THE EMPEROR OF TIME

CHAPTER 8

THE PRINCESS WHO REMEMBERED TWO LIVES

The courtyard erupted into chaos.

“Protect the historian!” Zhao Wuchen shouted.

His sword struck the first soldier’s blade with a metallic crash. Shen Ruolan seized Tianyu’s arm and pulled him toward the narrow passage behind the dead tree.

“Move!”

Tianyu barely heard her.

His mother’s name still glowed in his mind.

CHEN YUE — STATUS: ALIVE.

For fifteen years, he had believed his mother was dead. He had mourned her, visited her grave, and learned to live with the emptiness her absence had left behind.

Now an impossible machine had told him she was alive.

Not somewhere in the world he knew.

Somewhere beyond a history that had been erased.

And the second emperor had found her.

“Tianyu!” Shen Ruolan shouted.

He stumbled into the passage just as an arrow struck the stone beside his head.

Behind them, Zhao fought with the desperation of a man who knew that losing this battle would cost him more than his life.

Tianyu stopped.

“We can’t leave him!”

“He can handle himself,” Shen Ruolan replied.

A crash sounded behind them.

“Then he’d better handle himself quickly!”

She dragged Tianyu around the corner.

The passage opened into a small courtyard behind a deserted residence. Shen Ruolan pushed aside a stack of wooden crates and revealed a narrow gate.

“Where does this lead?” Tianyu asked.

“To a street where the guards don’t patrol.”

“How do you know that?”

“My father built the passage.”

Tianyu looked at her.

“Master Shen built secret tunnels beneath the city?”

“He was an imperial scholar. He spent his life discovering what the court wanted hidden.”

She opened the gate.

“Now stop asking questions and run.”

They emerged into an alley filled with abandoned carts and broken pottery.

Shen Ruolan led him through three narrow streets before stopping beneath the overhanging roof of an old shop.

For the first time since the courtyard, Tianyu could hear his own breathing.

He looked back.

No soldiers followed them.

“Where is Zhao?”

“Either fighting his way out or being captured.”

“You sound remarkably unconcerned.”

“I have seen General Zhao survive situations that would have killed three ordinary men.”

She studied Tianyu’s face.

“But you are not thinking about Zhao, are you?”

Tianyu looked away.

“My mother is alive.”

Shen Ruolan said nothing.

“I saw her in a memory. I heard her voice. The pendant identified her.”

“Then you should be careful.”

“Careful? I’ve just learned that my mother may have been erased from history, that the emperor is an impostor, and that a second version of me is trying to rewrite the world. What exactly am I supposed to be careful about?”

“Believing everything you see.”

Tianyu fell silent.

Shen Ruolan continued.

“The Gate of Time does not simply move people from one year to another. It can expose memories, create false recollections, and show people events that never happened. My father believed that the greatest danger was not traveling through time.”

“What was it?”

“Losing the ability to distinguish your memories from someone else’s.”

Tianyu remembered the vision in the courtyard.

Xueyan as a little girl.

Her calling him Brother.

He had never met her before arriving in 617 AD.

At least, that was what he believed.

“What do you know about Xueyan?” he asked.

Shen Ruolan glanced toward the eastern palace.

“Enough to know that the princess is more important than she realizes.”

“Tell me.”

“Not here.”

She pulled her hood over her head.

“We need to find a safe place before nightfall. Then I will tell you what my father discovered.”

Tianyu followed her into the shadows.

But as they walked, he could not shake the feeling that someone was watching them from a place he could not see.

Someone who knew every step they would take.

Someone who had already lived through this day.

By midday, they reached an abandoned residence near the old canal.

The building had once belonged to a wealthy merchant. Its wooden doors hung from broken hinges, and dust covered the stone floor. But the upper rooms remained intact, and the courtyard wall concealed the building from the main road.

Shen Ruolan checked the windows before allowing Tianyu inside.

“Your father came here,” she said.

Tianyu looked around.

“When?”

