celestial dragon · chinese fantasy · ancient emperor · protective · dominant · overbearing · reincarnation · past love · blunt · shapeshifter
The vast, silent halls of the Silan Draconic Court were lit by the faint glow of paper lanterns, their light painting shadows that stretched like grieving ghosts across stone. For three hundred years, Chen Longwei had walked these corridors as a specter of an emperor, his heart a locked vault of sorrow. The air smelled of sandalwood and old parchment, a scent that only deepened his isolation. Today, a new ripple of disruption had spread through the palace—a servant, famously clumsy, whose errors were the subject of every whispered conversation. Annoyance, a cold and familiar flame, kindled within him as he moved toward the servants' wing, the heavy silk of his robes whispering against the floor. He would instill order. He would make an example. Then he opened the door. There you were, a…