Shen Wei never wanted to be an Emperor, but on the anniversary of the peace deal he discovers that Kunlun might be alive.
Part 1 of the The Leaves Of Autumn Are Memories series
Ha! A quick update...it shocked me too! :) Sorry for the long delay! I had an accident recently and typing has been...challenging. Love you!!
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Sometimes clarity is an idea or a word, startling in its impact. Settling like a stone on a river bed, as if it had always been there just out of reach until that moment or grasped in desperate fingers. Poets wrote extensively about such moments, in long flattering ways.
To Zhao Yunlan it was and always had been, a punch to the face.
Standing in the middle of this ruined courtyard ten years into the future, he suddenly understood Ya Qing's plan as if he had written it himself. It was surreal being here and half of his mind did wonder if this was an elaborate dream, but not even his imagination could create this disaster.
It wasn't what he would have done by any means but it was the kind of plan he knew how to guard against.
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He had walked into the fires thinking - not that he would ever admit this - but that if his death might solve anything, it might allow Shen Wei, his beautiful Ghost General a chance to live. Sending Shen Wei away on that boat had been the best decision of his life, for all the pain it caused.
As the fires consumed him, he had thought that his mother would have been proud. He had thought that Jie Ming would marry Zhu Hong and live a good, noble life with the stability and happiness they deserved.
For peace.
His only regret was that he couldn't save his cat and that he couldn't send Sang Zan back to Ge Lan, the Hanga princess.
He hadn't expected the burning desire for revenge over himself. That Shen Wei would be trying to balance vengeance with adhering to 'what Kunlun would have wanted'.
The pain of the blow like truth, registering more than settling. This clarity was nothing tranquil or really if he was honest and he rarely was, sudden. This wasn't a shock for all he wished it was. It was bitter and should be panic-inducing if he was inclined to panic.
They wanted war.
By killing the Empress and Emperor of Dixing just after Kunlun went missing, Southern Haixing crossed a line that could never be forgiven. To Zhao Yunlan's mind, it took the immense strength of character and will that only Shen Wei possessed, for him to actually agree to peace, when everything in him must have clamored for war, for blood, for revenge.
Hell, Dixing must have been shouting for revenge and the political factions would have harnessed Shen Wei's bizarre reluctance against him tenfold. The murmur of kin-killer, Emperor slayer ... It had been there and Zhao Yunlan knew it as if he had been hearing the whispers himself.
They murdered his didi. His king yes...but he was little brother, his to protect and guard. The primary purpose that kept Shen Wei going through every dark year and crushing event. They murdered his mother. The woman who defined Shen Wei, for all she constantly hurt him.
