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The Emperor solemnly walks back to his throne.
Walls of the Palace are thin, they are light planks and parchment with heavy columns of wood at best, and merely curtains of opaque veils at least. Many secrets do not remain secrets in the presence of listening walls. Unpropitious opulent riches will not deter gossiping fools.
Three kneeling criminals and two government officials with several Royal guards sworn to utmost secrecy in place of death, and His Majesty's own right hand, know how the Prince of Chu has slain and left war for a single woman.
And the world still spins lazily on its axis.
Zhi Wei is thinking about the four thousand ways she can escape from this predicament that her family is in. Five thousand ways, if only her family escapes.
Master Zong is involved with at least a thousand of them, but getting a message to him now will be difficult at best. Though, he might as well be on his way already, even if she had threatened him to stay behind just before.
Nan Yi is involved in five hundred plans. Those plans, like the likes of Master Zong's, involve the heroically dramatic entrance of the saving party at the highest climax of their impasse.
He Lian Zheng is also counted to appear in a number of these plans, though she really had left him behind for good before he can arrive on time to save her and her family, much less know to even return.
Ning Yi has come and gone. He has tried what he can under the roof of golden, respectful and responsible jurisdiction stemming from a birth title he regrets, and he has all but laid an ultimatum that this Emperor had swept aside.
She tries to pull Wei Zhi from what depths he had been sleeping in her mind since her gender discovery, a hundred spinning cogs in half a mind can be fuelled to perform far more efficiently with another virtuously and conventionally taught Scholar who wields his silver tongue like a sword and his quick-witted mind like a spear.
Wei Zhi can call the Prince of Wei 'brother', convince the entire world that he is blooded to the previous Emperor and a woman left behind as a measly seamstress. His words will pull up clues that can be falsely joined together and when the time has sufficiently been delayed, her family can escape this land and what meddlesome royal family issues. Wei Zhi can help with anything. He has eloquence, on par and perhaps even better than the Prince of Wei and his false-innocence. He is convincing. He is the key to every exit of any problematic situation.
But Wei Zhi is also logical. And Zhi Wei will not take how there are only three outcomes because three is too less. However, should she choose to humour Wei Zhi, then there will really only be just one.
"Inspector Feng, let us not hesitate any longer. The poison in the wine cannot be cured even by imperial doctors." The Prince of Wei says, as a matter-of-factly, almost Chidingly. "Should you follow his majesty's order, my sixth Prince brother will still fend for you, especially in the future where there is nothing but time. You will reunite with your mother again. We implore you to let us have the greatest possible future moving forward."
She knows that well. She does not need facts to be reiterated, especially when she has inferred them on her own.
Zhi Wei looks up to the Emperor. She meets his storming eyes murking what shred of playfulness he harbours in his blackened heart.
Several thousand ways to live and not many involve the suffering of this Emperor because it is not in her word to torment people already on their deathbed.
Wei Zhi knows that this cold-blooded Emperor is cowardly and will act against his fears at any opportunity he is given. He will stare death in the face and say that it has the nerve to take his life, all the while gladly embracing it with open arms because he is a caitiff recreant who also sees death as a finality.
This Emperor does not see death in the presence of the remnants of the Da Cheng. He sees chaos and revolutions and the loss of power that will result in humiliation. He sees spiteful laughter thrown in his face when he tumbles down the Dragon. He does not see absolution. He sees submission to a higher power and the disgrace of having to call another Majesty when others had once called him as such.
Wei Zhi knows that this Emperor sees Zhi Wei clearly in a transpicuous light and knows what she can do. A female in a world of dominating men she may be, but she has connections and a Prince of Chu that will vie for the throne just the same. Three men pleaded for her life when she pulled down the veil to avoid marriage. How many will help raise her to the Dragon throne with convincing promises of being a just ruler?
Wei Zhi looks at this Emperor. He sees a man who was just told that his son will overthrow him for a woman. He sees a man that is cornered to three paths.
Zhi Wei cannot make decisions now. There is a chalice of poisoned wine with no cure before her and she can still think of a hundred thousand ways to get out of this situation unscathed with her family intact. Emotion, just as deadly as this supposing poison. It can force a single person to death and sentence the same fate to a hundred more.
