That night felt like the best decision anyone had made in months.
Yuan Zhen had visited Fang Lian and stayed longer than protocol required. The old general—Wan'er's father—had looked at the emperor with new eyes. He saw a man who had not come as a conqueror but as someone who wanted Wan'er's happiness. After their talk, Fang Lian said he wanted nothing more than to see his daughter at peace, and the two men left with a fragile, newly-formed trust knitting between them.
Yuan Zhen and Wan'er grew closer in those days. They walked side by side through the palace gardens and through the new fields, and people began to whisper: the emperor and his Empress—sun and moon, perfect in their difference. It should have been simple and safe. It should have been enough.
A jealous pang kept visiting Wan'er, though: when the twins called Yuan Zhen "papa" before "mama," she threw tantrums that made the whole household laugh and groan at once. One morning she and Ji Feng went to the forest for herbs and game. Grass bent under her steps; Ji Feng, always alert, moved with the steadiness of a shadow guard.
They were ambushed.
Ji Feng's last word — "M-master!" — echoed in Wan'er's ears as darkness closed over the world. The shadow guard fought like a man with nothing left to lose; he was up against several top-rank martial artists from Jun Kingdom and took terrible wounds. Somehow Ji Feng stumbled back to the palace, bloodied and exhausted, barely on his feet.
He collapsed at the physicians' door.
"Master was kidnapped… Jun Kingdom." His voice was brittle. Then he passed out.
Yuxi and Ren Wang and Yuan Zhen crowded the bedside. Fang Lian's face went stone. Yuan Zhen's voice went cold but steady. "We must plan. We do not yet know Jun Xiang's motive — or whether this was a personal order. We cannot rush in blindly."
The old general thumped a gloved fist on the table. "I will go." He hesitated only a moment, then bowed his pride and said quietly, "I will go, but under disguise. I cannot endanger my name or be blamed for treason."
Shadow-guards were readied two days in advance to infiltrate the Jun Palace. Yuan Zhen gathered forces in secret. In a week he was ready: five hundred thousand troops in total — half to surround Jun's palace, half the cavalry spearheading his advance.
"I am coming, my dear Empress," Yuan Zhen told the banners. The king's face was utterly composed, but by that time his rage was a steady, black current under his skin.
At Jun Palace, Wan'er had never been treated gently.
She had been brought there, held, mocked, and starved of dignity. Li Ruyi—jealous, bitter, and vicious in private—made the days small and mean. Jun Xiang had come to believe he could break her with isolation and humiliation. When Jun Xiang realized Yuan Zhen was approaching, panic flickered in his eyes.
He had done things to try to control Wan'er's willfulness—drugs to cloud her senses, threats in the dead of night. I will not describe the worst of it here, only that Wan'er was treated as if she were a tool for Jun Xiang's pride. The palace servants who colluded with Li Ruyi had blood on their hands and cowardice in their tongues.
Yuan Zhen arrived as the siege tightened. He stood across from Jun Xiang with the weight of entire armies behind him and the measured cold of a ruler who had waited too long.
"Jun Xiang," he said, measured and low. "Surrender and there will be no needless bloodshed. Or refuse—" He didn't need to finish the sentence.
Humiliation and fury warred on Jun Xiang's face. When Yuan Zhen made his other demand — "Return Lian Wan'er to me" — the court tilted and nobody could hold it steady. Jun Xiang stammered and tried to delay, but the battle had already been decided by the emperor's resolve and the shadow network quietly fed into his strategy.
The palace spun into violence. Those who had abused Wan'er were not spared: in swift, ruthless justice — not theatrical or prolonged, but absolute — those who had harmed her were unmasked and neutralized. Li Ruyi's fate was the cruellest inevitable consequence of the house of schemers she had built around herself; when the truth poured out, no boat could bear her weight.
Yuan Zhen did not relish it. He only moved with the severity of a man who had found a way to protect those he loved.
When Yuan Zhen finally entered the chamber where Wan'er had been kept, he found her thin, flushed, fragile — but alive. The drugging had left a bruise on her spirit, if not her body.
He pulled her free. Later that night he carried her back to his carriage in a bridal-style embrace, a wordless promise in the press of his fingers. He ordered her belonging — her seeds, tools, even small vials she had kept — to be brought along. "Take everything," he said. "She brought life; we will not leave her with empty hands."
Back in Yuan, the emperor did not celebrate. He moved like a man who had seen the edge of the abyss and hated that he had been late. He ordered those responsible to be punished, quietly, without pageantry. Ren Wang and a few trusted guards finished the work — swift, decisive, and clean — because Yuan Zhen wanted no more suffering for her.
Wan'er woke in a room that smelled of clean linen and faint herbs. Yuan Zhen lay asleep, elbows splayed, the twins soft and whimpering in their bassinets. She rose silently, watching him breathe — his chest even, the calm mask now firmly back in place.
She did not want to wake him. She slid out of bed and made for her chamber instead, but rage had sharpened into a bright blade in her chest.
"Jun Xiang," she whispered to the empty air, hands balling into fists. "You will pay for letting them hurt my people."
That night she dressed in black — a man's tunic, loose trousers — and tucked her hair into a simple cap. Her Qinggong, still unsteady from the drugs and recovery, was a little off, but her will was iron. She slipped from the palace like a shadow, the cloak of anger and purpose wrapped tight.
