Chapter 112: No Future

The day Shen Xin left the palace and returned home, Shen Miao went herself to meet him below the city wall outside the palace gate.
Others in the Shen house were dissatisfied with the outcome—Old Madam Shen especially. She had thought Shen Xin was finally ruined—who expected his life would be spared? But when Shen Gui explained what losing military command truly meant, the old lady brightened again.
A Shen Xin stripped of troops could no longer rival Shen Gui and Shen Wan on the official path. Old Madam Shen's sight was short. She did not grasp that the Shen house stood as one before the world—and the world looked at the Shen name through Shen Xin's fame. Once that fame fell, how could the Shen family swagger as before?
Perhaps she did not care. In her heart the sons she bore—Shen Gui and Shen Wan—surpassed Shen Xin countless times. If not for the old general's favoritism, how would Shen Xin ever have reaped such fruit? Since Shen Gui was nearly ruined, this chance to expel Shen Xin's branch from the family suited her well.
Only how to divide the household would require finesse.
While Old Madam Shen schemed partition in the mansion, Shen Miao paid it no mind. Matters had reached this point—it was time to follow the path she had already planned. The emperor reclaiming command was one thing. A Shen house without troops was indeed less fearsome. But if they stayed, the Shen family's enemies were many. In time they would drive Shen Xin's branch to ruin.
They still had to—retreat.
For no reason Shen Miao remembered Xie Jingxing's warning that day. That word "retreat" truly was the Shen family's only way out. He had seen the heart of it at a glance.
The carriage stopped in a corner by the wall, out of sight. When a man falls, those who disliked his politics—and those who came only to watch—might well gather at the palace gate. Shen Miao knew the Fu house better than anyone. Outwardly magnanimous; secretly they always meant their opponent to bleed. Shen Xin's name had towered over the realm. To lose his tiger tally and walk out the gate in disgrace—many would rejoice at the sight.
Shen Miao had swallowed humiliation enough in her past life. In Ming Qi she had lost face beyond bearing. She could endure shame herself—but not watch her family suffer it. Only by hiding the carriage here and taking them away the moment Shen Xin emerged.
She was thinking this when Mo Qing's low shout came from outside: "Stop!"
A gust of wind rushed in. Shen Miao's eyes blurred. The carriage curtain flew up. In the spacious cabin, another person sat across from her.
Gu Yu shrieked. Jingzhe clapped a hand over her mouth. Mo Qing's flustered voice: "Miss!"
Shen Miao looked at the intruder.
On the carriage seat sat a youth in deep crimson official robes. Peach-blossom eyes, lips curved faintly—garments meant for solemn rectitude, yet on him they looked almost decadent, too beautiful to look away from.
"Mo Qing—withdraw." Shen Miao said quietly.
"But—" Mo Qing's voice tightened through the curtain. The man had moved too fast to block. A stranger alone with Shen Miao in a carriage—unthinkable.
"You can't beat him." Shen Miao said calmly to the outside, then to Jingzhe and Gu Yu: "You two go out as well. Guard beside the carriage."
Jingzhe and Gu Yu had seen Xie Jingxing before. They knew he and Shen Miao had some connection—though how deep, they could not say. Intimate, yet they sometimes clashed. Enemies, yet Shen Miao treated no enemy with such mildness.
Still, experience told them Xie Jingxing would not harm Shen Miao. Since she allowed him in the carriage so openly, she must be sure. Jingzhe and Gu Yu said nothing and stepped down.
Only Xie Jingxing and Shen Miao remained.
"I hear Lin'an Marquis spoke up for us at court yesterday. Thank you, Young Marquis." Shen Miao said.
Xie Ding had joined Su Yu in impeaching Shen Xin—on the surface an attack, in truth opening an escape. Others might not see it. Shen Miao believed a old fox of Xie Jingxing's caliber could not miss it.
Sure enough, at her half-sincere words Xie Jingxing's lips curved. He leaned back lazily, arms loose. "Lin'an Marquis's own idea. Nothing to do with me."
