NOVEL NEXT Chapter 318: A Treasonous Idea
"Name the law," Mingyu pressed, not moving from the space between Zhao Hengyuan and Xinying's couch. "Quote me the line that lets a minister place his daughters in my bed by volume."
The Left Prime Minister Zhao Hengyuan's mouth worked. "Rites… precedent… the stability of—"
"Not one of those are written in law," Mingyu cut across, even as a blade laid flat. "That's just greed."
The old man flushed again.
Zhao Meiling shifted behind him, the movement small and miserable; her eyes slid to Xinying as if there might be mercy there.
Instead of mercy, Xinying lifted her tea and blew once across the surface as though the room weren't trying to set itself on fire.
Deming eased a half step to Xingying's left, which was him staking ground without announcing it.
Yizhen leaned his shoulder to a pillar, fan shut, gaze bright with the kind of interest that ends with someone losing a hand.
Longzi's weight settled into the floorboards near the threshold, a new hinge testing its wood.
Yaozu's fingers rested on the screen in that loose way of his that meant he could make a problem disappear before anyone else named it.
Mingyu let the arrangement register in Zhao Hengyuan's face. Then he softened his voice to something almost polite. "You wished to be useful this morning. Be useful now. Put your petition into proper form."
Zhao Hengyuan blinked. "Here—?"
"Here." Mingyu flicked two fingers.
A clerk on duty at the side table jolted, scrambled, and presented a brush and fresh slips as if carrying a newborn.
"You'll write clearly. No incense. No poems. Three points only: that you seek to place your daughter in the inner palace, that you propose to displace the Empress's authority over the harem, and that you recommend your second daughter's child—your grandchild—be designated heir over my son."
The room stilled again, a different kind this time—the kind with edges.
Zhao Hengyuan's jaw fell a fraction. "Your Majesty, those are not— I did not—"
"You did," Mingyu returned, letting the words fall with the weight of a seal. "You just preferred to keep them dressed for gossip. I prefer ink. If your request is righteous, the brush won't mind."
Zhao Meiling made a small, choked sound. Zhao Hengyuan didn't look at her. He reached for the brush like a man reaching for a fast-vanishing argument.
"Or," Xinying offered lazily, eyes on the rim of her tea, "you can withdraw the request and discover that breakfast tastes better than paperwork."
Zhao Hengyuan stiffened for a moment, but pride chose for him.
He dipped the brush.
Mingyu watched the first character form. He felt a cold, clean satisfaction settle under his ribs—the feeling of a trap not sprung, but built, brick on brick. He let his gaze drift—to Deming's stance, iron and unblinking; to Yizhen's fingers, idle and dangerous; to Longzi's steady watch on the corridor.
To Xinying, who lifted her tea again, took a measured sip, and let a curve at the corner of her mouth answer his in kind.
The first line came out crooked. Zhao Hengyuan corrected the second, breath audible now. Meiling's throat bobbed; she kept her eyes on the floor, as if looking up would break something she wasn't ready to see.
"Careful," Yizhen murmured without moving his head. "Blots read like guilt."
Zhao Hengyuan's hand jerked. The next stroke bled too broad. He hissed through his teeth and tried again.
Mingyu did not rescue him. "You mentioned the people's will," he went on, conversational as winter. "You mentioned stability. Write those as well. The censors appreciate complete thoughts."
Zhao Meiling found the ability to speak at last, and her voice came out as soft as a thread. "Elder Sister—"
Xinying did not look over. "I am not your elder sister. Use my title here."
Zhao Meiling flinched. "Your Majesty. I… I don't wish—" She stopped, glanced at Zhao Hengyuan, and swallowed the truth before it finished its sentence.
"You don't wish to disappoint your father," Xinying finished for her, tone flat, almost kind. "You've had practice."
Mingyu kept his attention on the Left Prime Minister. He could feel Zhao Meiling's heat, small and wavering, but today's ledger line ran through the man with the brush.
"Good," he urged, as the third character finally settled where it belonged. "Now the third point, the only honest one—linking your family to the throne by way of a cradle."
Zhao Hengyuan's lips thinned so tight they went bloodless. "Your Majesty twists my devotion."
"Devotion to what?" Deming asked, finally taking his eyes off the old man's fingers and lifting them in a stare sharp enough to leave a mark. "Your house? Your name? Your mirrors?"
"Devotion to Daiyu," Zhao Hengyuan snapped, the brush-point digging too hard, tearing the fiber of the slip.
"Daiyu doesn't ask you to tear paper," Yizhen returned, mild on the surface, acid under it. "It asks you to read it."
Longzi's voice cut clean, a strip of leather, as he mockingly bows to the minister. "Captain of the Guard acknowledges the value of a minister who understands the perimeter of his duties."
Zhao Hengyuan turned on him with a sneer that showed old teeth. "You are new to these halls, boy. Do not presume to teach your elders."
"Note the presumption on the memorial as well," Mingyu suggested, as if offering a recipe adjustment. "I have learned that the censor enjoys color when he is forced to read these things."
The brush paused. Zhao Hengyuan's hand shook. Pride waged a losing war against survival across his face.
"Enough," Xinying breathed, setting her empty bowl down with a soft click. "You will not turn my rooms into theater any longer. If you have something lawful to request, request it on paper, as you've begun. If you have only appetite, go home and eat."
Zhao Hengyuan's eyes flicked to Meiling, then back to the slips. He forced two more characters into the fibers by will alone. The page looked the way desperation tastes.
Mingyu let the quiet stretch just far enough to bruise. Then he leaned in a fraction. "You've overreached."
He didn't raise his voice.
He simply let the truth sit in the center of the room where everyone could see it from whatever angle they preferred. "You believed your daughter's beauty, your tenure, your habit of being obeyed would carry you. You forgot the difference between a minister's household and a country. You forgot that my wife is Empress because the empire breathes better when she is."
Zhao Hengyuan's eyes snapped up. "You think I don't know power, boy? I taught your father how to balance the court. I kept a dozen knives pointed outward while you learned to hold a brush."
"And I learned better than you think," Mingyu returned, soft. "Balance is not bending to every overfed elbow. It's knowing which weight gets knocked off the scale."