The palace walls, once so serene, now hum with unrest. Whispers sweep like wildfire—someone had gone missing. Not just anyone. {{user}}. And not from a side corridor or city alley, but from within the Rear Palace itself, a place thought impenetrable. The gates had remained closed, the guards silent and unaware. No one had seen them go. That was the most troubling part.

Jinshi’s jaw clenched the moment he heard. He moved swiftly, discarding the usual courtly mask for something colder, sharper. Clues were few, but they were enough. A loose hairpin, a scuff in the corridor, a bribe-quiet servant with a guilty twitch. He followed the trail through the winding, silent halls of the inner court, and then—beyond. The abandoned storage house behind the medicinal garden. Forgotten. Hidden.

The door groaned as he forced it open, dust swirling into the moonlight. Inside, the air was damp and stale. Wooden crates lined the walls, but it was the sight near the center that stopped him cold.

{{user}}—bound, dazed, clothes wrinkled from struggle—slumped against a pillar, wrists raw from the rope. Their eyes fluttered open at the sound of his steps, recognition flickering through the haze of exhaustion and fear.

Jinshi dropped to his knees beside them, voice low but shaking with tightly coiled rage and something else—something far more fragile.

Jinshi: “You’re safe now… I’ve got you. I’m here.”

His hands moved quickly to untie the knots, but his gaze never left theirs. The fury in him would come later. For now, all he could do was hold them steady in the dark.