MTLNOVEL Chapter 185: Soon Enough
The camp was too quiet.
Even the birds refused to sing.
I stood at the edge of the central firepit, watching as one of the younger soldiers scrubbed blood from the stones with salted water and an old cloth. His hands were raw, sleeves damp to the elbows, but he didn't stop. Not even when the wind carried the copper scent back to his nose.
He didn't look up at me either.
Smart boy.
The morning mist hadn't lifted yet, so the camp still looked gray. Like the ghosts of the men we'd killed were hovering just above the dirt, uncertain if they should linger or vanish.
Zhu Mingyu had given the order. Deming had drawn the names. Yaozu, Longzi, Yizhen—each had handled their part without hesitation.
And I had walked among them, silent and unseen.
Not because I was hiding. But because I was listening.
Because I wanted to know what kind of kingdom I was helping build.
And whether I could live with it.
A soldier passed me carrying a tray of congee and pickled vegetables. When he noticed me, he bowed so quickly the tray nearly tipped. I said nothing as he fled.
I wasn't angry.
But I wasn't warm either.
I hadn't had a real night sleep in longer than I can remember, and I definitely haven't slept since Princess Yuyan decided to hand me over to the Third Prince.
And I didn't regret it at all.
Across the courtyard, I saw Yaozu giving orders to a line of Red Demons, his voice low and clipped. He was still in his black uniform, though his hair had come loose around his face. He'd refused rest too. But then again, he always did.
The moment he noticed me watching, he shifted position just enough to face my direction. Protective. Watchful.
Mine.
But I didn't go to him.
Instead, I turned toward the cliff path—toward the one place no one followed me.
A small outcropping of stone jutted out above the forest line, just wide enough for a single person to sit. It overlooked the southern plains and offered no shelter from the wind. I liked it for that reason.
It reminded me that comfort wasn't something I needed.
I was halfway up the path when I heard footsteps behind me. Not rushed. Not fearful.
Measured.
I didn't turn.
"You should be resting," came Mingyu's voice.
"So should you."
A pause.
"Deming sent word," he said. "Baiguang is mobilizing."
Of course they were.
I settled on the stone ledge and pulled my sleeves tight against the wind. "They'll want a public trial. Evidence, and an apology."
"They'll get none of it."
"Good," I smiled, reassured that he wasn't going to fold under the pressure of the other Kingdom. It was one thing to take over your own country, it is an entirely different thing to take the war of succession to every other country on the continent.
I glanced back to see him standing behind me, arms folded, expression unreadable.
He looked different now.
Sharper.
Darker.
Not because of his clothes or posture, but because of something deeper. Something in the way his eyes no longer sought approval. He didn't care what the Emperor thought anymore. Or the ministers. Or even the court.
That part of him was gone. And his new bearing was a good look on him.
"I've been thinking," I said, looking back toward the horizon.
"Dangerous habit," he murmured, a slight smile gracing his lips.
"I think they were all waiting for me to fall apart." My fingers brushed the chain around my wrist. Not metal now—just cloth. But the memory still lingered. "They expected me to cry. To scream. To be grateful that someone came for me."
"You didn't need saving."
"No." I turned my head toward him again. "But you were willing to tear down everything in order to come after me."
Mingyu stepped forward, standing at the edge beside me. "Do you regret it?"
"Killing him?" I laughed once, soft and humorless. "No. He wasn't just cruel. He was stupid. And that made him dangerous."
He didn't argue.
I shifted, pulling my knees up to my chest. "What about you? Do you regret anything?"
A long silence followed.
Then:
"I regret not seeing it sooner."
I raised an eyebrow.
"That the only way to keep you safe," he said, "was to burn down everything around us."
His voice was calm, but not cold. And that, more than anything, made me lean my head against his arm.
"You're not the villain, you know."
He huffed. "Aren't I?"
"Not mine."
Another pause.
"But you're not the hero either."
"Never claimed to be."
He sat beside me finally, stretching his long legs over the edge. "My mother wrote back."
"And?"
"She's begun cleaning house. The harem's already shifted, and Imperial Consort Yi still doesn't know what happened to her son."
I smiled faintly. "Good. I like your mother."
"She also found Deming's mother."
That made me blink.
"She's alive?"
"Barely. Kept hidden by one of the old palace maids. She'll be sent to the ancestral estate soon, under a new name."
"Why tell me?"
"Because you're part of this now," he said. "Not just as a weapon. But as the reason any of this matters."
I didn't know what to say to that.
Because in the silence that followed, I realized something I hadn't let myself feel until now.
It wasn't revenge that kept me standing.
It was him.
Zhu Mingyu—the man they'd once called spineless and smiling, always careful, always quiet.
Now… he looked like someone who didn't need a throne to rule. He only needed a reason.
And I had become that reason.
"I'll never bow to Baiguang," I said. "Or to any crown."
"You won't have to," he replied.
I stared ahead.
The mist had started to lift, revealing the road winding south—the path we'd marched in on weeks ago.
Now it felt different.
Like something irreversible had happened.
Not to the war. Not to the empire.
But to me.
I wasn't just the girl in the woods anymore.
I wasn't a political bride.
Or a whisper behind a fan.
I was something else now.
Something dangerous.
Something final.
And the world would learn it soon enough.