"Oh." Shen Miao smiled at him. "Then Young Marquis invited himself into my carriage—not to hear my thanks?" She stressed "my carriage"— plainly irritated by his habit of appearing uninvited.
Xie Jingxing studied her. "You plan to have Shen Xin retreat and hold the northwest? The Luo house?"
Shen Miao's heart jumped. She looked at him and said nothing.
That was exactly her thought. Xie Jingxing had pointed her toward "retreat"—but she refused to withdraw passively. She had not finished her game on the Ming Qi board. How could she lose the initiative now? Her ambition, her vengeance—not yet begun—could not be crushed before they started.
Losing command did not matter. What Shen Xin's branch valued was not the tiger tally the Fu house imagined—it was the art of leading men. If they could raise one Shen army, they could raise another. And the troops now confiscated had Shen Yuan's men mixed in—Fu Xiuyi's men. To lead such an army always watching for a knife in the back—too exhausting.
Unless they led a clean force instead. Start fresh. Shen military authority was gone—but Luo Xueyan's family, the Luo house, still had theirs. Luo troops had never matched Shen's in battle. They guarded the frontier without flair, drew little notice.
Shen Miao meant to turn the Luo house into a second Shen army—a hidden card in her hand that no one would know. The Fu house fretted daily that Shen Xin would hoard troops and rebel? She would show them the opposite.
Yet this secret thought lay bare under Xie Jingxing's sharp gaze. For an instant fluster showed on Shen Miao's face.
If Xie Jingxing knew her mind—this tragic hero destined for a bold stroke in Ming Qi's histories—what would he do? Threaten her? Report her? Or… kill her?
Probably no chance for any of it. Shen Miao had survived worse in her past life. Even briefly shaken, she crushed the feeling down quickly. Xie Jingxing would soon march north. On the path of her last life, that campaign ended with him dead—ten thousand arrows through his body. Ten days remained. Fate's hand turned heaven and earth upside down. However clever Xie Jingxing was, he could not escape that ending.
Shen Miao lifted her eyes to him.
He was truly beautiful. In her past life as empress she had seen talented handsome men without number. Even Fu Xiuyi, whom she had once adored, lacked this presence. Bold brows slanting to the temples. High nose. Thin lips slightly curved yet vividly red—a smile always touched with mischief. Handsome to the point of arrogance. His contours were hard and cold, yet he bore a pair of dark bright peach-blossom eyes that when they looked at you seemed tender whether feeling was there or not.
Under that careless proud surface—what a black heart beat, only he himself knew.
He was still a youth now, with a young man's bright valor. Today the dark red court robes made him seem slightly older. Fu Ming once read Ming Qi's history of the Xie house and sighed: young prodigy, figure for the ages, dead before his time—Ming Qi's sorrow! Such was the esteem for Xie Jingxing.
Shen Miao had truly noticed him only after becoming empress—seen him from afar at palace feasts, vaguely registering a very handsome young man. Fu Xiuyi had never been warm toward him. Now… this green youth smiling with careless beauty—who could imagine that before long he would die on a battlefield?
Pity entered Shen Miao's gaze. Reborn, she was no soft-hearted woman—but Fu Ming and Wanyu had both praised this man. That earned him a trace of regard from her.
Her shifting look—now wary, now pitying—puzzled Xie Jingxing. He remembered the first time he saw her at Guangwen Hall's gate. She had looked at him with that same pity. Thoughtfully he asked: "You pity me?"
The man read faces better than she did! Shen Miao thought, but smiled. "How would I have the standing to pity anyone?"
Xie Jingxing nodded as if that made sense. Then suddenly he lifted the carriage curtain.
This was a secluded spot. No one would come. Through the lifted corner, the high palace wall rose into view.
Shen Miao's gaze turned distant.
She had lived inside that deep palace so many years. Reborn, she still could not escape the fate. Yet she did not regret. What was the purpose of living? The dead could not return. The living—naturally lived for vengeance.
She looked carefully, as if to carve every stone of that wall into her eyes. Xie Jingxing watched and smiled. "You want to live in there?"
