The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis

The brazier hissed when a draft crept under the door.

Mingyu reached for the poker, turned the coals until flame licked high enough to push back the chill, and then lowered himself again onto the cushion. He was not cold. He was restless.

The palace had spent all afternoon whispering about Sun Longzi's appointment.

He could hear the shape of those whispers even here, in the inner hall where servants moved softer than ghosts. A new captain. A general stripped from the frontier and folded into the Emperor's shadow.

Madness, some called it.

Strategy, others.

To Mingyu, it was both.

The door slid back with quiet authority. Xinying entered first, her robes carrying the faintest trace of smoke from the cypress garden. Yaozu followed, as he always did, and Deming's steps were heavy, following a beat behind Xinying.

Yizhen was the last, his sleeves loose, a cup already balanced in one hand as if he'd plucked it from a table he didn't own.

They filled the chamber like elements—fire, steel, shadow, silk. And Mingyu was reminded again that he was married to the storm that bound them together.

He let his gaze rest on her. She moved as if the garden confrontation had not taken a breath from her, as if turning Lady Huai into ash with words was no different from crossing a courtyard.

Shadow trailed at her heel, muzzle wet from some hunt Mingyu didn't ask about. Lin Wei was already tucked in bed two rooms over; Mingyu had checked himself before sending the boy to sleep.

"Report," Xinying murmured, loosening the belt of her outer robe as she rolled her neck and shoulders, and sat down near the low table.

Deming's shoulders flexed. "Hooks fitted, lanterns shifted. Drills start before dawn."

Yaozu leaned against the doorframe, arms folded. "Lady Huai is scratching at her paper already. I've arranged for three of her letters to reach ears we control. By morning, she'll believe she still has a voice."

"She doesn't," Xinying replied flatly.

"No," Yaozu agreed. "But women with nothing left will sometimes bite. Better she bites into the hand we extend."

Mingyu let the rhythm wash over him. The Empress gave orders like a man poured tea—without ceremony, without pause. And the others fell into place, each finding their corner of the work, each shaping the empire in their own language.

But Longzi's absence filled the room more than his presence might have.

"You disapprove," Xinying said suddenly, turning her head toward Mingyu without lifting her eyes from the tea Yizhen had just set before her.

It wasn't an accusation. It wasn't even a question.

Mingyu folded his hands in his lap. "I find it… unusual."

Yizhen chuckled into his sleeve. "That's one word for it."

Deming shot him a look sharp enough to draw blood, but Yizhen only grinned wider, as if collecting other men's anger were a game he never lost.

Xinying sipped her tea, unbothered. "Unusual doesn't mean wrong."

"No," Mingyu admitted, voice low. "But it does mean costly. The court will gnaw this bone for months. They will whisper that you brought him here for yourself. That you—" He cut himself off.

Xinying's eyes lifted then, and the full weight of them held him still. "Let them whisper," she told him. "It's no skin off my back if their mouths are busy with that. Besides, like I said before, if they are paying that much attention to me, they will not find time to plot something useful against someone else."

Mingyu had no answer. Because she was right. She was always right when it came to people. He had studied law, poetry, the Mandate. She had studied hunger, knives, and silence. Her education was sharper.

"Do you trust him?" Mingyu asked finally.

"No," she said. "But I don't need to."

Yaozu's mouth twitched into the smallest shadow of a smile. Deming looked away as if he couldn't bear to admit the same truth. Yizhen drained his cup and refilled it, eyes glinting with mischief.

Mingyu pressed his thumb against his palm, grounding himself. "If he falters—"

"He won't," Xinying interrupted.

"You can't know that."

She set the cup down with a deliberate click. "I know this: men who give up armies for hallways don't do it for coin. They do it because they've already decided which shadow they want to stand in."

The chamber went quiet. Mingyu studied her face, searching for what she would not say aloud. She knew Longzi's choice carried madness. She also knew madness had its uses.

Deming broke the silence, voice tight. "He will test you."

"He'll lose," Yaozu replied dryly.

"That doesn't mean he won't try," Deming countered.

Xinying's mouth curved—neither smile nor threat, something sharper than both. "If he tries, he'll learn. And he'll keep learning until he's useful."

Mingyu felt the knot in his chest loosen slightly. That was her gift: to make even danger feel like part of the plan.

He leaned back against the cushion, watching as she rose to check the brazier, as if even fire needed her inspection to behave. Yizhen shifted to make space for her sleeve, pretending generosity.

Deming shadowed her step like a wall that learned how to walk. Yaozu stayed where he was, eyes never leaving the door, the eternal knife in the dark.

And Mingyu understood then what the court never would: these men weren't ornaments. They were weight. Each carried a piece of the empire on their shoulders. And she—his Empress—had bound them not with silk, but with purpose.

The fire hissed again, throwing sparks against the iron grate. Mingyu let his breath out slow, a decision shaping itself in the quiet.

"She's right," he thought. "It doesn't matter if I trust him. What matters is that he bleeds first."

Outside, faintly, a guard's cadence drifted through the stone—a new voice giving orders in the courtyard below. Longzi was already drilling the night watch, his tone clipped, unbending, carrying through frost as if he had been born to those walls.

Mingyu closed his eyes briefly. The sound was unsettling, but it was also steady.

Perhaps, he thought, that was enough.