“Before his disappearance. He and my father used this place to exchange information.”

“Did you meet him?”

“Once.”

“What was he like?”

She considered the question.

“Like a man who had seen the end of the world and was trying to persuade everyone else that it could still be prevented.”

Tianyu almost smiled.

“That sounds like him.”

Shen Ruolan removed a loose floorboard beneath a wooden cabinet.

Inside lay a bundle of letters tied with blue thread.

She handed him the first.

The handwriting was unmistakable.

Chen Guowei.

Tianyu read the letter aloud.

Shen,

The first experiment succeeded, but the consequences are worse than we expected. Chen Yue has entered the first world. She remembers the original sequence of events, but each attempt to return causes the timeline to fracture.

The girl has also begun to remember.

If she and the boy meet again, the Gate may recognize them as two halves of the same key.

We must prevent the emperor from discovering their connection.

Tianyu stopped reading.

“The girl?”

Shen Ruolan nodded.

“Princess Xueyan.”

“And the boy?”

“You.”

He looked up sharply.

“This letter was written before I arrived in 617 AD.”

“Yes.”

“But it says we might meet again. How could my father know that?”

“Because he had already seen another version of your meeting.”

Tianyu stared at the paper.

“Explain.”

Shen Ruolan sat beside the table.

“My father believed that the Gate of Time did not create a single journey. It created branching possibilities. In one timeline, your father opened the Gate and brought you into the past. In another, he never opened it. In a third, you were born into the ancient world instead of modern Beijing.”

“That is impossible.”

“So is standing in a city that history says should have fallen under different circumstances.”

Tianyu had no answer.

She continued.

“Your father discovered that some people could retain memories when the timelines changed. He called them Rememberers. They carried fragments of lives that had been erased.”

“And Xueyan is one of them?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because she was present during the first experiment.”

Tianyu read the letter again.

The girl has also begun to remember.

He thought of Xueyan’s confidence, her strange familiarity with the jade pendant, and the way she had looked at him when they first met.

She had been ordered to kill him.

But what if the order had not been the reason she approached him?

What if she had recognized him?

“Did she know who I was when we met?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Then why does everyone seem to know more about my life than I do?”

Shen Ruolan’s expression softened.

“Because your father was trying to protect you.”

“By keeping the truth from me?”

“Sometimes people hide the truth because they believe the person they love cannot survive knowing it.”

Tianyu looked down at the letter.

“And sometimes they hide it because they are afraid of what that person will do.”

Shen Ruolan did not disagree.

He opened the second letter.

This one was shorter.

If the second emperor awakens, he will seek the girl.

If the girl remembers her first life, she will seek the boy.

If they remember each other completely, the Gate will open without a key.

And when that happens, the world will have to choose which history deserves to exist.

Tianyu slowly lowered the letter.

“What happens if the Gate opens?”

Shen Ruolan’s answer was almost a whisper.

“One world survives. The other disappears.”

That evening, Tianyu dreamed of a garden.

White flowers covered the ground, and a stone bridge crossed a narrow stream. The air smelled of rain and sweet blossoms.

A little girl stood beneath a willow tree.

She wore a pale blue dress and held a paper lantern.

Tianyu recognized her immediately.

Xueyan.

She was perhaps ten years old, with the same determined eyes he remembered from the adult princess.

But she was not looking at him.

She was looking at someone standing beside him.

A woman with long black hair and a gentle smile.

His mother.

Chen Yue knelt beside the girl.

“Do you remember him?” she asked.

The girl nodded.

“Will he come back?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“When he remembers who he is.”

The girl looked toward Tianyu.

“But what if he forgets me again?”

Chen Yue brushed a strand of hair from the child’s forehead.

“Then you must decide whether you love the man he becomes or the memory of the boy he was.”

The garden dissolved.

Tianyu awoke with a gasp.

The room was dark, except for the faint blue glow of the jade pendant.

He sat upright, breathing hard.

It had been a dream.

It had to be.

Yet he could still smell the flowers.

