Zhen Xue stepped outside into the frosty winter morning air, tired of standing around. Nobody slept last night with death hanging over everyone’s heads. He gripped the front of his fur coat that he’d pulled over his old clothes, holding the fabric close to himself for warmth. 

With everything going on, he didn’t bother changing into something fresh. Plus, doing so now felt wrong. Not when the dead would no longer have that luxury.

The palace garden with white chrysanthemums had frozen blood dripping from petals into the dust of snow, depicting a tragic sort of beauty. Beyond that difference, though, the royal guards had removed all signs of the six hundred perished servants, as though they were never there.

He swore that when everything was quiet, he could still hear the soft crunch his shoe made when he’d accidentally stepped on a corpse’s hand. His stomach twisted horribly at the thought, but not as rough as the first time.

“Why are you out here alone?” a voice asked, breaking him from his thoughts. 

Zhen Xue looked up to find Xu Yang walking towards him. There was a tentative look furrowed on his brother’s face and bags under his eyes. He wore a cloak much like himself, thrown over old clothes that he hadn’t changed since the incident. 

Xu Yang has done most of the work, instructing the royal guards where to take the bodies beneath the palace. Once they’re made presentable, the guards will distribute them to their families, though according to Ming Yi, that won’t be possible for all the victims.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Zhen Xue mumbled, blinking away the dryness in his eyes from staying awake too late. He’d offered to help, not wanting Xu Yang to shoulder the burden, but got turned away. And perhaps because of the guilt writhing in his gut—that the whole thing was his fault for allowing the sorcerers inside the palace—Zhen Xue had listened and returned to his room.

“You look even worse than I feel,” Xu Yang answered with half a smile, one that was honest but heavier than it looked. When Zhen Xue stared blankly in response, Xu Yang took off his coat, wrapping it around his shoulders. The fabric drowned him slightly, but he felt warmer and a touch less numb. “Go get some sleep,” Xu Yang nudged him towards the door. “I don’t want to handle another corpse today.”

Maybe because of his choice of words, Zhen Xue doesn’t argue with him. Shoulders slumping forward with exhaustion from a sleepless night, he sauntered inside onto the wood floor, feeling that tiny ball of frustration in his chest expand like it would consume him whole. Guilt gnawed at him endlessly, latching onto his very essence as though trying to pull him under to some place dark and empty. 

The chandelier glimmered overhead as he continued through the lobby. Voices chanted over and over in his mind, “this is your fault” and he didn't stop them because he knew they were right. It was maddening to think that six hundred lives got taken, gone in a blink, all because of his mistake. 

Tonight at the memorial, when he would confront the families, how could he say their grief wasn’t real? 

No longer did the people of this world seem like imaginary story book characters. Fifteen years too late, he realized what he should’ve known when honest, hard-working people weren’t dead.

As he walked numbly through the hallways and up the familiar staircase, he could recall some faces that were missing. 

What had their names been? He never even thanked them for their work. They’d always just been there in the background, caring for his normalcy.

“Will you bring me a cup of wine, down from the Northern Mountain?” a woman sang, sitting on the floor some feet ahead by a broken vase. Judging from her maid uniform, she worked here. Her voice echoed through the empty hallways like morning dew falling onto a blade of grass.

The ball of tension in his chest tightened significantly, growing to a point he could no longer ignore.

So, he paused and waited.

“Oh, my dear,” she sang with a mournful smile. “Don’t fear when I can’t fill your cup anymore. No matter the years, I’ll await your return. So, won’t you bring a cup of wine when you come down from the Northern Mountain?”

He was walking before he realized, his feet moving mechanically. The only thought in his mind that carried him forward was the need to be alone before he broke down. 

Every step he took was a blur, moving without actually seeing anything. The memories of Tianshi and Zhi flooded his mind behind a door he long since closed. “Get a hold of yourself,” the voice in his head snapped at him, only making his breathing grow worse. 

“Just shut up,” he wanted to yell back, but he swallowed the words, finally arriving in the hallway with his bedroom door. Instead of going inside, he surprised himself, sidestepping to the window nearby. 

He threw the panels open wide. 

A chilly breeze swept across his face, through his hair, and tossed the curtains about, but more importantly, calmed his nerves.

Only when the wind stilled, filled with the scent of snow and pine, did his chest settle and he could breathe again. 