For his family, there is only one way.
One way that will result in a cacophony of disorder and near calamity of the present dynasty.
A Prince will overthrow an Emperor. A remnant will spill blood on an empty throne.
Ning Yi will avenge Zhi Wei in the most painful way possible. He will drag out Ning Shi Zheng's life until it is stretched to its very wispy tendrils. He will cut the Prince of Wei into unrecognisable pieces and his mother will still burn in acid for being an unwilling accomplice to an eighteen-year-old crime.
But most of all, Ning Yi will raise hell and scorch the earth, for his heart would have been cut into halves and one would have been shattered beyond repair. If he can overturn his every objective and throw away his ambitions to ensure the safety of one woman, then spurning nightmares and soaking the ground wet with blood and bones are nothing in light of that woman's death.
Wei Zhi breathes calmly. He feels warm, like he is being cradled by gentle arms and held in a featherweight embrace. He does not shake despite the adrenaline burning in his veins. He feels placid and balmy like he is in a halcyon daze where the sun shining into this Palace is soft and mellow, where the nonexistent breeze aerating in this open space is soothing and light.
He is comfortable, steady, and most of all, assured. Peace in one's body, in one's mind. It is the promise that they are secure and safe, that they have no worries and all they need to do is to merely let go of weighty commitments imposed since birth.
When he looks to his mother, he sees the determination in her eyes. She has a conflict knotting itself within her but she will absolve it soon because she is a mother. It is possible that she has already died and will die for her sins, for she has not spoken and therefore has little to lose upon kneeling here in front of a libellous Emperor. His mother is a mother to the very end and the only thing she will fight for at this very moment will be the lives of two children who had never known their birthright until now.
But when he looks over to Feng Hao, there is resolution set heavily on his face. He is oddly quiet, but it shall be at times like this where he has been beaten up and forced down to the tiniest shred of dignity still within him. The eyes that Wei Zhi observes, however, are not eyes of frontal fear and acceptance of his fate. They are eyes of a resolute man, staring at him with a firm decision in his mind.
Wei Zhi looks away and knows what this boy brother of hers is thinking. At this very moment, he wishes to be useful. He wishes to be someone worth crying over.
Zhi Wei is quiet. She is ready, with an eye for any sword within sight to make death the most horrifying and harrowing sight. She will not go down quietly because of her humane emotions, but that is also precisely why Wei Zhi will not let her. Family, held on a high pedestal, she will do everything she can to make sure they thrive.
He blinks and passively lays a cool eye on the Prince of Wei.
He does not see blood. He does not smell the metallic cruor that Zhi Wei is imagining him bathing in.
He sees defiance, a condescending gaze returning his own. The upper hand, held tight in a fist, all but whispering to him to take his last breath.
Wei Zhi smiles. It is a natural smile that pulls on his eyes, and when this Prince of Wei can only blink and stare back at a face looking death in the eye, he looks away and dismisses his person entirely to find the Emperor once again.
"Your Majesty, " Wei Zhi starts with a steady voice, raising both hands and greeting with his left hand over his right. He maintains this stance, greeting like a man, before raising his head to regard this Emperor confidently with a raised chin. He will not go down without dignity and pride in what he had built for himself in this life. He knows his worth. "May you live a fruitful and prosperous life shorter than my family lasts, and shall you die a tumultuous death at the blade of your son who is most like you."
Zhao Yuan's head rivets at his vindictive words, but before he can take a step back in response, Wei Zhi pushes his mother away forcefully and snatches up the wine cup. In the corner of his eye, Xin Zi Yan has ripped himself up from his kneel and the Emperor is standing in outrage—
"Zhi Wei—
—No one stops him as he downs the entire chalice.
"Zhi Wei!"
The loudest shout came from Xin Zi Yan.
Ning Yi nearly wishes to stay on the floor. The palace has thin walls. Therefore, upon hearing her words to his treacherous father, he knows that there will be no time for him to even make an entrance.