Shen Miao paused.
"If you want in, I can help." Xie Jingxing said. His tone was odd; his smile hid something deeper. "How will you thank me then?"
"If Young Marquis could burn the whole palace down, perhaps I'd be endlessly grateful." Shen Miao answered.
Xie Jingxing raised a brow in surprise. "I thought you wanted to be… a favored lady."
"I do want to be a favored lady," Shen Miao turned to him, smiling with irony. "But not the kind you mean. One more honored than any favored lady."
"You want to be empress?"
Empress? Shen Miao's eyes blurred slightly. She too had worn court robes and phoenix pins. At the coronation of emperor and empress—glory beyond measure, ministers kneeling, people cheering, mother of the realm.
Then she thought she possessed everything she desired.
Now she saw—the higher you climb, the harder you fall. Empress? Only an empty title.
"Becoming empress is simple," Xie Jingxing said lightly. "Finding an emperor is hard."
Ming Qi stood at a crossroads of storm. Nine princes, each with his gift. Even the crown prince's seat was unsteady. Who knew which hand would hold the imperial seal? Great houses married daughters to princes as a gamble—betting on a future.
Fortune favors the bold. Greed is human nature. One general's triumph—ten thousand bones. King or vanquished. A woman who chooses wrong follows her man to ruin.
Xie Jingxing spoke idly: "Who have you chosen?"
He was asking which prince she favored, which she meant to marry, which she meant to support.
"Young Marquis—who do you think has a future?" Shen Miao countered.
"By their faces—none of them has a future." Xie Jingxing's words were chilling. "What will you do?"
"Then I'll find someone who does."
"What do you think of me?" Xie Jingxing raised a brow—mostly teasing, not quite serious.
"Young Marquis has no future either." Shen Miao looked at him seriously.
"…"
Xie Jingxing was struck speechless. He did not rage—but he was displeased. Women he had met adored him. Men feared him. Shen Miao neither adored nor feared—and kept pulling the tiger's whiskers. Had he been too gentle? Did she think him good-tempered?
"Young Marquis—whatever you came to say, say it and leave quickly." Shen Miao was already showing him the door. "If someone sees us, misunderstandings won't be good."
"Misunderstandings?" Amusement flickered in Xie Jingxing's eyes. He lowered his voice deliberately. "What misunderstandings?"
"A libertine molesting an honest maiden." Shen Miao answered without blinking. She had figured it out—in contempt for propriety, Xie Jingxing had no shame at all.
Even Xie Jingxing, who had seen every sort of coquettish beauty, was momentarily dizzied by that line. He coughed twice, sat straight, stopped teasing. "Retreat to the northwest—the faster the better. The longer you delay, the worse for Shen Xin."
Shen Miao glanced at him, surprised he would remind her. She did not want to cross a man like Xie Jingxing. That he bore her no hostility was already enough.
"Thank you."
Xie Jingxing said: "Best if Shen Xin can leave Ding before I depart."
Shen Miao felt helpless. "That depends on whether it can be done." Not everyone had Xie Jingxing's ability. She always felt the backing he relied on was not entirely Lin'an Marquis house—perhaps even above it. Yet within Ming Qi, what power stood above Lin'an Marquis except the throne? And throne and Xie Jingxing were opposed now.
She could not puzzle it out.
Xie Jingxing paused, then swept out through the curtain as he had come—fast as wind. Before Shen Miao could react, voices called outside: "Madam! Master! Young Master!"
She lifted the curtain. Shen Xin, Luo Xueyan, and Shen Qiu were coming around the corner from the gate. Seeing Jingzhe and Gu Yu, they paused in surprise. Shen Miao looked around—no trace of Xie Jingxing. Alert as a thief-master, she thought—skill so uncanny he could have been the ancestor of rooftop prowlers.
Luo Xueyan saw Jingzhe and hurried over—just as Shen Miao jumped down from the carriage.
