MTLNOVEL Chapter 6: The unclaimed name
CHAPTER 6
---
The resplendent gates of the Forbidden City loomed before me, their vermilion hue glistening beneath the pale embrace of the afternoon sun. A procession of imperial guards, their armor polished to a mirror's sheen, flanked the entrance, each man standing as still as the statues of lions guarding the threshold. Beyond the towering walls, the heart of the empire awaited—a realm where fate was decided with a single decree, where the breath of a monarch could summon life or deliver ruin.
I strode forward, my steps measured, yet beneath my composed facade, a storm brewed. The royal messenger, clad in the silk-embroidered insignia of the emperor's will, walked beside me, each footfall echoing through the vast stone courtyard. A shadow of unease flickered in the man's eyes, a hesitance barely concealed as he spoke, "The Son of Heaven awaits your presence."
My fingers curled into a fist at my side, an involuntary response to the words that felt both a summons and a sentence. The halls of the palace stretched before me like an endless corridor of fate, gilded eaves arching high above, adorned with dragons coiled in eternal vigilance. Court officials lined the path, their scrutinizing gazes sharp as honed steel, whispering among themselves as I returned—not in disgrace, nor in triumph, but bearing the weight of loss upon my shoulders.
As I crossed the threshold of the grand hall, an overwhelming silence descended. The vast chamber, adorned with golden pillars etched in the language of dynasties past, seemed to expand and contract with the breath of history itself. At its center, enthroned upon the seat of celestial authority, sat the Kangxi Emperor—his presence like an unshaken mountain, unmoved by time, unbent by fate.
I stepped forward, my robes whispering against the marble floor as I lowered myself into a respectful bow. "This humble servant pays respects to the Son of Heaven."
The emperor's gaze, as the depths of the winter sea, bore into me with the weight of a thousand judgments. Yet it was not the cold scrutiny of a sovereign upon a wayward subject, nor the simmering resentment of a ruler betrayed. No—it was something far heavier, laced with a sorrow that did not belong to a king, but to a father.
"Where is my daughter?" The emperor's voice was quiet, but within its restraint lay the force of a tempest barely contained.
I inhaled sharply. My hands trembled as I unwrapped the swaddle in my arms, revealing the sleeping child nestled within. The infant stirred slightly, a breath as soft as drifting petals escaping his lips.
"She is gone," I murmured, my voice hoarse with the weight of grief. "She perished in childbirth… but she left behind our son."
The air in the hall grew thick, as if the walls themselves had recoiled at my words. For a moment, the emperor said nothing. The weight of silence pressed upon the gathered officials, their eyes darting between the ruler and me—the man who had once been deemed his greatest disappointment.
Then, in a movement so deliberate it seemed carved in time itself, the emperor descended from his throne. The rustle of his dragon-embroidered robes was the only sound that dared to exist in the hush that followed. He stepped forward, his hands—calloused from years of war, of scrolls signed in the ink of governance—reaching out.
And as he cradled the child, his touch was impossibly gentle.
"I was furious when you stole her away," he murmured, his words carrying across the chamber though they were not spoken with force. "Furious that my own flesh and blood would choose a life beyond these walls. But then, in the days that followed, I came to see something I had not before. I saw a ruler in you, Bai Haofeng. I saw a man capable of leading where others would falter." He exhaled, his gaze distant, as though peering into a past long buried. "I intended to name you my heir, to see you take the throne after me. But before I could act, you vanished, and all my efforts to find you bore no fruit."
His words struck me like thunder upon an empty plain. To rule China? To bear the weight of an empire upon my shoulders? The thought had never once crossed my mind, and yet, here stood the emperor himself, speaking of it as though it had been fate's design all along.
I did not know how to answer, how to process the revelation that the man before me did not see me as a mere fugitive who had stolen his daughter, but as something more—as a man worthy of his trust, perhaps even of his legacy. The astonishment must have been plain upon my face, for the emperor let out a soft, almost imperceptible chuckle, one devoid of mirth.
"I see that surprises you," he said, and then, for the first time, he stood. The court held its breath as he descended from the throne, his steps slow yet purposeful, until he stood before me. He did not look at me, however. once again, gently, with hands that had once wielded both power and war, he reached forward, his fingers brushing against the soft curve of the infant's cheek.
The child stirred at the touch, his tiny hand curling instinctively around the emperor's finger, and for the first time since I had stepped into the chamber, the sovereign of China—the man known as the Son of Heaven—allowed a ghost of a smile to touch his lips.
--
I raised my head, my gaze sweeping over the grand expanse of the imperial hall—a chamber vast enough to swallow the voices of men, yet so silent now that the very air seemed to tremble with unspoken words. Towering columns of vermilion, inscribed with golden dragons entwined in ceaseless battle, loomed over the gathered assembly like sentinels of fate. The lacquered floor gleamed beneath the soft glow of hanging lanterns, their light casting elongated shadows across the polished stone. Rows upon rows of courtiers, ministers clad in brocades of sapphire and crimson, stood in hushed anticipation, their breaths caught between reverence and dread, for the Son of Heaven himself had spoken, and none dared to break the weighty silence that followed.