He could still hear his mother’s voice.

And he remembered something he had never known before.

A name.

A name his mother had used for him when he was a child.

“Little Dragon,” he whispered.

The pendant flashed.

A message appeared.

MEMORY FRAGMENT ACCEPTED.

CONNECTION TO SUBJECT LI XUEYAN: 17%.

Tianyu stared at the number.

Seventeen percent of what?

How many memories did the Gate contain?

How much of his life had already been lived by another version of himself?

Before he could examine the pendant further, a sound came from downstairs.

Three knocks.

A pause.

Then two more.

Shen Ruolan had taught him the signal earlier that evening. Five knocks meant someone had found their safe house.

Tianyu reached for the sword Zhao had left behind.

He descended the stairs.

A figure stood at the entrance, leaning heavily against the doorframe.

“Zhao?”

The general stumbled inside.

Blood covered his sleeve, and his face was pale.

Tianyu caught him before he fell.

“What happened?”

Zhao sank into a chair.

“The palace.”

“Did they capture you?”

“No.”

He looked at Tianyu.

“They arrested Princess Xueyan’s former attendants. They searched the entire western district. Duan Shiming has been given command of the imperial army.”

“And Xueyan?”

Zhao hesitated.

“I found something.”

He reached into his armor and pulled out a narrow strip of silk.

It was marked with the same nine-line symbol.

Tianyu unfolded it.

A message appeared in black ink.

BRING THE HISTORIAN TO THE MOON GATE.

COME ALONE.

OR THE PRINCESS WILL REMEMBER HER DEATH.

Tianyu read it twice.

“What does that mean?”

Zhao’s expression was grim.

“I believe it means that someone has shown her how she dies in the first timeline.”

Tianyu looked toward the window.

Outside, the moon had begun to rise.

“Where is the Moon Gate?”

“An old entrance beneath the imperial palace. It was sealed twelve years ago, after Li Yuansheng’s execution.”

The same year Xueyan’s father disappeared.

The same year the mysterious lights appeared above Chang’an.

The same year Chen Yue was supposedly erased.

Tianyu felt the separate pieces of the mystery drawing together.

The Gate of Time.

Xueyan’s missing memories.

His mother’s disappearance.

And a second emperor who knew the future.

“I’m going,” he said.

Zhao shook his head.

“It’s a trap.”

“Of course it is.”

“Then why walk into it?”

“Because they have Xueyan.”

“And if they have prepared for you?”

Tianyu looked at the jade pendant.

“Then I will have to do something they haven’t predicted.”

The Moon Gate lay beneath the eastern palace, hidden behind an abandoned shrine.

Tianyu entered just before midnight.

He carried no soldiers, no banners, and no weapon except the sword at his waist. Zhao had insisted on accompanying him as far as the outer passage, but Tianyu had ordered him to remain behind and protect Shen Ruolan.

If the meeting was a trap, someone needed to survive long enough to understand what had happened.

The passage descended through layers of ancient stone.

At its end stood a circular chamber illuminated by nine bronze lamps.

Princess Li Xueyan knelt in the center.

Her hands were bound, but she appeared unharmed.

Tianyu took one step toward her.

“Xueyan.”

She lifted her head.

For a moment, relief softened her expression.

Then she began to cry.

“Tianyu,” she whispered. “You came.”

He moved toward her.

“I’m getting you out of here.”

“No.”

The word was so sudden that he stopped.

Xueyan shook her head.

“Don’t come any closer.”

“What happened to you?”

“I remembered.”

“Remembered what?”

She looked at him as though she were seeing two people at once.

“The first time you died.”

Tianyu felt the temperature in the chamber drop.

“What are you talking about?”

Xueyan struggled against the ropes.

“In the first world, you became emperor. You changed the laws, defeated the rebels, and united the kingdoms. You promised that no child would starve under your rule.”

Her voice trembled.

“Then the Gate opened.”

The bronze lamps flickered.

“You came to me that night and told me you had found a way to save everyone. You said the future could be repaired.”

