After the strategists make their decision to pair Zetian with Shimin, Zetian is thrown in a holding cell for several days. She dreams of hanging herself with her robes and wishes she could lose the will to live, but she ultimately fights against her suicidal ideation and keeps eating the food shoved under her door despite her despair. When Hunduns suddenly attack due to the spirit pressure spike of the Nine-Tailed Fox’s transformation, Zetian is dragged from her cell and paired with Li Shimin, and as she is shoved into the Vermillion Bird, she plots a way to take control of the Chrysalis and kill Shimin.

Shimin’s mind-realm is a land made of swords and a lake of fire. Zetian fights to not be consumed by the lake of fire and finds herself attacked by birds similar to the Vermillion Bird. As with Yang Guang, when she finds the child-version of Li Shimin, she pushes him into the lake of fire and kills him, an act that snaps her out of the mind-realm and into the yin-yang realm where she tries to kill Shimin. Instead, Shimin fights back, and the two discover that they are completely equal in power and therefore unable to kill one another.