At the center of it all, upon an elevated throne carved from the very bones of history, sat the Kangxi Emperor—his presence a force that did not need to be spoken to be felt. Draped in robes woven with the golden threads of imperial authority, embroidered with the five-clawed dragon that no other man could wear, he was the embodiment of heaven's will upon earth. His gaze, sharp as the edge of a honed blade, carried the weight of decades spent shaping an empire, of wars won and rebellions quelled, of wisdom that stretched far beyond the mortal span of years.
And yet, as I stood before him, watching him cradle the child in his calloused palm, I saw not the emperor who had shaped the fate of this land, but a father who had lost a daughter—a man gazing upon the last vestige of a beloved soul now departed.
Murmurs rose around me like a tide, hesitant at first, then swelling in disbelief. Never before had the emperor displayed such unguarded affection, least of all before the watchful gaze of his court. Yet there he stood, his fingers tracing the infant's round cheeks, his expression unreadable save for the flicker of sorrow that dimmed the light in his gaze.
"And what name have you bestowed upon this child?" the emperor's voice, though composed, held the ghost of something raw beneath its tempered surface.
Stepping forward, I squared my shoulders beneath the weight of the moment. "Zhuang," I answered, my voice unwavering. "His name is Zhuang."
The emperor nodded slowly, as though tasting the name upon his tongue, letting it settle into the chambers of history. "Zhuang," he repeated, the syllables rolling like distant thunder. "A name befitting one who shall carry the blood of the dragon. Bai Zhuang, then?"
A moment stretched between us, taut and unyielding as the string of a bow drawn to its limit. The hall held its breath.
"No," I said, my voice steady, yet firm as stone. "Not Bai Zhuang. His surname is yet undecided."
The murmur of the court swelled into an uproar, whispers twisting into ripples of scandal. A father who would not give his child his own name? It was unheard of—a break in tradition, an act of defiance, or perhaps something more unfathomable still. Yet I did not waver. My hands clenched at my sides, though my face betrayed nothing. I would not allow the chains of my past to shackle this child's fate. Zhuang would carve his own path, untethered by the burdens of a name that had brought me nothing but sorrow.
---
The hall remained suspended in a moment of thick, palpable silence, as if the very walls of the Forbidden City held their breath, waiting for the emperor's final word to seal fate itself. The murmurs of the court had swelled into a hushed storm of disbelief, their whispers darting through the vast chamber like unseen phantoms. A father who would not bestow his own name upon his son—what manner of man would do such a thing? What did it mean? Was it an act of defiance, a rejection of the past, or a declaration that the boy's fate would not be bound by the bloodline he had inherited? The officials, scholars, and nobles standing in their gilded robes of sapphire and crimson exchanged looks, their expressions unreadable, yet the tension in their stances betrayed the weight of the moment. To them, a name was more than an identity—it was lineage, duty, a tether to both honor and expectation. And yet, I had refused to tie my son to mine, to the name that had brought me nothing but hardship and disgrace, to a name that even now felt like a shackle around my soul.
I met the emperor's gaze, my spine straight despite the weight pressing upon my shoulders. His expression remained unreadable, the golden dragon embroidery upon his robes glimmering under the soft flicker of lantern light, casting shadows across the intricate carvings of the throne. His silence stretched, deep as the vast rivers that carved through the land, long as the years he had ruled with an iron hand wrapped in silk. But beneath that stillness, beneath the mask of a sovereign, something stirred in his eyes—something I had not expected to see. Was it understanding? Approval? Or was it simply the weariness of a father who had lost his daughter and now held the only remaining piece of her within his arms? I could not tell. And yet, when he finally spoke, his voice did not lash out like a whip, nor did it carry the weight of condemnation. Instead, it was quiet—measured. "Very well," Kangxi murmured, and though the words were simple, they carried the force of a decree, as if history itself shifted upon their utterance. The court stiffened, the whispers dying in an instant, for what the emperor accepted, none dared to challenge.
A breath I had not realized I was holding escaped my lips, though my expression remained carefully controlled, unreadable as the man standing before me. The tension in the hall did not vanish completely, but something had changed—an invisible thread had been woven into the fabric of destiny, a new path carved where none had existed before. I did not know if my decision would be met with scorn in the years to come, nor did I care. My son's name would not be dictated by tradition, nor by the ghosts of the past. He would be free to forge his own fate, unburdened by the mistakes of those who had come before him. Bai Zhuang? No. He would not be Bai Zhuang. He would be Zhuang—his own man, when the time came. I had chosen to sever the chains that bound him, even if it meant inviting the ire of those who lived and died by the rules of this court.
And with that, the fate of my son, of myself, and perhaps of the empire itself, shifted—like the first ripples upon a still lake before the storm arrives, like the tide drawn forth by an unseen moon, upon history would soon be written.
The emperor regarded me for a long moment, the weight of centuries behind his gaze. Then, in an act that sent another wave of disbelief through the court, he nodded.
---