He launches to his feet, cape thrown back out of his way, and he marches past useless miscreants of Palace guards that obstruct his short path to the theatre. He will go into this with dignity intact because it will be how he leaves when his heart is gone and in disrepair, and how he will breathe when he has nothing to live for but violence and rightful vengeance.
He enters the room knowing well enough that Zhi Wei will not do things half-heartedly. Zhi Wei is righteous to a fault and will stop at nothing to sacrifice herself before others. It is her moral, her belief that everything will have a solution, as giving her life is a viable solution. Zhi Wei is not afraid of death. She is only afraid of what comes after, whether chaos will strive in the result or if there will be eternal peacetime after the death of a measly woman with a thousand interloping connections to the rest of the world.
Blood is metallic and tangy in the air when he steps in the theatre. It is sharp and nearly rancorous but he knows that that is only because it is the blood of someone he knows well.
Zhi Wei is righteous to a fault, true, but with her family on the line, then every previous thought will be thrown out the window. Her family suffering will be what stops her from death. But if she sees indisputably that her family will thrive in anarchy and disorder after, then she will see to it that she dies cathartically to incite this mayhem.
Her family is part of the remnants of the previous dynasty. They seek to bring it back, and therefore, they will flourish in a civil war brought on by the death of one of their own. Zhi Wei will die, but her family will prosper.
He knows her well. He sees what she will do before she has done it, and that is why he carries a broken heart into the theatre with only blood rushing in his ears even before he sees her.
He does not want to see her body. He wants to crawl back to his Palace, mourn the loss of half his heart for a week before he calls an army from the east to end a dynasty. He wants to bleed himself dry so that there will be no tears to spill, and only when he finally sits on a throne with maroon cruor soaking the soles of his boots at every step, shall he cry for a lost future of weightless sunshine and cherubic laughter.
He walks into the theatre, and he knows that there are two ways he can leave.
He only sees Zhi Wei kneeling at the front. He finds her easily and is the only thing in his eyes. She is steady, but there is an empty cup tumbling from her hands. He does not need to look at Zi Yan and his widened eyes to run towards his little raccoon.
His armour beats the air at every step. The heavy metal does not weigh him down at this moment. He runs, and he slides onto the ground in time to catch Zhi Wei as she falters and leans back precariously.
Her mother looks to have fallen heavy to the side, it tells the story of how determined this woman was to stop her daughter by throwing her entire body weight, though to no avail. Her horrified face speaks of how she never intended for any child of hers to die first, and it is plastered with regret mixing with tempestuous anger.
But Zhi Wei is in his arms, and he feels empty and hollow because she is looking up at him with sunlight in her warm honey eyes. She is smiling at him with a bloodthirsty grin, pale skin painted with the vivid red of her blood and it tells him how she does not regret this choice.
Because it is the only choice, for she rather her family lives to call for blood and anarchy than die in vain and hatred.
Zhi Wei is in his arms, her head cradled to his chest and her entire weight relying on his body to remain upright and still, and he cannot breathe for the air of her imminent death has already filled his lungs. His eyes burn but he will not let her see how tormented he will be without her, even though she already knows.
She is watching him with serenity sewn on her lips and he will not let her see anything but his crystal understanding and naked promises.
Her hand has the strength to reach for his face, and he holds her firmly there as her nails dig into his skin just like a raccoon refusing to let go of their possession and her warm eyes sharpen to steel.
"Zhu Yin and I will wait for your clamorous entrance." She seethes through clenched teeth, forcing him to make promises that he has already made, before her head starts to sink and lower in spite of her efforts to keep her stare on him. "And we will hear the tales of how you burned the world for me through many lifetimes."
Her words die before she does.
Zhi Wei breathes her last before the sun stops shining from her eyes. She quietens, then stills, and the world has finally plunged into bitter, gelid cold, for the sun has stopped shining down on them and there is nothing but torrential storms and damnations for a land of lamentations.
The Prince of Chu blinks up to her mother as she grabs the sleeve of his armour and coughs up blood with a reddened face. He sees searing revulsion and loathing promising eternal execration to those who have wronged her. She does not speak to him. He sees her vehemence against the son of a man who took a dynasty from her.
