The next morning, Xiaohua burst in with her hair half-pinned and a rice bun still in her hand, eyes wide. "There's no guard at the door," she said, voice hushed like the air might hear her. I blinked, shuffled to the door, and peeked through the screen—and she was right.
The post was empty. No silent figures standing watch, no polished boots by the threshold, just a quiet, unguarded corridor stretching into the early light like someone had forgotten I was important.
About an hour later, there was a soft knock at the door—two gentle taps, the kind that already made my heart trip over itself. I opened it, and there he was. Ming Yu. No disguise, no cloak, no urgency in his eyes—just him.
I didn't hesitate. I shut the door behind him and wrapped my arms around him in one breathless motion. He hugged me back, steady and warm, and whispered, "I missed you."
I pulled away just enough to look at him. "How did you even get in here?" He reached into his sleeve and handed me a scroll, the wax seal still faintly warm. "Someone's pulling strings," he said. I unfolded it carefully. The writing inside was clean, formal, unmistakably official.
It read: Advisor Liu Ming Yu is being requested reassignment to serve the High Priestess of Water. My eyes snapped up to his.
"How?" I asked, still staring at the scroll like it might explain itself if I glared hard enough.
Ming Yu shook his head. "I don't know. The request was already processed when it reached me. The seal is from the main palace."
I frowned, trying to piece it together. Then, like a sharp breeze through fog, a memory came back to me—"I was rearranging things," Shen Kexian had said, just last night.
No. No way.
He pulled the string?
Why would he do that? Wasn't he the one constantly warning me to stay focused? Wasn't he supposed to be the one keeping Ming Yu away from me?
I had no idea what Shen Kexian's angle was, but for now, I didn't care.
Because the person I wanted to see most had just walked through the door—and wasn't leaving anytime soon.
However, Ming Yu's smile didn't quite reach his eyes.
I caught the shift immediately and stepped closer. "What's wrong?"
He hesitated, then looked down at the scroll in my hand. "Me being reassigned to you… it means Wei Ying loses another piece of influence. Another person loyal to him is no longer in his service."
My heart sank. He was right.
I hadn't even thought about that—too caught up in my own relief to consider the bigger game at play.
Another thread pulled. Another quiet move in the Queen's strategy to weaken him.
With Lan Wangji already technically assigned as my guard, no one had made much of a fuss about it. Mostly because he never acted like my guard. He didn't hover. He didn't report. He didn't even stay with me most of the time—he just existed nearby Wei Wuxian, like a silent force field with eyebrows.
In truth, he was still far too important to be treated like regular palace security. He spent most of his time training the elite cultivators or reviewing tactical reports, so no one dared question his lack of constant presence at my side.
And really, who would? It's not like anyone could tell Lan Wangji to do things. His aura alone said "try me" in six different dialects. People gave him wide berths, polite bows, and absolutely no instructions.
At this point, it was becoming painfully clear: if we didn't find a way to crown Wei Wuxian soon, the Queen would finish stripping him of every last thread of power before he could so much as sneeze without permission.
And once that title was gone? He'd be nothing more than a charming historical footnote with a very dramatic fan base.
We needed to move fast. But what were we supposed to do?
The palace was locked tighter than ever. The Queen controlled the court. Half the ministers were either loyal to her or too cowardly to speak up. The other half were likely being blackmailed with very convincing calligraphy.
We had no allies with real power left. No clear path to coronation.
A soon-to-be high priestess under surveillance, a powerless consort with a baby on the way, a missing Shen Kexian who may or may not be manipulating fate behind the scenes, and now a re-assigned Ming Yu who smelled like quiet rebellion and emotional damage.
I looked at the scroll again.
"We have to do something," I muttered.
But I had no idea what.
As if things weren't already complicated enough, Shen Kexian had taken it upon himself to relocate our training room.
Apparently, walking a few corridors to find me was too much of an inconvenience—so now, my morning spiritual workouts took place in a stone courtyard just steps from my temple door.
Which meant there was officially no escape.
I wasn't even sure how he managed it. One day the space was an unused archive chamber, and the next it had been cleared, swept, sealed with a sound barrier, and furnished with exactly one too-small bench, a water basin, and far too many sharp objects.
Ming Yu saw it once.
Once.
He stood in the doorway, stared at the setup, looked at Shen Kexian, then looked at me like I had married a disaster in a dream.
