Consort Gu still couldn't shake the unease that had settled over her. Quiet things were happening all around—ripples beneath the surface of everyday life—so many subtle shifts that it felt as if something enormous was about to break loose.
She had no idea what that something was. All she had was a bad feeling, the kind that tightens the stomach and makes sleep thin. The worst part was the unknown. Not knowing what would come made fear grow like a shadow. All she could do was prepare what she could and wait for the storm.
What she did not know was that the storm had already arrived.
The Huo residence was in chaos. The household had been put on the highest alert—rumors flew that the fourth floor had been ransacked, family treasures stolen. The Huo clan was frantically calling every child back to the estate. The summons was abrupt, almost coercive; few were told why.
While Huo Cheng was in the city handling official business, a man from the estate had come to fetch him. Polite but uncompromising—he had been told the house had been breached and that he must return at once. Abroad, Huo Xin had been enjoying herself when a similar messenger appeared. The tone was the same: respectful on the surface, impossible to refuse.
Huo Cheng arrived at the ancestral home alone. He had thought of bringing Gu Sisi with him; he wanted to. But he knew better than to drag her into the Huo household now—her presence would only inflame things. The family had never accepted Gu Sisi's mother; bringing her back into that atmosphere would be pouring oil on the fire.
Inside the old hall, Huo Zhen sat waiting. Strangely, despite the highest alert, their mother was nowhere to be seen—only their father stood there, his face iron-gray.
When Huo Cheng came in, Huo Senior glanced at him and let out two low snorts. “Where are your eldest sister and second brother?”
“Don’t play innocent,” he spat. “Bring them to me. Don’t pretend I don’t know—you had them detained.”
“If they hadn’t set their hands on my children first, none of this would’ve happened,” Huo Cheng shot back.
“Your children?” the father barked. “They’re still Huo children. Don’t think that moving out makes them strangers to this family. That woman—we Huo family will never acknowledge her. Huo children are raised in the Huo house.”
The words hung between them like drawn blades. Huo Cheng and Huo Senior stared each other down, the house tightening around them with the pressure of impending violence.
A voice cut through the tension. “I’m home. What’s going on?” Fifth sister Huo Xin’s arrival dissolved the standoff. Her presence broke the immediate hostility but deepened her own confusion. Seeing their normally absent fourth brother back, the rarely-seen third brother there, while the usually loud eldest sister and second brother were missing—that was unsettling enough. And their mother—missing. That was the strangest of all.
“Father, where is Mother?” Huo Xin asked.
Huo Senior’s face did not soften. With a dismissive snort he said, “Ask your fourth brother.”
Ask the fourth brother? Huo Xin bristled inwardly. Why would he know? But before she could press it further, two of the household’s people arrived—ushering in the eldest sister and the second brother. Both looked disheveled and humiliated.
They had been kept in a musty, damp cell: rats scuttling in the corners, insects everywhere, no privacy, no chance to bathe. The confinement and filth had clearly shaken them. Yet now that they were free, their anger surfaced as arrogance. They cursed Huo Cheng as soon as they stood before him, as if their indignity proved their moral high ground. They strutted as if they’d been the ones wronged.
Huo Cheng ignored their swagger. There was a different urgency in his mind. The Huo house hadn’t raised the highest alert in years; whatever had happened was something severe. Father’s expression told him the same.
“Everyone, come with me,” Huo Senior ordered. He led the assembled siblings down a corridor to a small room and opened the door.
Their mother sat inside.
She had been kept there since she had helped Huo Cheng retrieve his two children—locked away by Huo Senior’s own hand. Seeing the family assembled, her first reaction was anger and embarrassment; she had not expected all of them to be brought to her. But the words that followed from Huo Senior made her face blanch.
“Madam, come out. Something’s been stolen from the Huo house.”
Her world seemed to tilt. She rose as if someone had pulled a cord inside her chest. Her face aged in an instant—lines deepening, color draining—until she looked ten years older. The sight of all five children gathered in one place, something that rarely happened, confirmed what she feared.
She stormed from the room, shoving past the children, dragging Huo Senior with her. They raced up to the fourth floor together, children trailing behind. At the landing they exchanged a look and took out their keys. With practiced hands they opened the door.
The room beyond was in ruins. Priceless paintings, antiques, delicate porcelain—everything lay scattered, some broken, some with lids and covers torn off. But amid the wreckage one object stood intact: a seven-tiered glazed pagoda, its lid fitted snugly, its glass panes gleaming as if untouched. It stood in the midst of chaos like a quiet, sober witness.
Huo Mother marched straight to it and lifted the lid. The pagoda had been crafted with exquisite detail—the top three tiers forming the cover. It had held a single item of immense importance: a sarira, the sacred relic bead that had been kept in the Huo house for generations.
Now the pagoda was empty.
Her face drained of color. She looked at her husband as if searching for a joke that would explain everything. But Huo Senior’s expression was blank, helpless; he had known before anyone else.
When word first came that something had been taken from the Huo household, the patriarch had immediately feared the sarira. In the Huo family no other object carried such weight. It was not merely a rare artifact.
It was not an ordinary sarira.