Useful. The word clung to her like ash. In the days that followed, Lin Wei learned what “reduced to Grey” truly meant. Her pigments were confiscated—the cinnabar sticks she had ground by hand, the lacquer pots sealed with her personal chop. The other ritualists, her former peers, averted their eyes when she passed in the corridor. Some looked at her with poorly hidden relief. Others, with pity so sharp it felt like a blade.
The imperial summons arrived on a gilded platter, carried by a eunuch whose hands trembled as he offered it. Lin Wei knew why, even before she unrolled the silk scroll and saw the characters stamped with the Vermilion Authority—the seal that bled like a wound across the page. scarlet revoked
She untied the silk sash with steady fingers. Each fold she unwrapped felt like peeling away a layer of skin. The robe slid from her shoulders with a whisper, and the cold air of her studio struck her like a betrayal. The eunuch took it, folding it with practiced reverence, as if the cloth itself might shatter. Useful
“The first lesson,” she said, “is that no authority can revoke what lives inside you. Scarlet wasn’t given to me. It was never mine to lose.” Her pigments were confiscated—the cinnabar sticks she had
Then the light faded. The wards held. The vinegar rain turned to clean water. And Lin Wei collapsed, her Grey robe now stained with a magnificent, impossible rainbow that would never wash out. The Empress did not restore her. She could not—to do so would be to admit that the Vermilion Authority had been a cage, not a covenant. Instead, Lin Wei was exiled to the Outer District, forbidden to enter the capital again.
“You’re still alive,” she whispered.