Spring does not come.
The snow melts, but the earth beneath it is dead.
Fields outside Ling An lie stripped bare where armies marched and burned through two winters of war. Irrigation canals are choked with ash. Villages abandoned during Zhou's advance now stand hollow.
The famine tightens.
Not slowly now.
Rapidly.
Wu An reads the reports in silence.
Grain reserves: twelve days.
Military rations: eight.
Civilian relief: nearly exhausted.
Even the Black Tigers receive reduced portions.
The capital is no longer whispering.
It is waiting.
Wu An calls the court at dawn.
The ministers gather under the pale light of an exhausted sky.
Many of them are new — merchants elevated to treasury positions, scholars drawn from provincial academies, women appointed to supply administration.
They owe their positions to him.
But even loyalty bends under hunger.
Wu An stands at the center of the hall.
"The land tax is suspended," he announces.
Shock spreads instantly.
The treasury minister stares.
"Lord Protector, that is impossible. The coffers are already—"
"Empty," Wu An finishes calmly.
"Yes."
"Then we stop extracting what does not exist."
The order is written immediately.
Farmers across the northern kingdom are exempt from land tax for the coming harvest.
Grain requisitions are reduced.
Transport levies eased.
The countryside breathes again — briefly.
But the treasury collapses further.
The army notices first.
Pay stops.
Supply wagons shrink.
Zhou presses harder along the northern ridges, probing weak fortresses.
The Southern remnants regroup in river provinces.
The Black Tigers hold both fronts by discipline alone.
Barely.
Liao Yun enters the Protector's chamber late one evening.
"The soldiers know," he says.
"Know what?" Wu An asks.
"That the treasury is gone."
Wu An nods.
"They will still fight."
"For how long?"
Wu An does not answer.
Because the truth is simple.
Not long.
In council the ministers argue openly now.
"We cannot fight two fronts without revenue!"
"Tax exemptions weaken the state!"
"Food relief drains what little remains!"
One minister finally speaks the fear none have voiced.
"If the armies collapse, Zhou will enter Ling An."
Silence follows.
Wu An studies the map.
North.
Zhou's legions.
South.
The remnants of a kingdom that refuses to die.
Inside.
A starving capital.
The Emperor remains silent through the debate.
He has learned that speaking rarely changes Wu An's mind.
That night Wu An walks the lower wards again.
The streets are quieter than ever.
He passes a baker's shop where no bread is left.
A woman kneeling beside a child who no longer moves.
A group of soldiers sharing their last ration with an old man.
The city still believes in him.
But belief cannot fill a stomach.
He stops beside the river.
The water runs dark under moonlight.
The Presence hums faintly.
Not urging.
Not judging.
Just present.
Wu An closes his eyes.
And the calculation forms.
When he returns to the palace, Shen Yue is waiting.
"You've decided something," she says.
"Yes."
Her voice tightens.
"Tell me it isn't what I think."
"It is worse."
She does not speak.
Wu An spreads the map across the table.
Not the military map.
The census map.
Population centers.
Grain reserves.
Labor capacity.
Migration patterns.
"You cannot create food," Shen Yue says slowly.
"No."
"But you can reduce mouths."
He does not deny it.
Her eyes widen slightly.
"You're not…"
"I am."
The plan is simple.
Cruel.
Effective.
Forced relocation.
Entire provinces in the north — the most devastated ones — will be evacuated southward.
Not as refugees.
As labor columns.
Hundreds of thousands.
They will rebuild irrigation canals.
Reclaim southern farmland.
Transport grain north under military escort.
Those who cannot travel—
Will not be transported.
Shen Yue's voice drops.
"That is death."
"It is survival."
"You are choosing who lives."
"Yes."
Her hands tremble slightly.
"You swore to protect Liang."
"I am."
"At the cost of half of it."
"At the cost necessary to preserve the rest."
The Presence hums quietly.
Wu An feels the cold clarity of it.
Empires survive by sacrifice.
He simply refuses to pretend otherwise.
Shen Yue looks at him for a long time.
"You know what this will make you."
"Yes."
"The cruelest ruler Liang has ever seen."
"Perhaps."
"And if you're wrong?"
Wu An answers without hesitation.
"Then Liang dies anyway."
The order is written before dawn.
Northern provinces will evacuate.
Labor columns march south within three days.
Black Tiger detachments will supervise.
The grain routes will be rebuilt.
The capital will survive.
Perhaps.
The ministers stare at the decree in horror.
"This will destroy entire communities."
Wu An nods.
"Yes."
"But it will save the empire."
Outside the palace walls, Ling An still breathes.
Hungry.
Fragile.
Waiting.
And Wu An has placed the cruelest gamble of his life on the table.
Not against Zhou.
Not against the Southern Kingdom.
But against time itself.
The Presence remains silent.
But somewhere deep inside him—
Wu An knows the truth.
Even if the gamble works—
Something inside Liang will never recover.