The Broken Phoenix
Sophia reveals her exceptional embroidery skills and the use of a sewing machine to repair the Phoenix Robe, but the deception is uncovered when the phoenix's neck is found broken, leading to accusations of a curse.Will Sophia face consequences for the broken Phoenix Robe?
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First-Class Embroiderer: When the Altar Holds More Lies Than Silk
The temple hall is bathed in amber light, the air thick with beeswax and suppressed rage. At its center, the altar—draped in a crimson robe so rich it seems to pulse like a living thing—stands as both sacred object and silent witness. This is not just fabric. This is evidence. And the woman who placed it there, Li Xiu, stands before it like a priestess about to commit sacrilege. Her hands, usually steady enough to thread a needle through gossamer silk, tremble now—not from weakness, but from the unbearable weight of what she knows. The First-Class Embroiderer does not embroider merely for beauty. She embroiders for memory. For warning. For revenge disguised as devotion. Let us talk about Su Rong. Oh, Su Rong—the woman who walks into a room like spring mist, soft and harmless, until you realize the mist is carrying thorns. Her pale blue robe is exquisite, yes, lined with silver-threaded cranes that seem to take flight with every step. But look closer. The hem is uneven. One side dips half an inch lower than the other—a flaw no master artisan would permit. Unless, of course, it was intentional. A signal. A signature. Li Xiu notices it immediately. She always does. Because Su Rong’s robes were once stitched by *her* apprentice, Xiao Mei—who disappeared the night the Grand Tutor’s ledger went up in smoke. The ledger that listed payments to a certain ‘Silk Weaver of the Western Gate’. A name Li Xiu had never heard… until three days ago, when a bloodstained scrap of cloth, bearing the same crane motif, was slipped under her door. Jing Heng, meanwhile, sits like a statue carved from marble and regret. His white robe, edged in ermine, is immaculate—too immaculate. No crease, no dust, no sign he has lived a single day outside ceremony. He watches Su Rong with the attentiveness of a man studying a chessboard, not a person. When she laughs—high, bright, utterly devoid of warmth—he smiles back, but his eyes remain fixed on Li Xiu. Not with affection. With assessment. He is calculating how much longer he can let her hold the candle before the flame burns his own hands. Because Li Xiu knows. She knows about the midnight meetings in the ink-stained pavilion. She knows about the forged decree hidden inside the hollow leg of the incense burner. And she knows—*knows*—that the red robe on the altar was not meant for blessing. It was meant for burial. The turning point arrives not with a shout, but with a sip. Lady Chen, seated at the side table with her bowl of lychees and pink pastries, lifts her teacup. Her fingers, adorned with rings of jade and mother-of-pearl, are steady. Too steady. She does not drink immediately. She waits. Waits for Su Rong to finish her third compliment to Jing Heng. Waits for the murmur of guests to dip. Then, with a grace that belies the storm in her chest, she drinks. And as the liquid touches her tongue, her eyes flick upward—not to the ceiling, but to the embroidered phoenix on Li Xiu’s back. A silent acknowledgment. A pact sealed in tannins and trauma. What follows is not chaos. It is choreography. Su Rong stumbles. Not by accident. She *chooses* the moment, the angle, the exact placement of her foot against the rug’s loose thread—a thread Li Xiu herself had noticed earlier and deliberately left untied. As Su Rong falls, her sleeve rides up, and there it is: the mark. Not a scar. A tattoo. Tiny, precise, in the shape of a spool with two crossed needles. The symbol of the *Shadow Loom Guild*—a clandestine circle of artisans who do not serve the court, but manipulate it. Li Xiu’s breath stops. She has seen that symbol before. On the lining of the late Empress’s mourning veil. On the inner cuff of the Chancellor’s winter coat. On the sole of a sandal found floating in the palace moat. And then—Jing Heng moves. Not to help Su Rong. Not to comfort her. He steps *between* her and Li Xiu, his body a barrier, his voice low and smooth as oiled silk: “My lady, the floor is uneven. A hazard for delicate feet.” Delicate. Not *truthful*. Not *loyal*. *Delicate*. The word hangs in the air like smoke. Li Xiu does not speak. She does not need to. She simply raises the candle higher, letting the flame catch the edge of the red robe on the altar. For a heartbeat, the phoenix’s eye—stitched with a single bead of black obsidian—seems to gleam. Then, the wick sputters. A drop of wax falls. It lands on the hem of Su Rong’s blue robe, smoking briefly before cooling into a hardened tear. That is when Li Xiu smiles. Not kindly. Not cruelly. *Accurately*. The First-Class Embroiderer understands that truth, like thread, must be pulled slowly—or it snaps. And when it does, it takes everything with it. The robe. The throne. The lie that has held this court together for seventeen years. She lowers the candle. Turns. Walks toward the exit—not fleeing, but repositioning. Because the most dangerous move in this game is not the strike, but the step back. The pause before the needle pierces the cloth. Later, in the dim light of the embroidery chamber, Li Xiu will unfold the hidden panel beneath the worktable. Inside: a scroll, sealed with wax stamped with the spool-and-needles sigil. And a single line, written in ink that smells of bitter almond: *You were never meant to finish the third robe.* The audience may think this is about power. About love. About betrayal. But it is not. It is about craft. About the unbearable precision of a life spent measuring every thread, every knot, every silence between stitches. The First-Class Embroiderer does not seek justice. She seeks *completion*. And tonight, as the temple bells toll and the red robe begins to smolder at the hem, she finally understands: some patterns cannot be corrected. They must be burned—and from the ashes, a new design will rise. One stitched not in silk, but in consequence.