She does not speak. She makes him promise.
When she falls softly to the ground, he has a hand on her cheek to show that he has sworn.
She is a mother, and in her unjustly end, she wishes to raise hell for her children.
Feng Hao breaks silence then, a hand on his dead mother and a breath of anguish and dolour, an immature howl at the sight of realisation that he is the only one left of a family that should have been regarded as dragons. He turns to the Emperor, and he shouts in sorrow and tumulting grief.
"Have you done enough? HavE YOU DONE ENOUGH ?!" He holds his mother's hand in a deathly grip, and he shouts bereavements at the Emperor at the merciless barbarity of people without power at his feet.
Ning Yi tilts his head, forcing the feeling of boiling blood to his core, and merely rolls his eyes to meet his father with a placid face.
The Emperor will not meet emoted rants to his face, because they will merely be words with a voice without action. Therefore, his father looks to him instead of a shouting boy, facing a situation that has gotten out of hand.
He meets his son in the eye, a Prince in war armour cradling a dead woman and another at his feet.
The Prince of Chu smiles deadly. He laces his grin with a threat and a poison because there are two ways he can leave this Palace and these outcomes will be entirely dependent on his father.
"Irrelevant people shall leave this room." He says. He does not take his eyes off this Emperor. " Now ."
The ever-loyal Zi yan leaves first with a bow, followed by guards who drag a still shouting, now incomprehensible, Feng Hao out of the room. The Prince of Wei stares at both his father and his sixth brother as if he has any right to still be in the room, and only leaves when Ning Yi turns his gaze to him after a moment of silence.
Zhao Yuan stays, because he is forever the right-hand man only the Emperor can really count on, forever objective and loyal to no other. That, and he knows all the secrets of the Emperor already.
The theatre now holds three men and two dead bodies. Five entered this Palace, three leaves and three stays.
Zhi Wei is now growing steadily colder in his arms. He is now clutching her head to his chest with a single hand and grasping her fingers in a bone-breaking grip to maintain lucidity and sanity in this disquieting situation.
He focuses on his father, still holding a smile that feels uncannily natural on his face, a smile that Zhao Yuan seems to feel uncomfortable with in a theatre of dead bodies. He could leave, but Ning Yi knows that he has been through worse.
"This is where we end, Father." He starts. There is no rage now. As if Zhi Wei's dead body is chilling the flames of his burning soul till it is nothing but a snuffed out hearth rasping in smoke. He seizes his father's attention, he knows he has it. "Our kinship is beholden by that I hold both of you dear in my heart. I simply cannot live without either and here we are."
He pulls Zhi Wei closer, even if he knows that he is only holding an empty shell of a once full life. He presses his cheek against her sweat and dirt matted hair, and he maintains his steady and guiltless eye on the widened ones of his father. This Emperor knows what he talks about.
"Where we end? You still dare to threaten the Emperor, Ning Yi?" This Emperor dares to ask, even. Though of course, he is the Emperor. What is he afraid of? A disrespectful son? "You have lost nearly all and you still dare to threaten me?"
"When I first came out of the Zong Zheng Temple, I had nothing, Father." He holds Zhi Wei tighter. "Now I have an army, I have your Ministry of War and the Ministry of Justice. Now I have lost half my heart and I know I can make you lose all of yours. What do I not dare to do?"
"You kneel here, to tell me that you have power? Everything I've given you, Ning Yi, I can take back. Where shall your power be then? You may take my life at the very least, but you will not have satisfaction in the ease that you had." This Emperor hits the table, but his face does not change. His words hold outrage, but he looks as if he knows what Ning Yi is doing.
"Oh, but who will take my place then? Ning Ji is too young, Ning Qi is even more inexperienced, and the only other, Ning Sheng, has been driven mad and is a traitor."
Ning Yi is trying to challenge him. Giving him this last stretch of a hand, to let him right what he can in this abyss of wrongs. It is the smallest and most final thing that he has to offer. Antagonism, to wait in light of what familial relationship they have left upon the taking of the life of this woman in his arms.
