"Everyone out. This hall is about to collapse."
On my wedding night, I stood in the bridal hall in my wedding gown and glanced up at the roof beams.
The guests had not yet realized what was happening.
Half a quarter of an hour later, the main beam crashed down, smashing the wedding bed to pieces.
Everyone said the old Eastern Palace had simply fallen into disrepair.
But I was born into a family of master builders. I could tell at a glance:
That beam had not broken on its own.
Someone had tampered with it.
As it happened, I was not the one who was supposed to marry into this place today, either.
My elder sister suddenly fell ill just before her wedding, so I took her place and married Xiao Chengyan, the deposed crown prince.
With his leg injured and his power gone, the old Eastern Palace had lain abandoned for years. All of the capital was waiting to laugh at this marriage.
All I wanted at first was to find out who had tried to turn a joyous occasion into a funeral.
But after seven days of inspecting the palace, I discovered that the main beam was far from the only thing amiss.
The measurements behind the walls did not match the old plans.
A passage sealed for years showed signs of having been altered recently.
The abandoned waterways, hidden corridors, and palace gates seemed unrelated, yet it was as if the same pair of hands had changed them one by one.
And Xiao Chengyan, whom everyone said had lost all his power, always seemed able to produce things that should have vanished long ago.
A key.
An old plan.
A name no one should have mentioned for fifteen years.
Until one day, he slid the key across to me.
"Shen Jianwei, keep investigating."
As I took the key, I felt a genuine chill for the first time.
If the old Eastern Palace had never fallen into ruin naturally...
Then why was I, of all people, the one who understood construction best, sent here in the first place?
