Chapter 21 — The Secret the Empress Dowager Concealed

"It is a pity, but in the end, you still have to fall into my hands."

I gritted my teeth. "You talk far too much."

He froze, his expression faltering. At that precise moment, Xiaoman hurled herself from the shadows. She did not target Shen Huai Nian; instead, she lunged toward the Empress Dowager. Caught entirely off guard, the older woman was slammed backward, the force of the girl's momentum catching her squarely at the waist.

"Sister, run!"

Shen Huai Nian instinctively turned his head. Seizing the opening, I dropped to a crouch and slashed the dagger hidden in my sleeve against his wrist. The cold blade grazed the back of my neck, and a spray of blood painted the air. Xiao Zhi struck with his saber, a swift and lethal arc. Shen Huai Nian retreated, yet he could not escape the strike, which carved deep into his shoulder. A scroll of white silk tumbled from his robes. I lunged for it; he moved simultaneously. Our hands clamped onto the fabric at the same instant. My blood soaked into the material, and as it moistened the fibers, ink characters began to manifest. At the very top, the first line burned into view, clear and undeniable: My daughter, Ming Duong.

My daughter, Ming Duong. Those four words rested upon the silk like the touch of a mother I had not known for seventeen years, finally reaching out to caress my brow. I stood paralyzed. Shen Huai Nian, however, possessed a swifter instinct. He yanked the silk, desperate to tear it from my grasp, but I pressed down with all my strength, refusing to let go.

"Release your hand." His eyes were venomous, twisted with hatred. "This item does not belong to you."

I stared back at him, unblinking. "It bears the name of my daughter, not that of a thief like you."

My father bellowed from the side, "Well said!"

Shen Huai Nian’s face darkened, and he raised his sword with his free hand, driving it straight toward my chest. Xiao Zhi’s blade intercepted the strike just in time. With a resounding clash of steel, the sword was deflected. I clutched the silk and rolled across the stone floor—an ungraceful, desperate tumble—but I held the prize fast. Xiaoman continued to pin the Empress Dowager’s waist. The dowager trembled with fury.

"Insolence! How dare you touch your superior!"

Xiaoman sobbed and screamed, "I am not yet in the family register! I am not considered part of the Xie family! Hitting you will not bring trouble to my father!" I nearly laughed aloud. My father looked equally stunned.

"This child," he murmured, "has finally learned how to be resourceful."

The Empress Dowager raised a hand to strike the girl, but my mother surged forward, intercepting her with a sharp, resounding slap. The sound echoed through the chamber like the tolling of the Eternal Bell. The Empress Dowager’s face was knocked to the side, and a heavy silence descended upon the room. My mother spoke with icy composure: "You dare to lay a hand on my daughter?" Emperor Yuan Sheng watched, stunned. Eunuch Chang stood with his mouth agape, unable to close it for a long while. My father whispered, "My wife is formidable." My mother spun around and glared at him.

"And you, we shall settle accounts when we return home."

My father fell silent instantly. Sensing the tide turning against him, Shen Huai Nian turned to flee, but Xiao Zhi pursued him, saber in hand. They clashed at the entrance of the stone chamber. Shen Huai Nian’s swordsmanship was fast, but Xiao Zhi was even more ruthless. Within three movements, another wound blossomed on Shen Huai Nian’s shoulder. He retreated to the row of ancestral tablets and, in a desperate move, snatched one to shield his body.

"Do not come any closer!"

I recognized the tablet instantly. It belonged to the commander of the Phoenix Guard, Tan Chieu—likely one of the men who had smuggled me out of the palace so many years ago. My heart turned to ice. "You would use the dead as a human shield?"

Shen Huai Nian gave a twisted laugh. "The dead are far more useful than the living."

My father charged forward, wielding a broken candle stand like a weapon. "I shall make sure you find that useful as well!"

Shen Huai Nian hurled the heavy tablet at him. My father caught it, his movements faltering for a heartbeat. Xiao Zhi seized the opportunity, closing the distance and knocking the sword from Shen Huai Nian’s grip with a single, brutal strike. Emperor Yuan Sheng ordered coldly, "Seize him." The imperial guards swarmed forward. Shen Huai Nian was forced to his knees, yet he continued to laugh.

"Your Majesty, do you truly think capturing me is the end?" He sneered. "The Shen clan has operated for thirty years; half the officials in this court have thrived on our patronage. If the Empress Dowager falls, they shall not survive either."

Emperor Yuan Sheng looked at the silk in my hands. "Read it."

I unfurled the scroll. The blood-stained characters were now fully visible. It was a final testament written by the late Empress herself. It was brief, yet every word dripped with agony. She wrote of the Shen clan forging military reports, using the northern conflicts to plunder the treasury. She wrote of the Chu clan poisoning the inner court and laying siege to the Phoenix Pavilion. The Empress Dowager, a woman of the Shen clan, was not the birth mother of the Emperor; she had stolen him during the Empress’s final, desperate illness, feigning the role of a doting mother to usurp power. She detailed the list of the Phoenix Guard, the ledgers of the Shen clan’s crimes, and the proof of the border betrayal—all hidden behind the third brick of the eastern wall of the Phoenix Pavilion underground chamber. If my daughter, Ming Duong, ever reads this, she must never set foot in the palace. She may take the Phoenix Feather Jade and deliver it to Yuan Sheng. Whether siblings choose to acknowledge one another is not to be forced. To survive—that is the only thing that matters.

My voice choked at the end. *To survive—that is the only thing that matters.* She had fought to get me out of the palace not for the sake of revenge, but simply so that I might live. No one spoke in the stone chamber. Emperor Yuan Sheng’s eyes were rimmed with red. He walked slowly toward me.

"Ming Duong."

I raised my head.