Chapter Text
The Forbidden City was a place that knew how to lie.
It lied in its red walls, which feigned warmth while harboring the cold of countless goodbyes. It lied in its golden rooftops, which shone in the sun as if there were no women inside aging alone in silence, no men brought to their knees by fear, and no promises buried before they were even born.
But the snow… The snow did not lie.
When it fell, it covered everything with the same merciless whiteness. It covered the steps of the Temple of Supreme Harmony, the gardens of the Yanxi Palace, the maids’ footprints, the blood of intrigues, and the names no one dared to say aloud.
That night, snow was falling over the Forbidden City.
Ruyi sat by the window, her eyes fixed on the empty courtyard; the brazier crackled beside her, but the heat seemed unable to reach her. On the table rested a cup of now-cold tea that she had not touched.
There were days when the silence was bearable company, and there were days when the silence felt like a sentence, and Ruyi drifted between those days like a flower waiting for its cycle to end.
“Your Highness should rest.” The voice came from the doorway, low and respectful.
Ruyi did not turn around immediately. She recognized that tone of voice. It was not the tone of fawning eunuchs, nor of maids trained to hide fear behind obedience; it was a simple, unadorned voice, like old wood or well water.
It was Ling Yunche.
“Rest?” she asked, in that tone of voice she reserved only for those she cared about most, almost smiling.
He remained at the entrance, not crossing the permitted boundary. Ling Yunche wore his guard’s uniform, still speckled with snow on his shoulders. The bluish glow of the night cast soft shadows over the rest of him; he possessed neither the polished beauty of the nobles nor the perfumed arrogance of men who had grown up believing the world owed them reverence.
There was something more dangerous.
There was sincerity.
“The snow is falling heavily,” he said, in the same tone of voice. “The paths will be slippery in the morning, and Your Highness should keep warm so you don’t catch a cold.”
“Did you come to warn me about the snow?” Ruyi asked.
“I came to make sure Your Highness was all right.”
The answer was too simple, and precisely for that reason, it stung.
In the Forbidden City, aside from her loyal maidservants and Hailan, no one asked if Ruyi was all right. They asked if she had performed the ritual, if she had received the decree, if she had met the new ladies who had entered the palace, if she had angered the emperor, if she had served the emperor and been favored, if she had lost someone… But they never asked how she was, expecting a sincere answer.
That small, almost domestic word seemed to belong to another world—perhaps the one that existed beyond the red walls. A world where women could walk without an escort, where the wind did not carry accusations and countless intrigues, where someone’s name could be called out without fear.
Ruyi lowered her eyes to the untouched cup.
“What if I say I’m not well?” Ruyi asked, her voice barely audible.
Ling Yunche stood motionless, and for a moment, the snow seemed to fall more slowly.
“Then I’ll stay here until you’re less lonely and feel a little better. How about that?”
That request wasn’t a promise. It was worse.
It was a choice.
Ruyi felt her heart flutter with an old-fashioned tenderness, an almost forgotten flutter—one that reminded her of when she was younger. Because of her years inside the Forbidden City, she had long since learned that, in that place, all affection came at a price, even the kind she believed to be sincere and eternal. A glance could become evidence, a word could turn to poison, and a gesture of care could be twisted into an accusation.
And yet, there he was.
A powerless man, offering her the only thing that might still be true: his presence.
“Yunche,” Ruyi said in a low, almost forbidden tone, “Do you know how dangerous it is to speak to me like this?”
He lowered his head.
“I know.”
“And yet you still speak?”
“Some truths are worth the risk,” said Yunche, his voice firm yet trembling.
Ruyi breathed slowly and stood up; the fabric of her robes glided like dark water. She walked toward the door but stopped before getting too close; there were only a few steps between them, but those steps contained the entire empire.
- “When I was young,” she said, “I believed that love was a promise made before heaven and earth. Something pure, inevitable, capable of withstanding distance, time, and people.”
Ling Yunche listened without interrupting.
- “Later, I learned that love can also be used as a shackle. It can be displayed like a jewel, bestowed as a favor, or taken away as punishment. In here, even love wears official robes.”
Ruyi smiled, but there was no joy on her face.
