MTLNOVEL Chapter 155: They've Forgotten
The garden was too quiet to be empty.
The plum blossoms had already begun to fall, drifting like ash through the warm spring air, but the branches still held their shape—arms bent under the weight of a hundred silent promises. I stepped lightly onto the arched bridge that overlooked the winding path below, a scroll of patrol rotations still in hand, though I hadn't looked at it in minutes.
Below, between the hedges trimmed too neatly and the stones laid too purposefully, the Crown Princess of Baiguang strolled with Zhu Mingyu.
She walked like the world belonged to her, and maybe in her mind, it did. Every step was slow, measured, but far from tentative. Her sleeves brushed the blossoms as she passed, her voice low and melodic, never rising and definitely never apologizing.
"It was a bold choice," she said, her fingers grazing the smooth bark of a cherry tree. "The one that you had made. A deadly and noble hunt, arranged in such a grand fashion. I must thank you for honoring me this way."
Mingyu walked beside her, hands folded behind his back, expression unreadable. He hadn't glanced up once. Not at her, not at the sky, not at the falling petals. It was like he was lost in his own thoughts, but that didn't seem to deter the Crown Princess of Baiguang.
"I really have to question your sources," he said evenly, his voice respectful but not intimate. "This wasn't my idea; it was yours. I have better things to do than go on a month-long hunt during a season when game isn't to be taken."
She tilted her head toward him, the corner of her lips lifting. "But you allowed it to happen. That says more, I think, than if you'd orchestrated it yourself. That means that you are willing to work with me."
He didn't respond nor did his pace slow down.
But she stepped a little closer, enough that the trailing edge of her sleeve brushed against his outer robes, and I could see her fingers reaching out to brush the back of his hand.
In today's age, she might as well have flashed him her tits with the way she was flirting. And I really wasn't impressed.
"And you're not pleased?" she asked, tone deceptively light. "All of this for you. The court moving. The bloodlines summoned. The princes stepping into the light. It was meant to serve up everyone you could possibly want to kill on a silver platter. I thought you'd like that."
He looked at her then. Just for a moment before his eyes glanced down to where she was still touching him.
"You're married," he reminded her flatly. "And so am I."
The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut the air.
But her smile didn't falter.
"Marriages," she said softly, "don't have to last forever. After all, the winner takes all… doesn't he?"
I didn't blink. Didn't move. From where I stood, hidden by the flowering bridge arch and shadowed by the willows, I could see everything: her posture, her smile, his stillness. I watched her brush a falling petal from her hair as though she hadn't just suggested that a war of succession was nothing more than a race toward a wedding.
She was beautiful.
And dangerous.
But I was not impressed.
Because that smile? The one she gave him after casually discarding her own husband in conversation?
I'd seen better ones. In the mirror. With blood still on my hands.
A breeze swept through the garden, scattering more petals across the stone path below. She turned slightly, head tilted back just enough to catch the sun across her cheek. "You haven't asked what name I prefer," she said, her voice lilting like wind chimes. "Shouldn't you, at least once, use it?"
Mingyu exhaled slowly, as though already regretting this entire walk. "Will it matter?"
She laughed then. A quiet, silvery thing that didn't reach her eyes.
"It will to me."
He didn't answer.
And that, I think, was the smartest thing he could have done.
They continued their walk beneath the blossoms, her voice rising now and then like a thread of silk trailing behind them. Praise, questions, theories about court and legacy dressed in compliments. She never once spoke against me. Never even said my name.
But she didn't have to.
Every step she took beside him was a challenge. Every word, a performance. Every breath, an attempt to fold herself into the story that had already begun without her.
I let them pass beneath the bridge, silent as stone.
Shi Yaozu emerged from the shadows at the far end of the path. He didn't look up at me, but he stood just near enough to the garden wall that he would be noticed by anyone observant enough to see past the flowers.
She glanced at him once as they passed.
Her smile faded just slightly.
Then she tucked her hand into her sleeve and continued on, talking about deer tracks and the spiritual significance of northern cedar.
When they were gone, I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.
"She's good," Yaozu said a moment later, his voice soft and dry, drifting up from beneath the bridge.
"She's not mine to worry about," I replied, kneeling to gather the scroll I'd let drift open in my hands. "She wants attention; I'd rather stay a rumor."
"She's making herself useful," he said. "The hunt preparations are moving twice as fast with her whispering in the Emperor's ear."
"I'm sure," I said coolly, rising. "It's always easier to paint a stage when you believe you're the lead actor."
Yaozu waited as I descended the curved steps of the bridge, my sleeves brushing the edge of the petals still clinging to the stone rail. We walked in silence for a few steps before he spoke again.
"Did you know the Emperor assigned the Third Prince to oversee the hunting grounds?"
I did.
And I hadn't stopped smiling since.
"How poetic," I murmured. "Perhaps I'll send him a thank you letter when this is over."
"Do you want him dead?" Yaozu asked plainly.
"No," I said, glancing toward a patch of tall grass beginning to bloom violet near the edge of the koi pond. "Not yet. I want him ruined. Afraid. I want him to wonder every second of the hunt whether that next step will be his last. And when it's over… I want him alive long enough to know it was me."
Yaozu gave a low hum of approval. "You've been quiet."
"Too quiet, apparently," I agreed. "They seem to have forgotten what I am."