First-Class Embroiderer: The Phoenix Thread That Snapped
In the opulent hall of the Imperial Ancestral Temple, where every thread of silk whispers legacy and every candle flickers with unspoken judgment, the First-Class Embroiderer Li Xiu stands not as a mere artisan—but as the silent architect of fate. Her crimson robe, heavy with phoenix motifs stitched in gold and silver, is not just ceremonial attire; it is armor. The embroidered phoenix on her back—its wings outstretched, beak open mid-cry—was said to have been completed only after three sleepless nights, each stitch infused with a vow: *I will not break*. Yet, as the camera lingers on the frayed edge near the left wing’s tip—a tiny black knot hidden beneath layers of satin—we realize the truth: even the most perfect embroidery carries a flaw, waiting for the right tension to unravel it. Li Xiu holds the candlestick with trembling fingers, not from fear, but from restraint. Her eyes, sharp as needlepoints, scan the room—not the throne, not the guests, but the woman in pale blue silk standing beside the white-robed man, Jing Heng. That woman, Su Rong, smiles too often, bows too low, and speaks in honeyed tones that never quite reach her pupils. She is the kind of guest who arrives with gifts wrapped in jade paper and leaves with secrets tucked into her sleeve. When Su Rong glances toward the red robe draped over the altar—a garment meant for the Empress Dowager’s blessing—her lips twitch, almost imperceptibly, as if she’s already imagined herself wearing it. Li Xiu sees this. She always sees everything. The scene shifts to the banquet table, where Lady Chen, seated in ivory brocade with silver cloud patterns, sips tea with deliberate grace. Her posture is flawless, her expression serene—but her knuckles whiten around the porcelain cup when Jing Heng leans toward Su Rong and murmurs something that makes her laugh, a sound like wind chimes in a storm. Lady Chen does not look up. She does not need to. She knows the weight of silence better than anyone. In this world, speech is currency, and silence is the vault where power is stored. When she finally lifts her gaze, it is not at Jing Heng, but at Li Xiu—across the aisle, across the years, across the unspoken betrayal that began the moment Li Xiu chose loyalty over love. What makes this sequence so devastating is not the grand confrontation, but the micro-expressions—the way Su Rong’s smile falters when Jing Heng’s hand brushes hers, the way Li Xiu’s breath catches when the candle flame flares as if sensing the coming rupture. The First-Class Embroiderer does not scream. She does not weep. She simply tightens her grip on the candlestick, her thumb pressing against the base until the metal bites into her palm. Blood, warm and quiet, seeps between her fingers. She does not wipe it away. Let them see. Let them wonder why the woman who mends empires’ robes cannot mend her own hands. Then comes the fall. Not metaphorical. Literal. Su Rong stumbles—not clumsily, but with theatrical precision—as if the floor itself has betrayed her. Jing Heng rushes forward, catching her elbow, his face a mask of concern that doesn’t quite hide the calculation behind his eyes. Li Xiu watches, unmoving, as Su Rong’s sleeve slips, revealing a faint scar along her inner wrist—a mark Li Xiu recognizes instantly. It matches the one on the discarded draft pattern found in the workshop last moon: the one labeled *Project Vermilion Veil*, commissioned by the late Grand Secretary’s widow, who vanished three months ago. The scar is not from an accident. It is from a needle—*Li Xiu’s* needle—used to bind a poison-laced thread into a ceremonial sash. A sash that was never delivered. A sash that now lies buried beneath the willow tree in the eastern courtyard, where Li Xiu goes every dawn to whisper apologies to the wind. The camera zooms in on the embroidered phoenix again—this time, the black knot has unraveled slightly. A single thread dangles, swaying like a pendulum counting down to revelation. Li Xiu does not look away. She knows what happens next. The tea Lady Chen is holding? It contains powdered *bai zhi*, a herb that induces lucid dreams—and confessions. Su Rong will drink it soon. Jing Heng will pretend not to notice. And Li Xiu? She will stand, still holding the candle, as the flame gutters in the sudden draft from the open door. Because the First-Class Embroiderer understands something no one else dares admit: the most dangerous threads are not the ones you sew, but the ones you leave hanging—waiting for someone else to pull. This is not just a court drama. It is a textile tragedy. Every character is woven from contradiction: Jing Heng, whose fur-trimmed robe hides a spine of ice; Su Rong, whose delicate gestures conceal a mind sharper than a seamstress’s awl; Lady Chen, whose silence is louder than any accusation. And Li Xiu—the First-Class Embroiderer—she is the loom itself, bearing the weight of every pattern, every mistake, every thread that should have been cut but wasn’t. The title *The Phoenix Thread That Snapped* is not hyperbole. It is prophecy. When the final stitch gives way, it won’t be the robe that tears—it will be the dynasty.