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

The Left Prime Minister Zhao Hengyuan didn't wait for the chamberlain. He didn't wait for tea. And he didn't wait to be announced.

By the time Mingyu crossed the threshold from the bedroom to the main room of Xinying's chambers, the Left Prime Minister was already in the middle of the room, his voice pitched high enough to rattle the screens, Meiling in tow like an ornament dragged behind a cart.

"She is owed!" Zhao Hengyuan barked, his sleeves snapping with each motion. "Your Majesty, my younger daughter has been humiliated, stripped of her rightful place. Her fiancé slain, her future stolen. It is only just that she be restored, that she be given her place in the harem to bear the heir as propriety demands!"

Zhao Meiling's eyes were wet but her spine was straight. She glanced at Xinying with a strange mixture of dread and satisfaction, as if expecting her elder sister to wither under the spectacle and weight that was their father.

Xinying hadn't moved from the low couch. She hadn't lifted her tea bowl, though steam curled from it. Her only acknowledgment was the faint angle of her head—more curiosity than concern.

"Your petition is loud," she remarked. "Perhaps if you repeat it again, the tiles will agree with you."

Zhao Hengyuan flushed for a moment with embarrassment but pressed on, turning sharply as Mingyu entered.

"Your Majesty, you above all understand! The throne requires stability. The boy you all claim to be Heir is no blood of yours—not the true heir! But my daughter—your concubine—would give you a son of your own blood. The court would rejoice. The people would see the heavens smile again."

Mingyu did not interrupt. He let the words spill, gathering like poison in a basin. He stepped forward only far enough to be counted, hands folded loosely behind his back, eyes calm in a way that made men nervous. His silence pressed harder than an argument.

Meiling ducked her head, cheeks red as Zhao drove the blade deeper. "It is the natural order! The Empress has already had her day. But the realm requires—"

"The realm requires nothing of my bed," Mingyu cut in at last, his tone smooth, cool, unhurried. "Nor do any ministers have a say of who is in it."

Zhao Hengyuan faltered. The silence that followed was heavier than shouting.

Mingyu tilted his head, his gaze narrowing, words soft but edged. "Tell me, Left Prime Minister Zhao Hengyuan. Is it really the empire you're so concerned for? Or is it that you can no longer bear the thought that the throne might survive without your line knotted into it?"

The old minister's jaw clenched, words stumbling for the first time. "I—I speak only of the people's will—"

"The people's will does not enter this chamber," Mingyu returned. "This is my wife's hall. You dare to lecture us about heirs when you mean only to sew your name into the crown's lining."

Zhao Meiling made a soft noise, half-protest, half-plea, but Xinying didn't look at her. She leaned back against the cushions as if watching a play unfold, her face unreadable.

Bootsteps announced another arrival. Deming entered first, mask catching the light, his silence heavier than iron. Yizhen followed, fan closed but eyes sharp, expression amused at the theatre. Longzi came last, his new captain's uniform plain but carrying weight enough to silence lesser men. Yaozu slipped in through the side door, presence like a knife sliding into its sheath.

The circle tightened around Xinying, just like it was supposed to.

Zhao Hengyuan looked around and, for the first time, seemed to understand the danger of the room he'd walked into. Still, pride pushed him forward. "If Daiyu is to endure, there must be true blood of the Emperor on the throne!"

"There is blood," Mingyu said softly, each word carved. "My blood. My wife's. My son's. What you want is not blood. What you want is power. Tell me—" his eyes sharpened to a point "—is it your plan to take the throne through your grandson's cradle?"

The accusation struck like steel. The chamber stilled. Even Meiling's breath caught.

Zhao Hengyuan blustered, sweat beginning at his temple. "I—I would never—"

"Careful," Xinying murmured, at last lifting her tea. "The more you deny, the clearer it becomes that you've thought of it."

Mingyu didn't look at her. He kept his gaze pinned on his Left Prime Minister, noting the way the man's knuckles whitened on his sleeve, the twitch in his jaw, the way his eyes flickered to Meiling as if she were a ladder to climb.

"You speak of stability," Mingyu went on, voice low enough to force Zhao Hengyuan to lean forward. "But what you mean is control. You imagine that if your daughter bears a child, you will own the empire's future. That my son's crown will pass through your gate, your bloodline chained to mine for all eternity,"

The minister tried to summon hauteur, but it cracked under the weight of Mingyu's evenness. "Is it wrong to wish my house joined forever to the throne?"

"It is wrong," Mingyu answered, "to confuse the empire with your house."

Meiling's eyes brimmed, lower lip trembling. She had not expected to be spoken of like a ledger entry, but Zhao pushed her forward a step, as though her youth and silk could soften the blade in Mingyu's tone.

"She is beautiful, fertile, untouched," Zhao pressed. "The ministers will support this union. They will demand it."

Mingyu's smile was thin as paper. "Funny… why do I remember her already sleeping with my third brother? Wasn't that the reason for their engagement in the first place?"

Deming's voice broke in for the first time, quiet but cutting. "You mistake her womb for currency, but it is not yours to spend."

Yizhen flicked his fan open with a snap. "And you mistake the court's gossip for law. It isn't."

Longzi said nothing, but the weight of his stare made Zhao Hengyuan shift as though the floor itself had tilted. Yaozu's hand rested lightly on the screen, the picture of disinterest—until you noticed the precise angle where he could draw steel if needed.

Mingyu's voice slid over all of it. "You claim to act for the good of the realm, but I hear only ambition. Tell me, Prime Minster Zhao—if your grandchild sat the throne, would you be content to stand aside? Or would you place your hand over the seal and call it duty?"

The old man's breath stuttered. His silence was an answer he didn't intend to give.

"Ah," Mingyu murmured, and for the first time his calm cracked into something colder. "So that was your thought. That the throne should bend around you. That the son of your daughter would one day sit where I sit now, and that you would guide his hand as if he were still in swaddling."

Zhao tried to bluster again, but his voice wavered. "You twist—"

"No," Mingyu cut him cleanly. "You twist. You twist your daughter into leverage. You twist propriety into chains. You twist loyalty into a noose for my neck. And then you come into my wife's hall and call it virtue."

The words landed like blows. Mingyu didn't raise his voice; he didn't need to. The weight of the truth did the striking for him.

Meiling's eyes brimmed at last. She swayed back, realizing perhaps that she had been brought not as a daughter but as a pawn.

Xinying sipped her tea as if the storm were only weather. "I told you," she murmured, "give him enough rope and he'll hang himself with it."