Days apart, all three looked haggard. Shen Miao had seen this hand from the throne before. Sometimes before deciding a person's fate, detention wore down the will. The Shen family were martial people, wills of iron—yet they had left Shen Miao in the mansion. Hard not to read meaning into that.
Luo Xueyan seized Shen Miao's hands and looked her over. "Jiaojiao—these days, did anyone make trouble for you?"
Shen Miao shook her head.
Luo Xueyan exhaled. Shen Qiu asked: "Sister—why aren't you at home? Why come here?"
"I heard Father and Mother return today. I feared there'd be no carriage—came to meet you." Shen Miao smiled.
Shen Xin's lips moved. He wanted to speak but did not. He knew spectators were many. Shen Miao's gesture was to avoid their eyes—and was deeply thoughtful. He had sworn to shield wife and children. Now others had taken his tiger tally. The frustration in his chest was real.
He boarded the carriage in silence. Luo Xueyan, not wanting to worry Shen Miao, pulled her in too. Jingzhe and the others rode in the rear carriage. In the front—only Shen Miao's family.
"Mother—what did His Majesty say?" Shen Miao asked.
Luo Xueyan hesitated, then smiled. "Nothing much. Only a misunderstanding."
"With the tiger tally taken—how is that a misunderstanding?"
Shen Qiu started, glancing at Shen Xin. Of the three, Shen Xin should be angriest. He did not know where the leak was. The only possibility—something wrong inside the Shen army. Otherwise who would know about the defied massacre order?
"Losing the tally isn't so terrible," Luo Xueyan tried to soothe her, fearing she would sense unease. "Without the tally we can still fight. Your father is still a general. We're the same as before."
Shen Miao lowered her eyes. Shen Xin and Shen Qiu watched her with concern. Before, Shen Miao had been somewhat spoiled—because the Great General's name was her mountain. Without that backing, a girl raised in gold and jade might not accept the change. Common enough.
"Still fight?" Shen Miao said softly. "With the vanguard? With the cooks?"
Luo Xueyan and Shen Qiu froze. These days they had grown used to Shen Miao's gentle obedience. Such sharp words seemed unbelievable.
Shen Xin's face turned iron-dark. A general's pride brooked no trampling. Wenhui had spared his life but given him a deeper humiliation—worse than death.
"Without the tally one can still fight—but His Majesty may appoint deputies, sub-generals, strategists, overseers. Orders require another's leave. Commanding three armies needs another's tally. The title 'general'—isn't it an empty shell?"
Shen Miao lifted her head. Her eyes were clear as spring water, as if she spoke the most ordinary household words.
Yet who had ever seen Shen Miao so pressing? Shen Qiu perhaps had. Shen Xin and Luo Xueyan never. And to speak of court affairs so directly—
Shen Xin clenched his fist but still comforted her. "Jiaojiao—Father will clear his name. The Shen army will return to my hand. Your standing won't change."
Shen Xin had always let his deeds speak. He believed that in all Ming Qi, except Xie Ding, none matched his valor. A fine blade fears no deep sheath. One day it would leave the scabbard again.
"But how long must we wait? When that day comes, will the Shen army—now absorbed into the Imperial Guard—still be loyal to Father? Even now, with Father still in command, there were traitors within. Later… who guarantees there won't be more?"
At that Luo Xueyan's face turned grave. "Jiaojiao—who told you these things?"
Shen Miao could know the tally was taken, could know the army went to the Imperial Guard—everyone knew that. But traitors inside the Shen army could not have come from outside rumor. Whoever told her must understand court deeply. Luo Xueyan feared someone was using her daughter.
Shen Miao shook her head. "I'm not a fool. What others won't tell me, I may still know."
Shen Qiu said: "Sister is very clever." In the Prince Yu affair he had seen her skill. Her vision was not a boudoir girl's. She could be ruthless—and saw clearly.
Rare praise from Shen Qiu. Shen Xin frowned. "Jiaojiao—what are you trying to say?"
"If the Shen army is no longer ours—then let it go. What about giving it up?"
