw a hidden room beneath her family estate, filled with documents bearing her name.
She saw her father. Turning away.
Then a voice — not her own, but from within her.
"You were meant to be erased, not remembered."
Ziyan gasped and collapsed.
When her eyes opened, Feiyan and Shuye were at her side, pale with worry.
"You were out for almost an hour," Shuye said. "We couldn't wake you."
Ziyan sat up slowly. Her body felt the same — and yet not. Something inside her pulsed, alive. Her palm still burned from touching the scroll, though it bore no wound.
The mark on her skin shimmered again — a black lotus outlined in red.
"I saw... them," she whispered. "The ones who betrayed me. Someone in the capital. Someone close. It wasn't just for shame or punishment."
She looked toward the mirror.
"It was to hide something I was never supposed to find."
They camped outside the ruins that night, unable to stay within the cold stone halls.
Ziyan sat alone beneath the stars, the sealed scroll in her lap. It refused to open, but glowed faintly in her presence.
Feiyan joined her quietly.
"You said you saw someone in the vision."
Ziyan nodded. "A man. Wore a mask. Silver eyes. I don't know who he is — but I think he's the one who gave the order to have me taken. And I think... he came from within my family."
Feiyan leaned back. "Then the Li family isn't just corrupt. They're hiding something older. Dangerous."
Ziyan turned the scroll in her hands.
"This monastery was once part of a larger network. I think they were protectors — guardians of knowledge no longer welcome in the empire."
Feiyan raised a brow. "Like a secret order?"
"Maybe. Or maybe heretics. Depends who you ask."
From her pack, Ziyan pulled out the parchment Qiao Jian had given her.
She now saw what she had missed before — faint ghost script hidden beneath the seal.
It was a name:
The Phoenix Archive.
And below that, an address in the Northern Capital, long since erased from maps.
Ziyan's heart quickened.
"That scroll wasn't a gift," she said slowly. "It was bait. Qiao Jian wanted me to see these things. He's not just a whisper broker. He's playing both sides — maybe more."
Feiyan narrowed her eyes. "You think he's helping you?"
Ziyan stared at the scroll pulsing in her lap.
"No. I think he's watching me. Waiting to see what I become."
Far below the mountain, in Qinghe, Qiao Jian lit a lantern in his window.
He watched the flame dance, reflected in a small glass vial beside him — inside it, a droplet of blood shimmered faintly red.
He uncorked a bottle of wine, raised it to the moon, and toasted:
"To the girl who should have burned and vanished. But instead… remembered."
He smiled, dark and slow.
"Let's see if she becomes worthy of the name Phoenix."