“Perhaps I’ve become a fool for still hoping for something different, or for believing that my love would withstand the empire.”
Ling Yunche looked up.
“It’s not foolish to wish to breathe and be loved.”
The words struck her harder than they should have. Ruyi thought of all the times she had held her breath to survive within these walls—in the face of an unjust accusation, in the face of the Emperor’s cold gaze, in the face of the concubines smiling with silk teeth, and in the face of the children whom fate had taken from her or driven away.
To breathe.
What a strange luxury it would be to breathe within the Forbidden City.
“And you?” she asked. “What do you desire, Ling Yunche?”
Faced with that question, he hesitated.
It was the first time.
Ruyi noticed, and in that brief silence, she found the answer before he could hide it.
“Don’t say it,” Ruyi whispered.
But he said it anyway.
“I wish for Your Highness to be free,” Ling Yunche replied in a steady voice.
For the next few seconds, the snow continued to fall; no thunder split the sky, no bell rang, and no imperial decree came down from the halls to punish them for that sentence. Even so, they both knew that there were words which, once spoken, could never be taken back.
Ruyi closed her eyes for a brief moment. Free. The word felt like a wounded bird flapping its wings inside her chest.
“Freedom was not written in my destiny.”
“Destinies are written by men,” Yunche replied, “and men make mistakes.”
Ruyi almost laughed and cried at the same time.
“You speak as if you could defy the heavens with a rusty sword, as if you were a Taoist master seeking to pass the heavens’ trial before its time.”
- “I do not have a sword strong enough to defy the heavens, nor have I cultivated enough to ask for a place in the immortal realm,” replied Yunche, taking a step back, as if suddenly remembering who he was, who she was, and how many invisible eyes lurked among the cracks of that palace.
- “But I can walk behind Your Highness when there is mud. I can warn you when there are traps. I can remain silent when silence protects you. I can bear a guilt that is not mine, if that keeps your name intact and ensures your safety.”
Ruyi opened her eyes.
- “No,” Ruyi exclaimed in a firm voice.
Ling Yunche seemed to accept the refusal even before he fully understood it.
“Your Highness…”
“Do not offer me sacrifices as if they were flowers,” said Ruyi, her voice trembling. “In this palace, everyone wants something from me. They want my favor, my downfall, my patience, my dignity… Don’t be the one to offer me your life and call it loyalty.”
Yunche turned pale.
Ruyi took a step forward, but there was still a distance between them.
But now it was a living distance.
“If you are to remain by my side, remain as someone who also wishes to live.”
Yunche stared at her, and there was something in his eyes that was neither boldness nor naive hope. It was pain—a pure, almost beautiful pain—the kind that arises when someone realizes too late that to love is not to possess, nor to save, nor to die in another’s place.
Sometimes, loving was simply continuing to breathe. Even when breathing seemed impossible.
“Then I will live,” he said. “If that is an order.”
Ruyi held his gaze.
“It is not an order. It is a request.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The entire palace seemed suspended between one heartbeat and the next. Then Ling Yunche knelt, not with the stiffness of a guard before the Imperial Consort, but with the reverence of someone facing a truth too rare to be touched.
“Then I accept your request, Your Highness.”
Ruyi wanted to reach out her hand.
She didn’t.
Yunche wanted to take it.
He didn’t.
Between them, the impossible blossomed without needing to be plucked.
The next morning, the maids found the courtyard of Yanxi Palace clean. No footprints marked the snow in front of the entrance, except for two faint lines near the gate: one coming, the other going away.
Ruyi watched those tracks from the window.
She smiled.
For the first time in a long time, it wasn’t the smile of an empress trained to survive.
It was small. Almost invisible.
But it was hers.
Later, when the emperor asked why she looked different, Ruyi replied simply:
“It snowed overnight.”
He didn’t understand.
No one would understand.
The Forbidden City knew how to lie.
But the snow did not.
And that night, before the sun erased it, she had held the palace’s most dangerous secret for a few hours:
Ruyi still knew how to be loved without being possessed.
And Ling Yunche, even though he was doomed to walk along the fringes of her life, had learned that some people don’t need to touch the moon to prove they’ve seen its light.