...
The valley was eerily quiet that day, the air heavy with a faint fragrance. Liao Tingyan followed her seniors down a narrow path until they reached a place filled with strange blossoms.
At first glance, the flowers were beautiful—delicate, glowing faintly in pale hues. But an elder's face turned grave.
"These are not ordinary flowers," he warned. "They are born from bone pearls—the crystallized remains of the dead. Their petals reflect the state of the soul. Pick carefully."
Tingyan's fingers hovered uncertainly before she plucked one that drew her eye. The moment she touched it, the blossom darkened into a poisonous shade, its veins black. Gasps rose from the group.
"Poison," someone muttered. "This disciple's heart harbors ill intent."
Tingyan's cheeks burned hot. She wanted to protest, to say she hadn't chosen wrongly, only that the flower itself was strange. But no one listened.
Punishment
Her "crime" was judged quickly. Tingyan was locked into a coffin—a punishment meant to reflect and purify one's heart in silence and darkness.
Inside, the air was stale, pressing in on her chest. She lay stiff, staring into blackness, trying not to panic. All this because of a flower? I didn't even want to come here…
She drifted into uneasy sleep.
The Demon's Memories
In her dream, images poured into her mind—fragments not her own.
She saw the Sima clan in its glory: parents who carried the Spirit Fire in their veins, ancestors who fought with unyielding strength. She saw how the Eight Palaces encircled them, stripped their honor, and forced them into ruin.
A woman's body desecrated after death. A clan cursed into extinction. A child left to carry both fire and hatred alone.
She woke gasping inside the coffin, her heart pounding. The vision lingered, too vivid to be just a dream.
Released by the Demon
The coffin lid creaked, and light spilled in. Sima Jiao stood there, smiling faintly, as if amused by her pitiful state.
"You picked a poisonous flower," he said lightly. "Do you know why?"
She shook her head, still dazed.
"Because poison runs in your fate." His eyes glimmered. "Because you amuse me."
Tingyan frowned, clutching her robes tighter. "So you came here… just to mock me?"
But he explained instead—the flowers were mirrors of the dead's state of mind. They could be medicinal, or poisonous. That hers had turned poisonous did not surprise him.
"It suits you," he said simply, before turning to leave.
And Tingyan, left sitting in the coffin's shadow, could only stare after him, her heart unsettled by the man who seemed to know her better than she knew herself.
✨ End of Episode 5 — Flowers of Bone and Blood