Chapter 37 - The Date Etched in Ink

The Silk of Fate

Chapter 37 – The Date Etched in Ink

It was announced during the first spring audience.

A procession of ministers, golden fans swaying, servants laying flower petals along the path to the ceremonial hall. The kind of spectacle meant to distract, to control the narrative before it begins.

Lianhua already knew.

The Dowager had warned her in glances. Yenli’s silences had grown too careful.

But still—hearing it aloud struck something deep.

“By decree of His Majesty, Princess Lianhua shall be formally betrothed to General Wu Chengyuan on the eleventh day of the sixth month.”

“This union shall strengthen the will of the empire, and honor the wisdom of our ancestors.”

The hall clapped.

Softly. Dutifully.

Lianhua bowed when expected.

Smiled just enough.

But behind her fan, her fingers curled inward.

She was not afraid.

She was calculating.

That evening, the palace seamstresses arrived with silks.

Peach. Gold. Imperial crimson.

She chose white.

Unembellished.

A color of mourning in their tradition.

When the youngest seamstress hesitated, Lianhua looked her in the eye and said, “Let them make of it what they will.”

She did not cry.

Instead, she wrote.

The scroll reached Idran three days later, carried in a shipment of palm sugar and wrapped in trade parchment.

He read the final line three times:

They gave me a date. But I still choose the hour.

When I move, it will not be alone.

Back in Dadu, Lianhua resumed her lectures.

But now, her questions shifted:

“What happens when a river overflows its course?”
“Can a tradition be sacred if it erases choice?”

She wrote new poems. Not under Jun Cao—but unsigned. Shared through whispers. Echoed by students who didn’t even know the source.

And in the quiet corners of the court, she began gathering names.

Not for rebellion.

But for a vote.