Perspective: Zhuge Su Yeon
I still remembered that day perfectly.
The day my imperial father returned from one of his rare excursions beyond the borders of Zhuge Island.
He arrived at the palace with his usual grandeur — firm steps, confident gaze — but there was something different about him.
A subtle tension.
As if something had truly shaken him.
That alone was enough to alarm me.
My father, after all, was the kind of man who faced storms the way others crossed hallways.
Recklessness and confidence were both his virtues and his vices.
He was known for solving every problem — big or small — with the strength of his fists, never once worrying about the consequences.
And yet, that day… he looked cornered.
It took me hours to discover why.
He only revealed it in secret, during a late-night conversation, when the palace slept and the cold wind rattled the windows of the northern hall.
Between sips of tea — or what he insisted on calling tea — my father told me what he had done.
During a celebration in the Empire of the White Flame, one of the great colossi across the sea, he had attended a banquet with the local emperor.
And, drunk on spiritual liquor of the highest grade (and, of course, on his own natural arrogance), he decided to forge a marital alliance between the two empires.
So far, nothing unusual.
Political marriages had always been the most efficient way to keep peace among powers.
The problem was in the details.
According to the agreement, Zhuge Han, the third imperial prince — at the time, barely eight years old — would be betrothed to the second princess of the White Flame Empire, a young girl named Wu Xue Bing.
At first, I saw no reason for concern.
Arranged marriages were part of our world.
My own engagement to Bai Xuan Hua had been decided when I was ten.
Why should Han's be any different?
But when he saw how calm I was, my father sighed — and then revealed what truly troubled him.
According to him, the White Flame Empire followed very different customs from ours.
While polygamy was widely accepted on Zhuge Island, monogamy was their law.
Men and women married only once, and breaking such vows was considered the greatest of all spiritual sins.
My father feared that one day, when Han grew older and understood the meaning of the promise made on his behalf, he would blame him.
Blame his own father for having limited his choices.
And, knowing Han, I honestly couldn't say if that was a real possibility or not.
But, true to his nature, the magnificent scoundrel brushed it off.
He leaned back, shrugged, and said:
"If something goes wrong, I'll fix it with my fists. Like I always do."
And that was that.
No plans. No regrets.
The man sealed an international alliance and buried it in the back of his memory, like one misplaces a trivial letter.
I didn't worry either.
It seemed like a distant problem — the kind that would sort itself out.
On paper, the contract didn't forbid Han from taking other wives, nor did it force him to follow the cultural traditions of the White Flame Empire.
It was merely a formal, political document, without spiritual clauses.
But time passed.
And the world changed.
The same man who claimed to solve everything with his fists… disappeared.
No warning.
No instructions on how to clean up his mess.
No trace.
The Zhuge Empire lost its emperor.
And I, his eldest son, inherited not only the throne — but also every single disaster he had left behind.
Including that one.
The marital alliance with the White Flame Empire now fell to me.
And as the new emperor, I became the political hostage of a promise made at a drunken banquet decades ago.
In theory, resolving it shouldn't have been difficult.
After all, the Emperor of the White Flame and my father had been good friends — close enough to make such an agreement over a bottle.
But the problem was that things had changed on their side as well.
The old emperor — a proud, war-hungry man — had died in battle about five years ago.
And, against all expectations, the throne hadn't gone to the crown prince.
It had gone to his eldest daughter — a woman who, until then, had lived in the shadows of the court.
A cultivation prodigy, they said.
Someone who had appeared out of nowhere and, within weeks, stabilized an entire empire after her father's death.
A woman whose strength and resolve were comparable to Bai Xuan Hua's — which, personally, I found both flattering and terrifying.
And it was she who sent me the letter.
Polite.
Formal.
Impeccably written.
In it, she stated that she viewed the fulfillment of the marriage alliance as a positive act — a gesture to strengthen ties between two long-standing allies and rebuild trust between nations.
But there was one condition.
She wished for everything to be conducted according to the customs of the White Flame Empire — not those of Zhuge.
She expressed concern for her younger sister's happiness — the future wife of Han — and wanted to ensure the marriage would be founded on exclusive loyalty, not divided among multiple wives.
At the time, I saw it as good news.
Allies were better than enemies, and my personal peace depended heavily on that.
So I responded positively, promising to honor their traditions and respect the agreement.
Besides, Han was only seventeen.
And until then, he had shown absolutely no interest in any girl on the island.
He was quiet, studious, disciplined — a rarity among the young nobles of the court.
Which, frankly, suited my plans perfectly.
But now…
Now Yui Lan had come to me with a revelation.
And suddenly, all my careful political balance began to crack.
She told me that, apparently, the third prince's hormones had finally decided to awaken.
And that my once-disciplined little brother — the same one I thought immune to worldly temptations — had fallen in love.
Worse still:
with a girl from the Yuan family — one of the oldest and most influential houses on the island.
Which meant that, at this very moment, Prince Zhuge Han was about to betray a fiancée he didn't even know.
I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling the familiar ache of an impending headache.
I could already imagine the chaos that would erupt if I didn't act quickly.
The White Flame Empire would see it as an insult.
The entire island would see it as weakness.
And the Zhuge name — which had just regained its lost respect — would once again be thrown into question.
And, as always, it fell to me to clean up the chaos someone else had started.