His eyes closed as he sank to the floor, giving into his exhaustion. As hours passed, he stayed there, watching the sunlight reflect across the floor and grow darker, his mind no longer in turmoil.

When the time came for him to get up for memorial, his limbs felt heavy as he tried to lift them. 

Moisture that normally settled in his eyes was gone from forgetting to blink. He pushed himself off the ground, an exhale leaving him as he prepared himself for his speech.

Tick, tick, tick. The sound of a clock reached his ears, continuing the same unnatural rhythm. 

Zhen Xue looked up from the floor, emerging from his daze.

Something was amiss.

The hallway was empty like earlier, the wooden floor set aglow by the candles overhead. All was silent except for the clock.

Phew, why was it so hot? He suddenly missed sitting under the open window with the fresh air.

The magic weather system, founded by the mages, should’ve automatically adjusted the temperature within the controlled environment. There was definitely something wrong. 

Where was this heat coming from?

His footsteps slowed down, taking in the wax pooling on the ground from the unattended candles. The ticking sound continued, following him with every step. Almost like... it was beneath floorboards.

While his mind wrapped around these two strange events, the mourning bell tolled outside, signaling the memorial had begun. He’d been too slow to get there on time.

Everything stilled as the realization hit him like a truck.

Not a clock.

The bodies beneath the palace were full of explosives. 

When the hot wax reached the bottom floor, the palace would go up in flames. 

Panic engulfed his senses, vomit nearly rising from his throat. He’d have to move six hundred bodies out of the palace to stop them from... from... 

He pushed open the window, six stories high, looking over the crowd. Across the lawn, he could make out the cages of six hundred mourning doves the royals would release to honor those that passed. 

Even if he shouted from this high, nobody would hear him.

He laughed like an insane person, running a hand through his hair as relief or madness washed over him. Nobody would get hurt but him alone.

He should’ve realized that sooner. He slumped to the floor with another bitter laugh. 

This could be the end for him and that thought didn’t feel so bad. The night Tianshi and Zhi died, he should’ve died too. Why did he get to live all this time instead of them? 

Nobody had an answer to this question, not even himself. 

“Will you bring me a cup of wine,” the woman from earlier sang. “Down from the Northern Mountain?”

Zhen Xue sat up straight as he finally pieced together the puzzle. 

That’s right.

How could there be a maid if all the servants died?

“Oh, my dear, my sweet dear, don’t fear the unknown,” she continued.

This person knew he would be alone. Zhen Xue pushed himself to his feet, following her voice.

“No matter the years, I’ll wait for you here, so please don’t let me go!” He found her piecing together the broken vase in the same spot she sat earlier. 

Instead of asking how she screwed with the magic weather system to make the wax melt faster, he asked what he really wanted to know. “If we’re both going to die here, at least tell me what you’re plaguing my ears with?”

Beneath her messy bangs, she looked up. Her dark gaze didn’t quite reach him. 

She was blind. 

He watched her sit forward, hands frozen over the vase’s broken fragments, like trying to sort them into a different puzzle. “A song that ends in tragedy,” she lamented. “But brings hope to the lost souls roaming this world. Two soulmates will reunite in every lifetime, but one will eventually lose the other.” 

Nothing in the novel described such a tale. “How is that supposed to bring people hope?”

She smiled again, twisting the two broken shards together, as though that alone was enough of an explanation. “It means there’s a fixed point in time, like these broken shards that fit back together but will never completely become whole. Do you know why that’s so fascinating?”

He stilled, getting the impression she was about to reveal something important.

“It confirms that the Strings of Fate exist.” 

“Fate… You mean like events predestined to happen?” 

She nodded.

Could it be that the mechanics behind this world were aware of the plot? “Let’s say fate has already changed,” he proposed, not elaborating there were already three new characters involved in the story, himself included. “Doesn’t that mean we are heading towards a future no longer predetermined?”

“Good answer, but someone up there is already intervening as we speak.” She smiled—whites of her eyes moving like she could see him. “That’s why I’m planning to abolish the Strings of Fate for good, starting with your help, Zhen Xue.”

His eyes widened. “My help?” Zhen Xue laughed. “Your plan might have worked if you had chosen anyone else, but I only seem to be good at starting disasters. Also,” he added, shutting his emotions into a tiny box. “I don’t have such lofty goals like saving the world. That job is for heroes, not villains.”

“That may be true, but I know you won’t let more people die.”