NOVEL NEXT Chapter 315: In Plain Words
"You'll speak," Mingyu told them, not moving from the doorway Xinying had just crossed. "She won't ask."
Xinying glanced past him at the low table, the small grid still out, iron-jade-horn where he'd left them. Her mouth tipped, unimpressed. "If this turns into poetry, I'm leaving."
"Not poetry," Mingyu returned. "Inventory."
He stepped aside, and the room belonged to her again—brazier steady, tea barely breathing.
Yizhen folded his fan without theatrics and hooked it into his belt. Deming didn't bother with posture; he looked like a verdict waiting to be read. Longzi shifted one pace off the wall and stopped where a guard might stop—near enough to move, far enough to be unobtrusive.
Xinying set her slips on the table, thumb smudged with ink. "Inventory, then. Who starts."
Yizhen moved first, because he'd been born to reach for edges and test them. He didn't bow. He didn't smirk. For once, nothing pretty got between his mouth and the truth.
"I don't do flowers." He kept his eyes level. "I do results. I'll keep the under-city quiet, buy silence where it's cheaper than blood, light paths you never want anyone to notice in the first place. I'll stay out of your son's threshold unless he calls me. If you give me a room, I won't fill it with noise. If you give me a night, I won't make it a song. I want you. I'll want you tomorrow, and the year after that. If 'no' is your answer, I'll wear it like a glove and still do the work."
He stopped there. No flourish. No rescue from his own words.
Xinying's gaze skimmed him, unreadable. Her fingers drummed once on the bamboo slip, then stilled. "Okay then."
Deming stepped in before Yizhen could turn honesty into a shield. Armor without armor; discipline in boots and bone.
"I failed once," he began, not looking at anyone else. "I thought time would do the walking for me. I left you space and called it respect. It was fear. I won't make you carry the cost of that again."
His voice roughened, then smoothed by force. "My lane is your body and your hours. I will be the hand that pushes food toward you when you forget how. I will end your day when you try to work through it. I will take appointments you don't need to attend and cut the throat of exhaustion before it learns your name. If you give me a corner of your life, I will keep it swept. If you give me your mouth, I will keep it fed. I love you. I won't apologize for it. If you refuse me, I'll still stand where you set me."
The word hung there—love—unadorned, impossible to mishear. Yizhen's head dipped, acceptance without mockery. Longzi didn't blink.
Xinying's chin tilted, a fractional angle only Mingyu would have recognized as impact. "Okay then," she repeated, softer by a thread.
Then, it was Longzi's turn.
He didn't move closer. He didn't reach for theater he didn't own.
"I'm already yours," he put down, voice even. "By post, by duty. I won't bring you scandal. The engagement is ash. The girl who clings will learn to unclench or she'll be moved where clinging doesn't matter. I'm in these halls for one reason: your household breathes because the Emperor breathes. I keep him breathing. I keep knives off your routes by keeping them off his. I want you. I won't beg for it. I won't steal time from the work to hunt for it. If you choose me, I'll stand where you tell me and fight what you point at. If you don't, nothing changes except my mouth stays shut."
Xinying's eyes flicked to Mingyu then, a small flash of amusement that lived alongside something warmer. "You gathered them like a harvest and laid it out in front of me," she murmured.
"I gathered them like tools," Mingyu corrected. "Whether you swing them or shelve them is your decision."
She looked back at the three men. "Ground rules."
Mingyu felt the room lean forward around that phrase.
"One," I counted, voice crisp but not cold. "By now you've all realized I'm not good at the emotional part. I can't read your minds. If something is hurting you, if something is making you doubt where you stand — tell me. Don't make me drag it out of you. Don't make me guess. I'll fight enemies; I don't want to fight shadows inside my own house."
Deming's eyes flickered, and Yizhen's fan stilled. Longzi didn't move, but I saw the line in his jaw ease a fraction.
"Two," I went on, softer. "This isn't a competition. I don't want you sharpening blades against each other. I chose each of you for reasons that don't overlap. You don't have to fight for space. You already have it. If you need proof, look where you're standing — in my rooms, not outside them."
Their silence carried weight, but it wasn't the heavy kind. It was the listening kind.
"Three," I continued, "I don't need soldiers every hour of the day. I need men. I need hands that aren't only for swords — hands that know how to hold me when the world turns ugly, hands that know how to steady a boy who wakes from bad dreams, hands that remember that partnership means warmth, not just vigilance. I want to come back from councils and find arms, not arguments. I want laughter in these walls, not silence that feels like punishment."
Yizhen's mouth tilted at that — quick, fleeting, not his usual practiced grin. Deming looked down as if ashamed of how much the words fit him. Longzi didn't smile, but his stance shifted, as if the ground itself had grown steadier.
"Four," I said, letting the words slow. "This isn't temporary. I don't want borrowed hours, stolen glances, or half-promises. I want something we can build, not something that collapses the moment it's named. One day, I want more children. Not just an heir — a family that knows it was born into a house with too much love to fit in one pair of arms. If you can't imagine that, walk away now."
None of them moved. Deming's fingers curled at his side; Yizhen's fan slipped fully closed; Longzi's head dipped almost imperceptibly.
"Five," I finished. "You don't need to earn a place beside me. You're already here. Stop doubting it. Stop testing it. I'm not asking you to be perfect. I'm asking you to stay. With me. With him." My eyes flicked toward the room where Lin Wei slept, Shadow's tail thudding like a heartbeat against the door. "With us."
I let the silence breathe. Then I added, quiet but sharp enough to cut through every layer of armor in the room:
"And don't ever forget that I chose you."
There was a long pause and the men could actually see Xinying deflate just a bit, her shoulders dropping as a half smile appeared on her face. "So… what next?"