For the first time in weeks, Lan Yue slept past dawn.
She woke to sunlight warming her face and the distant sound of birds arguing in the plum tree outside the window. The room was quiet. Warm. The kind of warm that came from a night without crisis, without midnight excursions, without the constant low hum of anxiety that had become so familiar she had forgotten what its absence felt like.
She lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, letting the realization settle.
It was over. Actually over. Qin Wen was under formal investigation. The evidence was in imperial hands. The demonic accusation had been dismantled before it could take root. Zhao Lingxi was safe. The sect was not burning down.
Lan Yue exhaled. The breath came out long and shaky and carried with it something heavy that she had been holding in her chest for so long it had started to feel like a rib.
She turned her head.
