The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis-Chapter 387: The Years Ahead

The lanterns went up first.

Yizhen had insisted on lighting the first one himself..."tradition," he said, as if he hadn’t invented the tradition five minutes earlier. Now they swayed in long ropes overhead, warm gold pooling over stone and grass.

The courtyard had been stripped bare by afternoon: tables dragged aside, chairs stacked against the wall, the firepit built from old edging stones that definitely did not come from the Emperor’s private garden.

All the servants had been dismissed. Not a single minister had been told. This night was only for family.

By dusk, they owned the space completely.

The children set up races around the koi pond, daring each other to sprint across the narrow stone bridges without falling in.

The grandchildren carried sticks like swords and whacked each other until someone shouted unfair and everyone else shouted again.

Mingyu sat at a low table, his arms crossed, the very picture of an emperor meditating on state matters when he was, in fact, calculating which platter he could raid while blaming it on Deming.

Deming leaned beside him and attempted (for the seventh time) to explain rules to people that seemed to be allergic to them.

Yaozu took his usual post along the courtyard wall, steady-eyed as if the koi might harbor assassins.

Longzi lingered in the shadows by the gate until two small grandchildren spotted him, conferred in whispers, and decided he made an excellent climbing tree.

And through it all, Xinying moved like she always had: the center without trying to be.

Someone pressed a bowl of sugared chestnuts into her hands. Someone else stole two before she could taste one.

Yizhen, of course, was already ringed by a swarm of eager pupils while he palmed peach pits like dice and lectured on the art of winning with a straight face.

"No, no, no," Yizhen chided, demonstrating a flourished drop. "You let this one fall, see? And take this one while nobody’s looking. Smooth as butter. Easy as lying to an uncle."

An eight-year-old frowned up at him. "But you’re doing it right in front of us." 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"That’s practice," Yizhen declared. "Once you’re good, you’ll never be caught."

"You’re teaching them how to commit a crime," Deming said, his tone as clean as the scroll tucked under his arm.

"I’m teaching them survival," Yizhen corrected with injured dignity. "There’s an important difference."

Deming pinched the bridge of his nose. "You will regret this when they’re in charge of the treasury."

"They’ll be excellent at it," Yizhen said cheerfully, and made a pit vanish in a way so obviously suspicious that even the children squinted.

Mingyu reached over without looking, plucked the pit mid-trick, and flicked it into the fire.

"Hey!" Yizhen yelped.

"No cheating at family festivals," Mingyu said, deadpan.

"No getting caught at family festivals," Yizhen countered, producing another pit from nowhere.

Xinying laughed into her sleeve.

The sound drew Mingyu’s eyes like it always did. He didn’t smile—he would deny under torture that he knew how—but something eased at the corner of his mouth before he looked away.

Across the courtyard, two older grandchildren clashed with sticks in a duel more dramatic than accurate.

Longzi stood behind them, his arms folded, and his expression flat, delivering judgments in the same tone he used to critique battle lines.

"Your stance is weak," he told the boy.

"You taught me this stance!" the boy protested, hair plastered to his forehead.

"I taught you better," Longzi said.

The boy promptly switched. The girl feinted left, cracked him smartly in the ribs, and took the point.

Longzi gave her a single approving nod, then endured her climbing onto his shoulder with the stoicism of a man accepting a noble death.

By the firepit, Deming had drawn a grid in the dirt and was arranging slices of cake like pieces on a board.

"This represents the southern border," he explained to three teenagers pretending to listen. "If you overextend here, you lose the whole—"

One leaned forward, nodded sagely, and ate the southern border.

Deming’s face froze. "That was the entire strategy."

"It was delicious," the boy said.

"Do you people understand the concept of rules?" Deming demanded.

"No," Yizhen said instantly.

"Yes," Mingyu said at the same time.

"Maybe," the boy said around a second bite.

Xinying nudged Deming’s knee as she passed. "Stop turning dessert into warfare. Let them win this one."

Deming exhaled like she’d dissolved a decade of careful planning. "This is how empires fall."

"This is how families last," she said. He gave her a look halfway between annoyance and gratitude and allowed the cake to remain unfortified.

Two toddlers chose that moment to wobble toward Shadow, who lay like a felled tree near the koi.

They patted his flank with solemn awe. Shadow cracked one golden eye, judged the threat, and groaned the groan of a veteran agreeing to be a pillow.

A third child tried to climb his ribs. Shadow sighed and stretched an accommodating paw for balance.

"Gentle," Xinying reminded, and three small hands gentled at once. Shadow accepted this tribute with a thump of his tail that ruffled dust across the stones.

Yaozu hadn’t moved from his place along the wall.

His gaze tracked Xinying whether she knew it or not—each time she stopped to fix a slipped sash, to straighten a crown of paper flowers, to pluck a splinter from a small palm.

When her eyes finally found his, he tipped his chin toward the side gate. A fraction. Enough to ask. Enough for her to answer.

She set her bowl aside. No one noticed when they slipped away.

The side garden had kept a pocket of night for them. Lantern light faded to a hush. The peach trees leaned in like conspirators.

Yaozu said nothing at first—he rarely did when silence did the work better—but his hand found hers and kept it, thumb idling along her knuckles like a habit he’d never unlearn.

"Too loud?" she asked.

"Not loud enough," he said, voice even. "Could be louder. Means they’re happy."

"They’re always happy when you chase them."

He gave her a look that pretended to disagree and then abandoned the pretense, stepping closer until her back touched cool stone. He brushed hair from her cheek with his knuckles. "You didn’t eat."

"I will."

"Liar."

She smiled. "You sound like Deming."

He made a face, as if the comparison wounded him, then kissed her before she could laugh again.

It wasn’t hurried—he was never hurried with her. He kissed like a man with time, because they had time now—acres of it, centuries laid out like a garden no one could burn.

She curled her fingers in his shirt; he caught her wrists gently and pressed them back to the wall as if pinning a secret only they shared.

The courtyard noise softened to a watercolor: a shout about cheating, a peel of childrens’ laughter, the crack of a stick on stone.

He deepened the kiss until the world blurred. When he finally let her breathe, her laugh was small and messy.

"We’re missing the festival," she murmured.

"It’ll be there when we get back," he said, stealing one more kiss because he could.

He didn’t move away, not quite. He bent to her ear. "Five minutes," he promised.

"Three," she bargained.

"Four."

"Deal."

They spent five.

------

By the time they returned, the fire had burned low and the games had evolved into chaos with structure.

One table had become a market stall selling pebbles for imaginary coins.

Another hosted a betting ring in which the odds were whatever Yizhen said they were; Deming audited the process and found it insultingly sound.

The youngest grandchild slept across Mingyu’s lap like a very small emperor; Mingyu, for his part, maintained an expression of austere suffering while sneaking the child shards of candied ginger.

"Caught," Xinying said when she passed.

"I’m not feeding him," Mingyu said, feeding him.

"Of course," she agreed gravely.

He risked the smallest smile, quick as a fox and gone.