"Jiaojiao!" Luo Xueyan stopped her—then softened her tone, realizing she had been too harsh. "The Shen army was raised by your father's own hand. Brothers-in-arms beyond counting. To speak of abandoning it—how easy is that? Comrades from the battlefield—this… impossible."
"Then what does Father plan?" Shen Miao countered. "Endure in silence? Endure long enough and you may find your chance—but if enemies press while you weaken, in the end nothing may remain."
Shen Xin stared at Shen Miao as if meeting his legitimate daughter for the first time. Something like deep thought crossed his face. "Jiaojiao—what do you think we should do?"
"When the east is dark, the west may still have light." Shen Miao's eyes shone. "If Father could lead the Shen army, why not lead another?"
Shen Xin paused, then laughed and ruffled her hair—as if her words had lifted some weight. "Truly still a child who hasn't grown up. In this world, how many armies are there for the taking?" At the end, sadness crept into his voice.
The Shen army was like a child Shen Xin had raised himself. To lose it—words could not measure the pain.
Shen Miao smiled faintly. "Then—the Luo house?"
Shen Xin's smile died. Luo Xueyan and Shen Qiu thought together and looked at Shen Miao.
Shen Miao said slowly: "Grandfather's hand still holds scattered troops. Not what the old Shen army was—but the numbers aren't small. Train them slowly—might they not become the next Shen army?"
Luo Xueyan's family were military too—but a house in decline. They had soldiers, yes—but once Shen Xin guarded the northwest, the Luo troops at Xiaochun City had mostly returned to farming. They kept the name of an army, drew rations, did no work. Years passed—they were ordinary folk.
"That won't do." The Shen house had served the throne loyally for generations. Devotion to the sovereign was instinct. Shen Miao's words bordered on treason—raising private troops where the emperor did not know. Luo Xueyan said: "Jiaojiao—this is no game." She did not know how to explain how the throne feared generals who hoarded soldiers. How could a young girl understand?
But Shen Qiu, who spoke little, opened his mouth. "Sister wants to use Luo troops in place of the Shen army?"
"Not quite replace," Shen Miao smiled lightly. "But Father is still a general. He can't stand bare-handed. Followers he must have. If so—what difference between Shen army and Luo army? With Luo troops, one more chip for self-preservation—isn't that better?"
She framed rebellion as survival. At least it sounded less horrifying. Luo Xueyan found today's Shen Miao utterly strange. She looked up—Shen Xin frowned deeply, seriously considering—and her head ached.
Shen Xin looked at Shen Miao and deliberately guided the talk. "What you say sounds well, Jiaojiao—but Luo troops are far at Xiaochun City. How do we get there?"
"That depends on Father's decision." Shen Miao smiled at him. "Perhaps Father could petition His Majesty—retreat to the northwest, volunteer to garrison Xiaochun City, depart at once."
All three were stunned again.
Xiaochun City was a small frontier town in the northwest, mountains and rivers away from Ding. If Shen Xin truly requested it, everyone would think the Great General, stripped of his tally, had lost heart and meant to rot on a border post. His renown would slowly sink into history.
Shen Xin's tiger eyes widened. "That is retreat. No."
New talents rise with every age. Hiding one's light has its wisdom. But Shen Xin was no green youth anymore. Past forty—if never recalled, if no fitting chance returned, even if he trained the Luo rabble well, he would still rot on the frontier. Unfulfilled ambition, hero's twilight—the world's saddest thing.
"When retreat serves advance, strategy manuals say so. What is Father afraid of?" Shen Miao did not yield. For the first time her always calm clear eyes held something like challenge. "Afraid you'll never rise again? Afraid one retreat becomes another until there's nowhere left? Afraid time passes and the chance to shine never comes?"
Each question tightened Shen Xin's heart. Not only Shen Xin—Luo Xueyan and Shen Qiu froze too. Shen Xin watched his daughter and realized at last: this soft delicate girl had inherited the stubborn pride in his bones.
"Besides," Shen Miao laughed lightly. "Within two years His Majesty will summon Father back to the capital. The day you enter the capital—that is the day you rise."