"And so what? You stay here to tell me that I have lost your loyalty? For a woman you have merely known for a year, to a cause that no Emperor will let go of? Zhi Wei died by her own hand. Who are you to challenge the fact of her death, other than a Prince pulling a tantrum?"
"Tantrum, Father? This is no tantrum." Ning Yi lets his finger stab the air in pointed silence. "This is my being a Prince who has lost half his heart after not having anything his entire life. This is my being a person who knows love and has lost it. You, Father? Pity that when you did, you've killed her as well."
Now he gets a reaction. He sees the widened eyes of an enraged man. His mouth is filled with untold secrets threatening to burst to cover and justify his decisions, because Ning Yi knows that his mother's death was suspicious and impactful all the same.
"Ning Yi! I had never told you the most painful incident of my life because I feared that you would be hurt! I did not wish the same of you, and therefore I will never tell you. You accuse me of being unloving? You are but an ungrateful son who has no heed for the worries of Tian Sheng above your own, what would you know about the struggles of an Emperor?"
Ning Yi sees him. He sees him. He sees him. He sees him brush aside the death of his favourite Scholar. He sees him dismiss the fact that he had placed the wine before her, had not factored her self-sacrificing tendencies because he has not seen Zhi Wei in action and only Wei Zhi. And even so, he feels no remorse, for he is the Emperor and the Emperor has to be and is a heartless man. He may have loved his sons, but he had a father who was unthoughtful and he is the same.
The Emperor is a father to conniving sons, undeniably, and especially while he does not fear death, he fears the lack of authority now that he has tasted it for twenty odd long years. He can pull how much he says to have given to Tian Sheng. He can say that he will put his empire above his sons out of his responsibilities, but it will not go unsaid that he is ruthless and barbaric when attempting to put people in their places and that is proven here in this Feng Yun Palace today housing two dead bodies.
This fatherly Emperor knows Ning Yi to be a son that will grow to be unlike him. Because Ning Yi grew up broken and torn without adoration from either parent, and he is still a son to two people and therefore while he may be like his father in knowing authority and the Go game of life, he will be like his mother who has tied two lives together out of spite.
"You have nothing, Father. Nothing on me, even so. Because you can say however you wish but you will forever be a person who will take your people for granted." Ning Yi slides his hands under Zhi Wei. He rises with her against his chest easily, because she is but an empty vessel, a shell of a lovely stubborn woman. A mere body. "Tantrum or objecting the death of a love, this is neither. This is me showing that you can only wait as I bring an army to your door."
He bows a fraction, out of mockery than respect. He knows that no guard will behead him, for this Emperor has no power against a man who has lost everything in the form of a woman, a man holding the promise of chaos and anarchy through the lands.
Ning Yi turns and leaves Zhi Wei's mother on the floor. He only wants Zhi Wei, who has been nothing but the subject of those around her. He knows his swear to the dead mother. He will come for her to give a worthy funeral.
For now, He will walk Zhi Wei's body through Feng Yun Palace and the rest of this accursed forbidden city back to his estate as a declaration of his promise. He will build a temple in her name while he spills blood on winter soil, and hold all her esteemed friends in honour of how loyal they were to her.
Ning Yi leaves the Palace unimpeded. His Majesty is too enraged and no guard dares to step in front of an impassive Prince carrying a dead woman.
Ning Yi sees that Ning Cheng's face whitens the second he catches sight of him. He knows what he feels and with the lack of a heart to pander his own sorrow, Ning Yi empathises with his right-hand man instead. His Prince had entered a Palace empty-handed and left with a dead little raccoon.
When he reaches this right-hand man of his, Ning Cheng only bows his head and steps aside in silence.
Ning Yi does not stop. He cannot stop. He professed his love to this woman in his arms but a week ago. He had pledged himself to no one else but her just a week ago. He cannot stop. All his life, everything he had ever adored has been taken away from him. And this time, it will be the last.
"Prepare the troops, Ning Cheng." He says. He is ready to walk this land with half a heart from henceforth. "We leave for Minhai tonight."