The winter sun barely pierced the ash-heavy clouds.

Wu Ziming stood atop a half-burnt wooden platform, his dark cloak rustling. His eyes swept across the sea of thin faces of farmers with frostbitten fingers, old women clutching children too light for their age, men whose backs had long since broken under the weight of grain taxes and war drafts.

He raised his hand. The crowd quieted, breath visible in the cold.

"They say the heavens favor the emperor," he began. "But where is Heaven now?"

A murmur rippled through the masses.

"Three years of snow of famine, of your children dying before you... while those behind the palace gates drink warm wine and sit by roaring fires." He took a step forward, eyes burning. "Do you still believe the emperor watches over you?"

"No!" someone screamed.

"My son died of hunger!"

"My wife froze by the river!"

Wu Ziming raised his voice, like steel striking stone. "Then let it be known that this is no fate from heaven. This is the rot of tyranny! This is the sickness of a court that has forgotten the people!"

A roar built from the crowd, no longer hesitant.

Wu Ziming drew a blade, not golden like those in the palace, but iron, battered and worn out. He held it high, so all could see. "We will take back what was ours. For justice. For those who have died nameless and cold."

Behind him, men carrying stolen banners raised them. Makeshift armor clanked. Among them were former soldiers, starving farmers, and runaways. The forgotten.

The crowd surged forward not with the clamor of chaos, but with grim and united resolve.

And at its center stood Wu Ziming.

The Emperor sat on his throne in silence, draped in golden robes. The hall was empty, save for a single eunuch kneeling before him, trembling.

"Say that again."

His voice was calm but eunuch swallowed, forehead pressed to the floor. "Your Majesty... the rebel leader rousing the northern provinces is... it is Prince Wu Ziming. He—he is not dead."

A shudder passed through the room.

Wu Ziming... alive.

His second son. The favored one. The one he had deemed too dangerous to leave breathing.

The Emperor's fingers curled around the edge of the armrest. "You dared to lie to this Zhen!"

"No, Your Majesty!" the eunuch whimpered. "The northern viceroy confirmed it. He leads them openly now calling the court tyrannical, naming Your Majesty a betrayer of Heaven."

The dragon throne creaked under the Emperor's shifting weight. He stared blankly ahead, but his mind spun.

"Summon the Grand Council!" he shouted. "Send riders to the North Province. Mobilize the imperial guard. Double the patrols on the capital's gates."

Eunuch retreated, almost running away taking the Emperor's order.

"So it's come to this..."

His breath clouded in the cold of the hall.

"Even the dead won't stay buried," he murmured. "The heavens truly want to see me fall."

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The Emperor's summons came abruptly, so abrupt that Wu Yingyue barely had time to change out of his inner robe before two silent guards seized his arms and escorted him not toward the usual audience hall, but deep into the inner palace.

The halls grew narrower and darker.

Inside, torches flickered.

Wu Yingyue stepped forward cautiously. "Father?"

With a rustle of brocade, the Emperor stepped out from the shadows.

He wasn't wearing the usual dragon robe. Just an inner court robe, but his face was twisted with something dangerous but Wu Yingyue was familiar with.

"You knew," the Emperor said quietly.

Wu Yingyue froze. "...Knew what?"

"You knew your brother was alive," the Emperor said. "You knew, and you said nothing. You let me think, let the entire court think that he was dead for three years."

"That's not true," Wu Yingyue said calmly. "I only learned he was alive after he—"

"Liar!"

He moved fast for a man his age. Before Wu Yingyue could react, the Emperor struck him across the face. The impact snapped his head to the side, a sharp burst of pain exploding across his cheekbone.

Wu Yingyue staggered, but didn't fall.

"You've always been like her," the Emperor spat. "Scheming. Cold. Do you think I don't see what you're doing?"

He backhanded him again. Blood welled on Wu Yingyue's lip.

"First the Zhou family, now your brother. You'll pit us against each other and take the throne for yourself, isn't that right?! You waited for him to come back. You knew."

"I didn't," Wu Yingyue said. "But I see now that it doesn't matter what I say."

Another blow to his stomach. Wu Yingyue fell to his knees, breath knocked from him.

The Emperor stood over him, panting.

"Lock him in the eastern wing," the Emperor ordered coldly. "No one sees him without my word."

The guards stepped forward.

Wu Yingyue didn't struggle. Blood trickled from his lip to his chin, but he raised his head and looked at the Emperor clear and unflinching.

"You will regret this," he said quietly. "Not because I will make you. But because your fear already has."

The Emperor didn't reply.

The guards dragged Wu Yingyue away.

Behind him, the door creaked shut.

The lock turned.

Darkness settled in.

Wu Yingyue looked at the damp dark place..

There was only a thin line of light from a high, barred window, barely enough to see anything.

The stone walls were rough, the floor cracked and stained dark in places.

Yingyue stumbled a few steps, dizzy.

His foot caught on something heavy , a rusted chain locked into the ground and he almost fell on his knees.

He stayed there for a while, breathing unevenly.

"...still here..." he muttered slowly.

His fingers brushed over the cold stone as he took support of a wall and sat down.

When his eyes adjusted, he saw those scratches, so many of them, fingernail marks gouged into the walls, desperate, messy. Some lines still carried the dark color of dried blood.

Yingyue's hand trembled as he traced them, slow, like tracing old scars.

He laughed softly, but it broke halfway, turning into a cough.

"This place...,"

"He used to lock me here. Every time I disobeyed."

A bitter smile stretched across his lips. "Not much has changed, has it?"

In the corner, something was smashed, it was the broken remains of a chair, the wood splintered and stained.

The air smelled of old blood and damp stone.

Suffocating, thick and making him hard to breathe.

Yingyue closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the wall, curling up in himself.

The silence was not empty. It was loud, filled with things that had never left.

"...no different..."

"...no different at all."