"I'll pass," he said with the kind of calm that only barely concealed his simmering.
To his credit, he knew. If he stayed, it would be a bloodbath. Not physical—probably—but certainly emotional and full of spiteful eye contact. The kind of fight that only gets interrupted by royal scandal or a ceiling caving in.
So he left. Quietly, and with dignity.
He told me he'd be helping Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji train the cultivators. Said the palace guard recruits were behind in sword form and spirit discipline. Said it would "keep him sharp."
I didn't argue. Even though I missed him the second he walked out.
As Ming Yu disappeared down the corridor, Shen Kexian just shrugged and mumbled under his breath, "Your loss."
I turned to him slowly.
"You want him to stay and get punched to the face?"
He didn't say anything. Instead, he moved to the edge of the training platform and adjusted the placement of the water basin like nothing unusual had happened—like he hadn't just reorganized half the palace.
I crossed my arms. "How did you pull this off, anyway? The training room. Ming Yu's reassignment. The guards are disappearing."
He didn't look at me. Just kept organizing the scrolls on the edge of the bench like we were talking about weather.
"I went to the Queen," he said simply. "Negotiated."
I blinked. "You what?"
"She agreed to let Ming Yu serve under you," he continued. "Said it would help dissolve Prince Wei's remaining influence."
I stared at him, stunned.
"You knew this would hurt Wei Wuxian's position. And you still did it?"
My voice came out sharper than I meant, but I didn't take it back. Shen Kexian paused. Then sighed. His hands stilled over the scrolls.
"How else," he said quietly, "was I supposed to get the Queen to trust me?"
He finally looked at me—calm, but tired.
"I needed to be useful to her. And right now, you're the most valuable asset in the palace. That makes me valuable, too. It buys us space. It buys us time."
I didn't answer right away. Because I hated that he was right.
I crossed my arms tighter. "How else are we supposed to gain back his influence, then?"
Shen Kexian didn't even blink.
"Through negotiation, of course."
I stared at him.
He said it like it was obvious. Like regaining political leverage in the middle of a power-hungry monarchy was as simple as bartering for extra dumplings at dinner.
The dumbfounded look on my face must've been louder than I realized, because he sighed again—deeply, like a tired tutor forced to explain the same equation to the same mildly hopeless student for the fifth time.
His expression shifted into something halfway between, do I really need to explain this and I can't believe you're still surprised.
And somehow, I hated that he was smarter. Not just politically. Strategically. Emotionally. It wasn't fair that someone who looked like a celestial painting came to life also got handed extra IQ points in the middle of palace warfare.
Without another word, Shen Kexian walked over to the weapon rack and returned with a single thin practice stick.
He handed it to me.
"Break it."
I blinked at him. "What is this, a trust exercise?"
"Just break it."
Fine. I snapped it in half easily.
He nodded, then turned and grabbed a full bundle—maybe twenty of them bound tightly together with cloth. He handed it to me with both hands, face perfectly composed.
"Now break this."
I stared at the bundle. Then at him. Then back at the bundle.
I squinted at him, winded and annoyed. "Is this another lesson in spiritual discipline or...?"
Then I froze.
Oh no.
Oh no.
"Wait a second," I said slowly, the realization hitting me like a palace door slammed in my face. "Are you doing the metaphor from Planet of the Apes?"
He blinked. "What?"
"You know—the orangutan chief guy? 'Apes alone, weak. Apes together, strong.'" I waved the bundle of sticks. "This. This is literally the stick metaphor. You're aping the apes!"
He gave me a long, slow look. The kind that said, I am deeply regretting everything about this conversation.
I huffed, still clutching the unbreakable bundle of sticks. "Well… I get it, okay?"
"Good," he said, turning back toward the training platform. "Because right now, we're the single stick. And I'm trying to keep the Queen from snapping us in half."
Shen Kexian stood with his arms crossed, his tone even as he laid out the next step. If I wanted to gather support—if I wanted the people and the court to shift their loyalty—I had to become more than a title. I had to become the image of the Goddess of Water. That meant blessings, acts of charity, carefully staged miracles.
I needed to walk through the palace and the city not as Mei Lin, but as a figure of reverence—graceful, generous, untouchable.
And beneath it all, I had to let the right whispers spread. Rumors tying me, the divine figure, to Prince Wei. Subtle alignment. Careful implication. The goddess favored him, and if the goddess favored him, perhaps heaven did too.