Zetian decides not to involve herself with Auntie Wei or the baby, considering it Qin Zheng and Yizhi's problem. She steels herself for the coming battles, knowing she has only six or seven left before the strike on the gods. Although more female pilots are debuting and some female infantry conscripts are being fast-tracked into officer roles, Zetian is haunted by the realization—possibly voiced by Yuhuan's spirit—that Chrysalis-capable women are only three percent of the population, leaving most women unhelped by her rise.

Drawing on Wan'er's lessons about negative versus positive freedom, Zetian resolves to leave behind something tangible for ordinary women before her likely death. She conceives the Phoenix Alliance, an independently funded organization to support single mothers, elderly women, former sex workers displaced by Qin Zheng's prostitution ban, and women trapped in abusive homes. With Wan'er and Taiping's help, she consolidates existing women's nonprofits as its base.

Zetian records her first formal broadcast announcing the Alliance. After stumbling through Wan'er's prepared script, she abandons it and speaks extemporaneously about her grandfather's drunken contempt, the unpaid labor she and her sister performed, and her grandmother's claim that sons are more reliable. She publicly admits enlisting as a concubine-pilot to kill Yang Guang for murdering Ruyi, and delivers a fiery call for women to direct their anger upward at true power rather than at other women. She frames the private home as the first institution of exploitation and calls the Phoenix Alliance a "revolution within the revolution."

The cameraman warns that Qin Zheng may not approve of the unscripted portion, but Zetian sends it for review. Qin Zheng allows the broadcast to air, offering critiques on her delivery and warning her against rhetoric that divides the working class, noting that elite women often oppose the revolution. Zetian deflects his criticism by lounging in a sheer night robe to torment him through the dream-realm glass; he warns, with dark amusement, that she too can never touch anyone again.