Phoenix Rising

001

When her eyelids fluttered open, the first thing that struck her was how cold it was. She instinctively pulled her blanket further up so that it wrapped snugly round her shoulders, before the shivers finally made her register that something wasn't quite right.

Was it cold in the afterlife? And were there blankets?

Zi-ning immediately sat up, surveying her surroundings warily. The last things she remembered before waking up here were the stench of blood from the innocents and those mocking looks in the eyes of Meiyan and Ru-an. Even now she could still feel the anger coursing through her veins, and her hands clenched into tight fists, grabbing at the soft fabric of her blanket.

There was something oddly familiar about the room she was now in, from the sandalwood furnishings to the mild scent of mulberry in the air. Before she could figure things out, the door creaked open and an overexcited shriek followed.

"Miss Zi-ning! You're finally awake!" A young girl dressed in servant robes came rushing into the room, quickly setting down a tray on the table before dashing to her side. "We were so worried about you, falling into the pond in this terrible weather. The physician said that you had hypothermia and might never wake if your fever doesn't subside. Thank the heavens that you're alright!"

"Shujin?" Zi-ning blinked, not sure whether or not to believe her eyes. This must surely be heaven because Shujin, one of her closest personal maidservants, had died two years back after having been caught having relations with Minister Huang's second son, a promiscuous chap famous for his licentious nature. Even though he eventually agreed to take her into his household, the girl had resisted vehemently, choosing instead to throw herself into a well to prove her innocence. On hindsight, perhaps Shujin's death had been engineered by Meiyan and her vicious mother too, to remove her loyal servants from her side.

"Miss? Are you feeling alright?" Shujin placed one hand over Zi-ning's forehead, frowning when she noticed how out of sorts her young mistress seemed to be. "You're still running a slight temperature, but it seems to have gone down. I'll go get the physician." She turned to leave, but Zi-ning immediately reached out and grabbed on go her wrist.

"No, wait," Zi-ning called out, though her voice sounded like a hoarse whisper. To her alarm, Shujin's skin felt warm to her touch, and she took hold if the girl's other hand with her own, just to be sure. Frowning, she asked, "What year is this? What happened to me?"

"What year?" Shujin looked confused. "It's the seventeenth year of King Shunde's reign of course. Don't you remember what happened? You accidentally slipped and fell into the pond two days ago and when they got you out you were unconscious and the tips of your fingers and toes had already started turning blue." Just then, the door opened and another servant girl walked in, carrying a basin of warm water and a towel. "Hana, something's wrong with Miss Zi-ning, she can't remember what's happened," Shujin said anxiously.

"Miss, you're awake?" the newcomer exclaimed, a look of relief appearing across her face.

"Hana!" Shujin flung her arms around the bewildered girl, tears suddenly streaming down her cheeks. Hana, her other personal maidservant, had been with her ever since she was a child, even longer than Shujin had been, and she had always treated the older girl like her own sister. Hana's ending hadn't been much better than Shujin's, having been banished from the Han manor after being caught red-handed with some of the old madam's jewellery. Zi-ning hadn't believed that Hana would have done such a thing, but the evidence spoke otherwise, and the last she heard was that Hana had been sold to a brothel in another county, where she would live out the rest of her days being humiliated and abused.

But all that had happened in a previous life and none of those events had taken place yet. It was only the seventeenth year of King Shunde's reign, which meant that it was five years before the fateful moment when she had been marched to her death.