The Weeping Moon: The Moon That Sheds Vermilion Tears

Linyue simply turned to He Yuying, her face calm, unreadable but her fingers were held out with quiet authority. It was the universal gesture of: Give me the thing.

He Yuying blinked. "Huh?" he mouthed, confused for a second—then it clicked. Right. Luggage manager. Decree handler. The sacred holder of scrolls and emergency snacks.

With a resigned sigh, he reached into his robes. There was a squelch. He grimaced. Possibly whimpered. After a bit of careful rummaging—accompanied by the occasional twitch and one brief moment of alarm when something moved—he found it.

Finally, he retrieved the imperial decree—glorious, golden-inked, once majestic. Now lightly adorned with decorative smears of green algae. It smelled faintly of disappointment.

He didn't hand it to her. That would've been too clean, too dignified.

He dropped it into her hand. Slowly. Cautiously. As if it was a soggy dumpling he wasn't sure was safe to eat. There was a soft, wet plop, followed by a single, heartbreaking drip as swamp water slid dramatically off one corner of the scroll—like the scroll itself was crying.

Across from them, the maybe-Shu-Mingye man raised a single eyebrow. Just slightly. But somehow, it felt like the temperature dropped three degrees.

Perfect.

Unbothered—at least on the surface—Linyue lifted the decree with both hands, algae and all, like it was a priceless relic and not, in fact, a soggy scroll that had spent the last two hours cuddling moss. After all, what was a little bog water between future husband and wife?

If anyone asked later, this was diplomacy at its finest.

Linyue dignifiedly stepped forward and extended the decree.

The maybe-Shu-Mingye took it like a man accepting a challenge, or perhaps a cursed object. Like he'd been handed both a royal decree and a personal inconvenience. His crimson-streaked fingers touched the scroll without hesitation—because of course a man like that wouldn't flinch at swamp slime. Probably wrestled worse before breakfast. The scroll unfurled with a dramatic rustle, somehow sounding dignified despite dripping algae directly onto his black boots.

His eyes scanned the golden characters. Imperial seal. Second Princess. Marriage.

Then… he slowly looked up.

What stared back at him was less royal bride and more swamp casualty. The group of four looked like they'd lost a fistfight with a marsh—and the marsh had not been merciful.

Princess Fu Yuxin, the supposed Second Princess of the Yunyue Dynasty, stood front and center in her moss-scented glory, green slime streaking her cheek like war paint, her hair tangled into something that could only be described as "aggressively natural." Strands of moss clung to her like decorative tassels. A small leaf hung stubbornly from one eyebrow. Her robes had once been white, probably. Now they were…creative. Her boots squelched if she even breathed too hard.

Behind her stood three others in equally tragic states.

His gaze slid down to the decree. Then back up to Linyue. Then back to the decree again.

"… This?" he finally said, his voice perfectly blank.

Linyue met his gaze. "Yes," she said with a calm nod. "It's me."

Shu Mingye said nothing, but his expression screamed: Are you sure?

He gave her another long, silent look—the kind usually reserved for suspicious artifacts or unstable explosives. Surely, this was a trick. Any moment now, she'd rip off a clever disguise, the moss would fall away, and underneath would be a pristine, glittering princess.

But alas, the moss was real, and the smell? Unmistakably swamp-flavored.

In that moment, Shu Mingye faced an existential crisis of few war-hardened generals ever experienced: was the emperor testing him… pranking him… or… was this his revenge?

Behind Linyue, her entourage was no help.

Song Meiyu flashed a cheerful double thumbs-up, her sleeves still clinging to her arms like clingy seaweed. Shen Zhenyu stood stiffly, eyes fixed on some distant point in the horizon, as if silently writing a letter of resignation to all life choices that led to this moment. He Yuying coughed into his sleeve—either to muffle a laugh or to avoid swallowing yet another floating fleck of algae. Possibly both.

It was, without doubt, the moss memorable meeting of the decade.

Without breaking eye contact—despite being acutely aware of the algae still dripping from her sleeves—Linyue drew herself up with as much royal dignity as one could muster while looking like a kelp-wrapped dumpling.

She lifted one hand—elegant despite the squelch—and gestured to her right. "This is my personal maidservant, Meiyu," she said her tone perfectly polished… if slightly scented with bog.

Song Meiyu, standing proudly in a dress that resembled an overgrown salad, stepped forward proudly. She gave a deep, sweeping bow worthy of a palace debut. A piece of weed fluttered dramatically from her shoulder, landing with a wet slap on the stone path. She didn't even flinch. A professional.

Then Linyue shifted her dripping arm toward the other two. "And these are Yuying and Zhenyu—my personal guards."

Shen Zhenyu gave a solemn nod—the kind of nod that should have radiated quiet strength and dependable loyalty… if not for the large, defiant piece of moss clinging proudly to the tip of his nose. It wobbled slightly with the motion, like it, too, was making a formal introduction.

Beside him, He Yuying stood as tall and serious as possible. Which was difficult, considering a loud, wet squelch came from beneath his boot the moment he shifted weight. No one mentioned it. No one even blinked. Some things were better left buried—preferably under a dry rock. It was safer that way.

This had all been decided, of course, in the rickety carriage ride on the way—when they unanimously agreed that arriving as a royal bride, a maidservant, and two personal guards would be far more believable than "four swamp-surfing lunatics who chased a possibly imaginary spirit beast and lost a battle to suspicious grass."

And honestly, it made sense. A Second Princess was expected to bring attendants. It was not expected, however, that those attendants would look like they'd been chewed up and politely spit out by a mildly offended forest.

Across from them, Shu Mingye remained perfectly silent.

Unmoving. Unblinking. Unimpressed.

The red smear across his cheek somehow made his glare more intense.

A soft breeze stirred, lifting a single leaf off Song Meiyu's head and carrying it away.

And so began what would forever be remembered—by gossipy maids, dramatic court scribes, and at least one very traumatized carriage driver—as the most awkward royal introduction in the history of Shulin Palace.

A moment destined for whispers behind fans, dramatic retellings in teahouses, and a small, footnoted line in the palace records:

Princess arrived. Covered in swamp.

A glorious beginning indeed.