MTLNOVEL Chapter 200: A Change Of Power
Zhu Mingyu entered the throne room without armor.
He didn't need it anymore.
The palace hall was quieter than usual—no drum fanfare, no echo of ceremonial bells. The ministers had already gathered, lining the edges of the room like wilted banners. The guards stood at attention, silent and still. At the center of it all, seated on the golden dais like a carcass left too long in the sun, was the Emperor.
His father.
Zhu Wengang looked smaller than Mingyu remembered.
Not older—he had always been old—but shrunken. Thinner. His robes didn't fit right. His hands trembled even before the inkstone was brought forward.
"Is this a joke?" the Emperor muttered, looking around as if someone was going to stand up for him.
But no one did.
Mingyu stepped up onto the platform and bowed—not deeply. Not like a son. Just enough to satisfy tradition.
"You said you wanted peace," Mingyu said evenly. "This is what peace looks like."
The Emperor's fingers twitched around the handle of his brush. "This is theft."
"This is survival."
"You think you can rule better?"
"No," Mingyu said. "But I can rule longer."
Silence followed.
A scribe stepped forward and opened the scroll, already pre-written and bordered in crimson ink. It only needed a signature. A name.
The Emperor hesitated.
From behind him, General Sun Longzi's shadow moved just slightly—a step closer to the dais. Not a threat. Not exactly.
The Emperor's hand closed around the brush.
He signed.
No trumpets. No weeping. Just the soft scratch of ink over silk and the faint creak of the old man's joints as he straightened in his seat, as if the final act of compliance had taken something physical from him.
Mingyu didn't smile. He didn't gloat. He simply reached down, lifted the scroll, and stepped back off the platform.
Just like that, it was done.
The Emperor—still seated, still draped in gold—looked out at the ministers as if seeing ghosts. No one met his eyes.
They were already looking at the future.
At the man in the dark crimson robe now standing with the scroll in his hand.
Mingyu turned and handed it to the head scribe. "Seal it. Archive it. Quietly."
Then he turned to face the court.
"I am not declaring an era," he said. "There will be no renaming. No celebratory bells. We are not celebrating today."
He scanned their faces—familiar ones, cautious ones, and a few already too hungry for their own good.
"We are correcting."
A few of them bowed. Slowly. Others hesitated. It didn't matter.
He would not be asking again.
He stepped down off the dais without ceremony. No procession followed. Just the steady scrape of his boots against the polished stone as he passed through the silent corridor and emerged into the long northern hall.
The doors opened into light.
The winter courtyard was unusually quiet. The snow hadn't fallen yet, but the air had the feel of it—cold and ready, as if something heavy waited just above the sky, ready to drop.
Zhao Xinying stood with her back to the camellia tree.
She wore black.
Not mourning black. Not bridal black.
War black.
The fabric clung to her like a second skin, cinched high at the collar, sleeves lined with tight stitching to allow for easy movement. Her boots were scuffed. Her fingers bare.
She didn't bow.
"You missed the performance," Mingyu said.
"I've seen one emperor fall already," she said. "I don't need an encore."
He stepped beside her, adjusting his outer robe with a flick of his wrist.
"Was it quiet?"
"As planned."
She reached into her sleeve and passed him a folded paper. "Supply routes confirmed. I leave tomorrow."
He took it without looking. "Did you speak with her?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"She's ready."
He nodded.
They stood for a moment, not speaking.
The wind shifted. Somewhere above the garden, a flock of winter birds passed in formation. The sky was the pale color of ash, the air too dry to snow but too cold to ignore. A thin layer of frost clung to the petals at their feet, turning the camellia leaves glassy and brittle.
"She told me something," Xinying said quietly.
Mingyu turned slightly toward her.
"She said the demon didn't make her stronger. That she always was. She just needed to be reminded."
He didn't answer.
Not because he disagreed—but because he didn't know if the same was true for him.
He wasn't like them—her or the Empress. His power came from planning, from manipulation, from building traps that didn't look like traps until it was far too late. It didn't rise from rage or rot or bone-deep conviction. It rose from necessity.
He could only hope it would be enough.
He glanced down at her fingers—scarred, firm, ink-stained. There was no trace of weakness in them. No hesitation.
"She's right," he said finally.
"She usually is."
They stood there longer than either expected—long enough for the frost to bite through their boots, long enough for the garden basin to stop trickling and freeze at the edges.
Finally, she shifted.
"Will the Emperor remain under guard?"
"He won't leave the palace. That's enough."
"And if he tries?"
"He won't."
Xinying didn't push. She had too much respect for clean answers.
She moved away from the tree and toward the low stone steps that led out of the garden path. Shadow emerged from the hedges, slipping in beside her like he'd always been there.
Mingyu watched them pass without speaking.
"Do you want me to say something before you go?" he asked.
She stopped at the gate.
"Not unless it's useful."
He considered that.
"Then I'll say this," he murmured. "Don't let the world forget who carved it open."
She tilted her head. "That sounds dangerously like flattery."
"It's strategy."
She kept walking.
Mingyu adjusted the scroll in his hand and turned toward the inner corridor. His next meeting waited—Sun Baotai, a new budget draft, and three reports on Baiguang movement.
The cold followed him in. He didn't mind it.
Inside, the throne room was already being cleared.
The golden seat stripped bare.
The dais swept clean.
And for a little while, the court was quiet again.