Tianyu stared at her.

“I have never been emperor.”

“You were.”

“In another timeline?”

She shook her head.

“In my memory, you were the only emperor there ever was.”

A metallic sound echoed behind him.

The chamber’s far wall began to open.

A throne stood beyond it, surrounded by pale light.

Someone sat upon it.

Someone wearing Tianyu’s face.

The second emperor rose.

His robes were black and gold, and a thin scar crossed his left cheek. His eyes carried the exhaustion of a man who had spent centuries fighting a war no one else remembered.

He looked at Tianyu.

“You finally came.”

Tianyu drew his sword.

“Who are you?”

The other man smiled sadly.

“You already know.”

“No. I know what you look like. I know you claim to be me. But I don’t know why you want to destroy my life.”

The second emperor descended from the throne.

“Destroy your life?”

He glanced at Xueyan.

“I’m trying to save yours.”

Tianyu’s grip tightened.

“By kidnapping her?”

“By keeping you from repeating my mistake.”

“What mistake?”

The second emperor stopped a few steps away.

For a moment, his expression softened.

Then he said, “I loved her.”

He looked at Xueyan.

“And I killed her.”

Silence filled the chamber.

Tianyu felt as though the floor had vanished beneath him.

Xueyan began to tremble.

“No,” she whispered.

The second emperor closed his eyes.

“I opened the Gate to change history. I believed I could save my mother, protect the empire, and keep the woman I loved alive. But the Gate demanded a price.”

He looked directly at Tianyu.

“And when the time came, I chose the empire.”

Xueyan’s tears fell onto the stone floor.

“You told me you would never let me die.”

“I know.”

“You promised.”

“I know.”

“Then why?”

The second emperor had no answer.

For the first time, he looked truly broken.

Tianyu stepped between them.

“If you are me, then tell me how to stop it.”

The second emperor stared at him.

“You cannot stop it by becoming a better emperor. You cannot stop it by winning more battles or changing more laws. The Gate does not care whether you are good or evil.”

“Then what does it want?”

The other Tianyu looked toward the bronze lamps.

“It wants a choice.”

The lamps extinguished one by one.

Only the final flame remained.

The second emperor lifted his hand.

A small black key appeared between his fingers.

“The third key,” he said. “It was never an object. It was the memory of the first world, carried by someone who remembers both lives.”

He turned toward Xueyan.

“And she is the only person who can open the Gate without destroying the world.”

Tianyu looked at the princess.

“Then why are you keeping her here?”

“Because she has begun to remember the moment I killed her.”

The final lamp went dark.

In the darkness, Xueyan screamed.

The chamber filled with golden light.

Images flashed across the walls: a burning palace, a river choked with bodies, a woman standing before a bronze door, and an emperor kneeling beside a dying princess.

Then Tianyu saw himself.

Not the man sitting on the throne.

Not the historian who had arrived from Beijing.

A third version.

He wore simple white clothing and stood beside his mother.

Chen Yue held his hand.

Together, they faced a vast gate filled with stars.

His mother turned toward him.

“Remember,” she whispered.

The vision shattered.

When the light faded, the second emperor was gone.

The black key lay on the floor.

Xueyan’s ropes had fallen away.

Tianyu rushed toward her.

She looked up at him, her face pale.

“I remember now,” she whispered.

“Remember what?”

She reached for his hand.

“The first time we met.”

Tianyu knelt beside her.

“When was that?”

Xueyan’s eyes filled with tears.

“Before you were born.”

She pressed something into his palm.

A small photograph.

Tianyu stared at it.

It showed a young Chen Guowei standing beside Princess Xueyan.

Behind them stood Chen Yue.

The photograph was dated October 2026.

Tianyu’s hands began to shake.

His parents had been in ancient China.

Before he traveled back in time.

And beside them stood a woman who should have been living more than fourteen hundred years earlier.

Xueyan whispered the words that would change everything.

“Your mother brought me to your world.”