"Where's Wan'er?" Yuan Zhen's voice cut through the quiet as he began to wake.
He ran.
Yuan Zhen found Ji Feng first, slumped but stubborn, refusing rest until he learned Wan'er's whereabouts. The emperor's command snapped the household to alertness. The palace gates swung open, the shadow guards scouted by lanternlight, and Yuan Zhen poured himself into motion — not as a man with an army now, but as a man with his heart out on his sleeve.
He didn't know whether Wan'er ran to kill Jun Xiang or to confront him. He only knew she had left and he had to find her before she found more danger than even she could bear.
The chapter ends on a single image: Wan'er's silhouette vanishing between trees, black clothing and a small bundle at her belt, and the sound of a single command cutting through the night as Yuan Zhen's boots thundered behind her.
"Hold fast.""Find her.""Bring her home."
The forest at night trembled with wind and moonlight.
Leaves swayed under the ghostly silver glow as Wan'er glided between the trees, her dark clothes blending into the night. Every leap strained the limits of her recovering qi, but rage fueled her steps. Her breathing was shallow, yet her eyes burned bright with a single purpose.
"You took my peace. You took my years. You will not take my dignity."
She landed on a branch overlooking the border valley — and in the distance, the faint lights of Jun Palace burned like distant embers. Her pulse quickened. She could almost see his face, smug and pitiful at once.
A shadow flickered behind her.
"Wan'er."
That voice — calm, deep, threaded with something raw.She froze."Yuan Zhen…" she whispered without turning. "You shouldn't follow me."
"Then who will stop you from destroying yourself?" His footsteps approached, slow but sure, like a storm that had learned patience. "You're still weak. You haven't even healed."
Wan'er clenched her fists. "Weak?" she said bitterly. "If I'm weak, it's because of what he did. What they did while you were—"
She stopped herself, biting the words. She couldn't bear to accuse him, not when she saw the exhaustion in his eyes. But the fire in her chest wouldn't die.
"Don't you dare ask me to forgive him," she said, her voice shaking. "He treated me like property. He—he ruined what little I believed in." Her voice cracked. "And I'm supposed to just stay home and let the world forget it ever happened?"
"Wan'er." Yuan Zhen's tone softened — dangerous in its restraint. "I didn't come to stop you from justice. I came to stop you from dying with him."
"Then stand aside," she hissed, jumping down toward the open glade where torches glowed faintly. Jun Xiang was there — surrounded by only a few loyal guards, his robes disheveled, his arrogance dimmed by sleeplessness.
When he saw her descending from the treetops, his eyes widened."Wan'er…" His lips twisted into a smirk that couldn't quite hide his unease. "You came back to me after all."
Wan'er landed, steady as a drawn bow. "I came to end this," she said coldly.
"End?" He laughed hollowly. "You left me humiliated before my people. You think you can end something you began when you betrayed me for that emperor of yours?"
"Betray you?" Wan'er took a step forward, voice like ice. "You locked me in a room. You poisoned my food. You let your empress use me as a toy for her jealousy. You call that love?"
Jun Xiang's face flickered. "You don't understand—"
"No," she snapped. "You don't."
Her qi surged, and for a moment, green light shimmered around her — faint, like the pulse of growing life. The mark of her cultivation — of the spirit that once made her farm bloom — awakened, pure and furious.
Jun Xiang's guard lunged forward, but Wan'er's movement was faster — her palm met his chest with a crack like thunder. He flew back into a tree and slumped, unconscious.
"Wan'er!" Yuan Zhen's voice cut through the chaos as he appeared at the edge of the clearing. "Don't waste your strength!"
Jun Xiang laughed again, though blood stained his lip. "Oh, so the mighty Yuan Emperor came chasing after his woman. Do you love her so much that you'll kill for her, Zhen?"
Yuan Zhen's expression didn't move, but the air around him sharpened."If it means protecting her," he said quietly, "then yes."
The wind stilled.
Wan'er's body trembled. "Don't," she whispered. "This is my fight."
Yuan Zhen's eyes flicked to her — not as a ruler, but as a man who had learned the cost of love. "Then finish it," he said softly. "But don't lose yourself."
Jun Xiang sneered. "What can you do, Wan'er? Without your little kingdom's mercy? Without your spirit herbs? You're nothing but a runaway concubine!"
Wan'er didn't answer.Her hand rose.The forest's green qi — faint lights, the scent of earth and leaves — began to swirl around her arm."Nothing?" she whispered. "Then let this nothing be the end of you."
She thrust her palm forward, releasing a burst of green light — spiritual energy infused with the life she once nurtured. It struck Jun Xiang's chest, not to kill, but to seal his qi — cutting him off from the very power he'd once used to dominate others. He staggered, gasping.
"What… what did you—"
"I've taken your cultivation," Wan'er said, voice steady now. "So you can live as the powerless man you made others feel."
Jun Xiang fell to his knees.
Wan'er turned her back to him and walked toward Yuan Zhen.Her legs shook once, and Yuan Zhen caught her before she fell.
"I told you," he murmured, holding her close, "don't destroy yourself for people like him."
Wan'er smiled faintly. "I didn't. I just… took back what was mine."
The night wind moved through the trees again, soft and cool. Behind them, Jun Xiang knelt alone under the moonlight, the last of his pride fading into silence.
Yuan Zhen brushed a lock of hair from Wan'er's face. "Let's go home," he said.
And for once, Wan'er didn't argue.