Phoenix Rising

012

Zi-ning was sitting in her room, rotating her cup of tea between her fingers as she pondered upon the events that had taken place in the palace earlier. Many things had changed—and would continue to change—in this life compared to what she remembered previously, but she seemed to have encountered a slight bump in the road.

She had travelled all the way to Taishan and spent over two long years there learning under the tutelage of Lady Li so that she would be able to transform into someone that had the ability to stand up for herself, to fight for what she deserved and to bring justice to those who had done her wrong. Han Zi-ning was no longer the gaudy, uncouth, rich girl that she used to be, but someone who was truly worthy of royalty. In order to bring down someone like Ru-an, she needed to reach a position of sufficient influence, a position that would enable her to engineer his downfall. However, despite her best efforts, it seemed like she hadn't gained the queen's favour and that would certainly pose a problem if she hoped to carry out her plans.

What went wrong?

She had painted the willow on purpose, knowing that everyone else would have painted flowers. That caught the queen's attention, as she had expected, and even managed to win the favour of the three princes, yet somehow the queen hadn't picked her as the winner. She had noticed that slight flicker in the queen's eyes when she had stepped forward, as if she had suddenly spotted something she didn't like.

Zi-ning thought back to the outfit she was wearing earlier—the dark blue dress with the silver embroidery of chrysanthemums swirling up the sides of the skirt, her hair pinned up by white jade hairpin fashioned with the same image of the chrysanthemum flower.

"Shujin."

"Yes, Miss?"

"Bring me the white jade pendant I was wearing today."

Shujin quickly went to the drawers and took out the pendant that Zi-ning was asking for, placing it on the table in front of her young mistress.

The dragon carved into the jade was staring up at her with a fieriness in its eyes. That was what she liked most about this pendant—the look in the dragon's eyes. It reflected the same rage and anger that she had inside her, a fury that had been a result of the pitiful life she had once lived. Zi-ning picked up the pendant and ran her fingers across its surface, feeling the carvings of the dragon's scales against her fingertips.

Could it have been because of you?

She recalled the man she had rescued at the temple, the one who had left her this pendant and vanished without a word. Till now she could still see the man's dark, intense eyes in her memory, like a mark that had been seared there and couldn't be forgotten. She sighed, setting the pendant back down on the table. Her instincts told that it wouldn't be the last time she was seeing that mysterious man, although she sincerely wished she would be wrong about this.

"Is something wrong with the pendant, Miss?" Shujin asked, peering curiously over her young mistress's shoulder at the piece of white jade.

"No, it's nothing," Zi-ning replied. "I'll need to make a trip down to the jeweller's tomorrow. Tell the servants to prepare the carriage in the morning."

#

Elsewhere in the Han manor, someone was throwing a tantrum and everything she could lay her hands on went flying across the room, smashing into pieces as it smashed against the wall. Meiyan's maids were scrambling to clean up the carnage while fearing for their own lives at the same time as their young mistress sought to release her pent-up frustrations by taking it out on the furniture. The offensive coral bracelet lay on the table in its rosewood box and the more she looked at it the angrier she became.

"How could Ouyang Sangya have come in first place!" she yelled, picking up a vase and hurling it at the wall. The porcelain shattered with a loud crash. "And Han Zi-ning! Who the hell does she think she is, trying to steal my limelight? That little bitch!"

She stormed over to the table and picked up the coral bracelet, raising it high up in the air.

The door to her room suddenly swung open and her mother rushed in. "Meiyan! What are you doing? You can't throw that!" she exclaimed, grabbing her daughter's arm before she could commit the folly of throwing the coral bracelet against the wall. She pried the bracelet from out of the girl's fingers, carefully placing it back into the box and gesturing for the maids to keep it somewhere safe.

Sitting her daughter down, she said, "Meiyan, I know you are frustrated but there are some things that cannot be done. That bracelet was a gift from the queen. If you break it and the palace finds out, the consequences will be dire!"

"But Mother, how did things turn out that way?" Meiyan whined, tugging at her mother's sleeve. She had spent the afternoon crying ever since she returned from the palace, after which she began wrecking her room to vent her anger. "Everything was going so well and then, and then..." The waterworks started up again and the tears started streaming down her pretty face.

Lady Min gently wiped away her daughter's tears. "My poor Meiyan. Not too worry, the game isn't over yet. The queen had a good impression of you so there's still a chance that she'll pick you as the crown prince's consort. You won the votes from the two Huang brothers, did you not?"

"Who cares about them!" Meiyan burst out, blowing her nose in her handkerchief.

The Huang brothers might be close friends with the princes and have a strong family background but ultimately they weren't members of the royal family. Marrying a prince and marrying a noble made a world of a difference and Meiyan was determined to become a princess by hook or by crook.

"The fifth and eighth princes looked upon you favourably too. I saw it in their eyes." Lady Min placed her hands on her daughter's cheeks affectionately. "My Meiyan is the most beautiful in the capital, how could they not be impressed?"

"That is true," Meiyan sniffed. "I caught the fifth prince looking at me a couple of a times. Prince Ru-an is so handsome, isn't he?" Out of the few princes, the crown prince took after the king most, which was part of the reason why the king favoured him over his other sons. However, Ru-an was known to be the best looking of the princes, having inherited his mother's delicate, soft features. Just thinking of the man's charming smile and warm gaze was enough to send butterflies fluttering through her stomach.

"The fifth prince may be handsome, but it is the crown prince who will eventually sit on the throne," Lady Min said. "If you become his consort, you will one day become queen of this kingdom. That is the only position that befits you, my precious girl."

"That is also true." Meiyan sighed. If she wanted to be queen and lord over all those annoying girls that were at the gathering earlier, she could only marry the crown prince. The thought of Ouyang Sangya becoming queen and sitting above her made her bridle with irritation. She would never forget the smug look on that girl's face when she took the gold hairpin that the queen had awarded her.

"But Mother," Meiyan said, her forehead crinkling into a frown, "you have to do something about Zi-ning. What's wrong with her? It's like she's become a completely different person since she returned from Taishan."

Lady Min's expression darkened, her features contorting.

From the moment Zi-ning stepped in, she had attracted everyone's attention. It was partly because the other noble ladies could not recognise the unfamiliar face, but also because the girl had blossomed into a beautiful flower over the past two years. Without the clothes and make-up to distract from her face, Zi-ning's natural beauty shone and she now looked like the spitting image of her late mother, Yang Yihua, who had once been touted as the belle of the capital.

Lady Min patted her daughter's hand reassuringly, saying, "It was a mistake to have let Zi-ning go. Don't worry, Meiyan. I'll find a way to get rid of her so that she can't pose any threat to you whatsoever. I am the lady of the house now and there is no way I will allow that little brat to step all over you."