Since that fateful transaction with the robed man, I could feel my very cells shifting—a transformation both exhilarating and unnerving. The power coursing through me was intoxicating, yet its hidden cost gnawed at the edges of my consciousness like a persistent shadow.
"You are no longer the mere scholar you once were." Liu Rufeng’s words echoed in my skull, his detached tone a blade severing me from my past. And he was right. The girl who had fled the palace in scholar’s robes, who had clung to disguises and half-truths—she was gone. In her place stood something else: a vessel for burdens too vast to name, walking a path with no return.
Moonfall City’s nights thrummed with secrets. By day, I still played the part of the unassuming academic; by night, my newly awakened hunger drew me into its underbelly. The air itself seemed to press down with whispered warnings, yet I craved its darkness like a second skin.
Tonight, I returned to Liu Rufeng’s estate—not as a supplicant, but as an equal. The trembling novice who had once sought his protection was dead. What remained was a creature forged in shadow, ready to carve her own destiny.
"You’ve arrived just in time." Liu Rufeng lounged on his dais, eyes glinting with something between amusement and appraisal. His voice, once icy, now carried a thread of anticipation. "There’s a transaction you must witness tonight."
I schooled my features into calm. "What manner of transaction?"
A smirk. "Not mere commerce. A wager for power. Tonight will decide your future in Moonfall."
My lips pressed into a thin line. "I’m ready."
He led me deeper into the estate’s heart. The flickering torchlight illuminated a corridor like a descent into the underworld, yet I walked it with the ease of one returning home.
"You’ll join Moonfall’s elite in a game," Liu Rufeng murmured. "The stakes? Fortune, influence—and survival."
The grand chamber was a tableau of decadence and danger. Dice of ivory and jade littered the tables alongside decks of lacquered cards, each piece a weapon in this theater of greed. The city’s power brokers circled like vultures, their smiles razor-thin.
"Your seat." Liu Rufeng gestured to an empty chair. I took it without hesitation, meeting each calculating gaze around the table. Among these wolves, I was the only outsider—and the most dangerous player of all.
"Let us begin." An elder flung the first dice. The clatter echoed like a verdict.
I closed my eyes. Every roll was a crossroads; every card turned, a funeral for who I had been.
"You will win." Liu Rufeng’s whisper slithered into my ear—a promise or a curse.
When I opened my eyes again, the game board before me seemed to pulse. My fingers trembled, but not with fear. Tonight, I wasn’t just playing for coins or favor. I was rewriting my fate.
As the final dice tumbled across the table, the air itself seemed to still. The balance of Moonfall’s power hung in the balance—and I, no longer a pawn, no longer prey, would be the hand that tipped the scales.
The girl who had run was gone.
The queen of shadows had arrived.
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and then Add to home screen.