The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis-Chapter 372: The Last of Baiguang

The bolt holding the door to Bai Yuyan’s courtyard popped open on Mingyu’s command.

Mingyu stepped through first.

Yuyan’s laugh died on her tongue when the five men sauntered into her room. Li Xuejian, her husband, the old Crown Prince of Baiguang ’s teacup paused halfway to his mouth and kept going until porcelain kissed carpet and lay there like a fallen coin.

Longzi closed the inner screen with his heel and took the right-hand wall.

Deming crossed the space in two strides and wrapped Li Xuejian’s wrist in his hand before the prince could remember that weapons even existed.

Yaozu angled left and placed himself between Yuyan and the chest that held her letters. Yizhen drifted to that chest anyway, his fingers already under the lid as if the wood had volunteered.

Yuyan recovered fast. "Your Majesty," she purred, chin lifting. "You come before I could get dressed for court. A pity. I keep better robes for—"

Deming rotated Li Xuejian’s arm and fed him to the floor with all the ceremony of a man shelving a book. "Wrists," Deming prompted, voice flat.

Li Xuejian didn’t fight. His eyes tracked Mingyu like a gambler counting cards. "I have an offer," he ventured, tone even. "Daiyu wants quiet borders. I can deliver the remnants of Baiguang that still twitch—"

"Remnants have already stopped twitching," Yizhen interjected, laying out a handful of letters in neat rows. "Interesting seals. Uninteresting arguments. One in English," he added, glancing at Yuyan. "Spirited prose."

Yuyan’s mouth curved. "I speak many languages."

"Not well enough to live through this morning," Longzi tossed, never looking away from the door.

"Your Majesty," Yuyan tried again, softer now, sweetness poured over steel. "You deserve a consort who understands you. I know the version of you who burns the map for love. You think I do not recognize the man under all this rule and ledger? You were born to keep a world, not to count a harvest. Let me—"

"No," Mingyu cut in, not wanting to listen to her for even a second longer than he had to.

She blinked once, as if recalculating.

Li Xuejian angled his head on the floor, eyes never leaving the emperor. "Zhao Xinying destroyed my city, she destroyed the royal family, and she destroyed Baiguang," he observed, his voice stripped of heat. "I hold no illusions. But I can make your roads and rivers kneel without blood. Keep me alive and you purchase order at a discount."

"Order costs whatever I decide it costs," Mingyu returned. "Do not kid yourself by thinking that you have more power than you do. Desperation is not a good look on you."

"Keep me," Yuyan urged, stepping as if she might bridge the distance with charm alone. Yaozu’s hand landed in the air between them without touching her; she stopped. "Let me do what I was meant to do. History knows who we are. You and I—"

"History just learned a different name," Yizhen noted, flicking ash off a seal and handing the paper to Deming. "Yours goes below the fold."

Deming yanked Li Xuejian upright, bound his wrists, and shoved him toward the door with a palm between the shoulder blades.

Longzi pivoted, his blade never dropping, and opened the way with his body.

Yaozu gestured with two fingers—move.

Shadow appeared in the doorway like a shadow given muscle, ears forward, tail a measured line that meant business.

Yuyan didn’t beg. Instead, she reached for stagecraft. "Will you execute a princess of Baiguang in her own rooms?" she challenged, chin lifting. "At least let me walk to your yard. Let the court see your courage."

"No court," Mingyu answered. "You aren’t worthy of it."

Deming moved Li Xuejian.

Yaozu placed his palm at Yuyan’s spine. It was not a touch so much as a boundary she would not cross and guided her out.

Yizhen gathered letters with a speed that would have impressed any servant and palmed two small blades from the bottom drawer as if plucking splinters. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

They moved through the corridor as if they and it belonged to a particular order that only they knew.

Guards recognized the geometry and removed themselves from the equation.

Servants learned to study floors. Two of Yuyan’s attendants flattened to the wainscoting with their eyes already wet; Yizhen handed each a coin without looking and they forgot their tears long enough to flee.

