MTLNOVEL Chapter 158: The Welcome Mat
The forest was alive in a way the palace never could be.
Beneath the canopy, every breath held the scent of moss and sun-warmed bark, and every step promised the kind of danger court politics could only pretend at. The imperial hunt had officially begun. Banners fluttered above hastily erected pavilions, fires crackled beside makeshift kitchens, and distant horns called out the opening rituals of a grand tradition that hadn't felt like tradition in decades.
I walked with my hands folded behind my back, my boots silent on the pine-needle-strewn earth. Shi Yaozu trailed half a pace behind, close enough to intervene, far enough not to shadow. Ahead, the path curved up toward the higher ridges—where the brush was thicker, the light thinner, and the traps… exquisite.
I didn't need a map.
I'd made this place bleed before. And it would bleed again, if I asked it to.
Just as I reached the edge of the next incline, the scream came.
It wasn't the high, startled cry of a court lady, nor the sharp bark of a soldier meeting steel. It was something uglier—furious and humiliated.
I stopped walking.
Yaozu stepped up beside me, his head tilting.
Another voice followed. "Help! Gods, get him down!"
And then a third, cold and amused. "Careful—if he swings any harder, he'll gut himself."
We arrived just as a cluster of nobles and guards converged in the clearing. In the center of the fray, hanging upside down by one leg from a perfectly tensioned snare line, was the Third Prince.
Zhu Lianhua thrashed like a fish caught too close to shore. His ornate hunting robes were twisted around his waist, blood dripping from a cut across his thigh where the tension wire had bitten deep. One sleeve had been torn open entirely, exposing skin not quite healed beneath. The noble mask he wore had been knocked crooked, and his hair had spilled out in wild tangles.
A thorn in velvet.
A thorn who had just impaled himself.
"Oh no," I said mildly, hand pressed to my mouth. "Did someone not read the safety briefing? I thought we were all warned about this!"
Beside me, Shi Yaozu coughed once. He didn't bother hiding the smirk on his face, and neither did I.
When the people around us turned to look at who was speaking, I didn't move. I didn't need to. They took one glance at me and then stepped away, like I was personally responsible for the condition of the Third Prince.
I mean, I was, but they didn't have any proof of it besides a 'gut' feeling.
Yaozu remained at my side, his eyes tracking every movement of the nobles around us, one hand casually resting near the knife at his belt.
The guards hesitated—clearly unsure whether to touch the trap, disarm it, or wait for orders.
But then came the shriek.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Imperial Concubine Yi pushed through the crowd in a burst of violet and fury, her voice sharp enough to strip bark from trees. She rushed toward her son, ignoring the red dripping steadily to the ground. "My son! You animals, how could you let this happen?! Get him down, now!"
One of the senior Red Demon commanders—Longzi's man—stepped forward. "There are countermeasures," he warned. "The trap is laced with a second pull line. If triggered wrong, it could slice through the—"
"Then fix it!" she screeched, spinning toward the others. "Fetch the healers! Fetch the Emperor! Do you know who this is?!"
From behind the front row, a low chuckle broke through the tension.
The crowd parted instinctively as the Emperor arrived on horseback, trailed by his entourage of silk-robed ministers and armored commanders.
He did not dismount.
He didn't need to.
The moment he saw the Third Prince dangling upside down from a branch, his robes stained and his pride bleeding onto the leaves below, he threw his head back and laughed.
Loud. Full. Unrestrained.
The kind of laughter that wasn't joy, but satisfaction.
"Then perhaps," the Emperor said when he'd caught his breath, "he should learn to watch his step."
Concubine Yi's mouth opened in disbelief, her face contorting.
"Your Majesty—this is your son!"
"And he is also a hunter," the Emperor snapped back, his amusement vanishing behind steel. "Do you think a boar stops charging just because your baby tripped on his own ego?"
The gathered nobles shifted awkwardly. One of the younger princes bit his lip to hide a grin.
Still suspended from the tree, the Third Prince let out a furious yell. "I demand—ungh—you remove me at once!"
My mouth quirked.
Just slightly.
Not enough to draw attention from the ministers. But Mingyu noticed.
He had remained at the rear of the group, still mounted, still regal. His face gave nothing away.
But he did not glance toward the Third Prince.
He didn't so much as shift in his saddle.
The Emperor raised one hand, gesturing lazily toward the Red Demons.
"Cut him down. Patch him up. But let him limp. Let the others see it."
Sun Longzi, who had appeared beside the Emperor sometime during the chaos, gave a short bow and barked an order. The trap was disarmed with expert precision, and the Third Prince lowered with a thud that had more ceremony than care. Blood soaked through the silk at his thigh. His hands clenched into fists.
But his eyes were locked on only one thing.
Me.
I stood as I always did—calm, composed, detached. I had not said a word. Had not moved a finger. But he knew. And worse, he knew I knew he knew.
He looked away first.
Not out of shame.
But to hide the hatred that boiled over behind his carefully reconstructed mask.
The moment the last trace of his blood was mopped from the forest floor, the nobles began to disperse. Some with curiosity, some with caution. A few had stopped to murmur theories about the trap. Others had taken the incident as a warning: If the Third Prince could bleed, so could they.
As the crowd faded, Yaozu leaned slightly closer.
"Isn't it a bit too early for gifts?" he asked.
My mouth curved again—just a flicker.
"Oh no," I murmured. "That wasn't a gift. That was just the welcome mat."