Chapter 12 - Beneath the Fan of Obedience

The Silk of Fate

Chapter 12 – Beneath the Fan of Obedience

Lianhua knew the exact number of steps from her chamber to the garden pavilion: ninety-seven.

She knew which tile creaked slightly under her left foot, and which tree near the pond would bloom first in spring. She knew how to fold a fan to signal disinterest, and how to lower her lashes just enough to make an elder think she agreed with him.

She also knew how to hide a smile behind a teacup—and how to hide a book beneath a silk pillow.

She was not reckless.
She was exact.

To survive here—to move unseen in a place built on appearances—was not cowardice. It was an art.

At the midday reception, she sat beside her cousin, Princess Qiao, nodding dutifully as three foreign envoys spoke of tribute and tariffs. Her robes were pale peach, her earrings jade, her hair pinned in the intricate style befitting her station.

She laughed on cue.

She bowed when required.

But in her mind, she was somewhere else.

She was composing a poem.

The hawk bows to no one,
but learns to glide with folded wings.
Even the sky must wait.

When they returned to the women’s quarters, Qiao leaned closer.

“You looked bored.”

“I was counting how many times Envoy Jia touched his beard when lying,” Lianhua replied.

Qiao blinked. “How many?”

“Nine. He touched it eleven times total, but only nine while stretching numbers.”

Her cousin snorted. “You’re impossible.”

Lianhua smiled faintly. “No. Just quiet.”

Later that evening, she retreated to her favorite place in the palace—a narrow stone path behind the calligraphy hall, bordered by bamboo and silence.

Here, no one came.

Here, she could breathe without performance.

She carried with her a small booklet wrapped in cloth—an anthology of poems by a Persian traveler who had once written about Yuan gardens and heartbreak in the same breath.

She sat on the bench carved with lotus motifs and read slowly.

One line caught her:

“I have been many women to survive the world, but only one soul to return to when alone.”

She closed the book.

The lantern beside her flickered.

That night, in her private study, she burned one of her own essays—an unfinished draft arguing against the use of concubines as political currency.

Not because she feared discovery.

But because the words were not ready yet.

Because she had more to live, before she could write them honestly.

Before she slept, she knelt by the window and whispered her grandmother’s old prayer—not to any god, but to the wind itself:

Let me remember who I am, even when I must forget in front of others.

She did not yet know the name of the man who would make her remember faster than she expected.

But that, too, would come.

For now, she folded herself into her silk sheets, fingers still smelling faintly of ink and ash.

And she dreamed—not of princes, not of power.

But of a different kind of sky.

One where she could finally choose the direction of her wings.