Yuyan kept the performance going. "You could have had a continent at your feet," she rallied, the pitch of her voice warming. "The man in my book would have ripped out borders and wrapped them around my waist like silk. He would have—"

"Ripped out a spine," Longzi muttered.

"Wrapped it around our yard," Deming improved.

Mingyu didn’t bother to answer.

Instead, he gave a small nod at the corner. A runner peeled off to seal the next turn. Another jogged ahead to shut the side gate to the north gallery.

Li Xuejian stayed quiet until the final landing. "Give me five minutes with a map," he attempted, earnest now, tone stripped to function. "I can give you ten families who keep Baiguang breathing in cellars you haven’t reached. Kill me and you spend a week cutting weeds. Keep me and you uproot in an hour."

"List the ten," Yaozu instructed without slowing.

Li Xuejian did. A name broke after four. He bit his cheek and finished. Yizhen smiled without pleasure. "Accurate," Yizhen confirmed. "And late."

"Use me anyway," Li Xuejian pressed.

"You have already out lived your usefulness," Deming returned. "And if it is one thing that I have learned it’s never keep someone or something around that isn’t useful in some way, shape, or form."

The yard received them like the bottom of a ledger: totals, not negotiations. No crowd. No linen hung for spectacle.

Rings built into the ground waited with old patience. A single torch queued on a post, its flame steady in indifferent air.

Yaozu set Yuyan to one side of the ring and cuffed her to it without touching skin.

Deming put Li Xuejian down by the other ring and secured him to stone.

Longzi took the exit with his back and a little smile that belonged to men who enjoyed good craftsmanship. Shadow angled to keep both prisoners in his line without moving twice.

Yuyan drew a breath to begin a new script. "Majesty, consider—"

"Last words," Yizhen offered, his tone almost friendly.

She tried a different tactic. "Where is she?" Yuyan asked, color rising. "Does she hide behind you while you dirty your hands for her? You are not a man who hides. Come. Look at me."

Mingyu looked at her the way he looked at locks he intended to replace.

"You used knives against her," he noted. "You used boys. You used a world you thought you owned because a different book told you it belonged to you." He lifted his hand a fraction. "You were wrong."

"You cannot rewrite what I know," she flung back, desperation starting to shear the edges of her poise. "He burns worlds for me."

"He burned yours by lunch," Yizhen answered, wry.

Li Xuejian raised his head. "At least give my body to the river," he requested, not pleading. "Baiguang was born on that water."

"I’ll give your body to the lime and watch as it eats away at your flesh," Deming countered.

Yaozu drew steel for inspection and found it clean enough to be worth dirtying. He glanced at Mingyu with a question only he used. Mingyu gave a small downward motion with two fingers—fast.

"Which one first?" Longzi asked, curious rather than bloodthirsty.

"Xuejian," Mingyu returned.

Yuyan’s composure cracked. "No. He dies last. I want him to watch what you are doing to me. Hopefully, he will be reborn with these memories of you and will return to destroy you."

Deming’s mouth didn’t change. "He watched enough. If he is to be reborn, I don’t think he’ll care for revenge against us so much as revenge against you. I guess you should be careful what you wish for."

Yizhen angled the torch so the light neither flared nor advertised. "Do you want a priest," he teased Li Xuejian lightly, "or the comfort of correct accounting?"

"Correct accounting," Li Xuejian chose. "Because the Second Prince isn’t wrong."

Deming shifted his stance. Yaozu measured distance. Longzi quieted the hinge with a scuff of his boot. Shadow lowered his head until his muzzle brushed the dust.

Mingyu lifted his hand.

Steel moved.

Li Xuejian took the end the way a soldier who had lost his city might—jaw set, back straight, no wasted breath on drama. The body folded fast. Blood found the stone and learned where it was permitted to go.

Yuyan flinched backward and checked herself.

Courage surged for a heartbeat, that slick, shiny kind that belongs more to pride than to faith. She raised her chin toward Mingyu and tried one last script.

"You will lose something when I die," she pitched. "The version of you that could have broken a continent for love."

"I kept what mattered," Mingyu returned.

"Which is—"

"Her."