The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis
Chapter 101: Hers

Chapter 101: Hers

The room was still, save for the soft hum of her breath against his chest.

Zhao Xinying had fallen asleep sometime during the second film, curled into Shi Yaozu without hesitation. Her arm was draped across his waist like she had always belonged there. The strange glowing object continued to flicker images across her features—explosions, grief, loyalty, and dogs moving across the screen in colors and sounds he didn’t fully understand. But he didn’t need to understand the tablet.

He understood her.

And that was enough.

Yaozu didn’t sleep. He didn’t dare. Instead, he watched the slow, steady rise and fall of her breathing, each breath a rhythm he had memorized without realizing it. Her presence against him was warm and solid, like something carved into his chest rather than laid there by accident.

He hadn’t meant to stay. But when she had patted the bed and said "Come lie down," he moved before thinking.

That was her power—not dominance, but gravity.

It pulled him before he could resist.

The tablet sat glowing, casting strange shapes across the bedding. The movie she had chosen—a story of a man in black, of vengeance and a lost dog—was unlike anything he had ever seen. She called it fiction, but to Yaozu, it had felt real enough. Sharp enough. Familiar in a way that made his chest ache.

He didn’t understand the man’s world. But he understood the grief behind it.

There were moments when the character’s silence said more than the gunfire. A man protecting the only thing left that reminded him of love. A final gift. A last hope.

Yaozu shifted slightly, adjusting his arm so she wouldn’t stir. Her head was resting just below his collarbone, her breath warm against his skin. Her hair still held the faint scent of herbs and clean soap. It comforted him more than he was willing to admit.

His gaze dropped to the silver cherry blossom hairpin still nestled in her braid.

A gift from another man.

It should have mattered more. But it didn’t. Because he knew something the Crown Prince didn’t.

He had seen the way she moved through blood and fire. He had watched her lift her hand and bring armies to ruin. He had seen her smile as she killed, soft and controlled, with a grace that could only come from absolute confidence.

She wasn’t meant to belong to any man, she was so much more than just some wife to hide away from the rest of the world. She was like a storm that couldn’t be stopped, that drew men to her like a magnetic.

There was no way for him to be the only man in her life, and after last night? He was okay with that.

Maybe, because of how close to death he always lived, he preferred it. After all, there might be a mission that he wouldn’t come back from, and the idea of leaving her alone left a pit in his stomach.

On the battlefield, she claimed the Second Prince, Zhu Deming, as her own, and it looked like he claimed her back.

His fingers moved without thought, brushing a loose strand of hair away from her cheek. She didn’t stir. She was still, trusting, utterly relaxed in his arms. As if he belonged there. As if she already knew he wouldn’t leave.

Yaozu had spent a lifetime in silence, trained to kill without question, to fade into shadows and forget he had a heart.

But this woman...

She had never needed his protection.

Yet she allowed it anyway.

Outside, the sky began to pale. Dawn was bleeding slow light across the papered windows. The capital would soon wake. Ministers would gossip. Soldiers would prepare for war. The Emperor would sharpen policies like knives and smile while doing it.

But none of that mattered in this room.

Here, with her, Yaozu found something he never expected.

A pause.

A moment not filled with duty or danger, but something quiet and sacred.

She shifted in her sleep. Her lips parted slightly, a whisper too soft to catch. He leaned in, not to eavesdrop—but to be closer, just in case.

"Don’t go," she murmured.

He didn’t.

He stayed.

He stayed even though it meant stepping outside every rule he had ever followed. Even though it meant turning his back on his mission, his orders, his life. He stayed, because somewhere along the way, he had stopped being a weapon and started being hers.

Not a servant. Not a soldier.

Just... hers.

The light from the tablet dimmed. He reached out and powered it down, letting the room fall back into stillness. His other arm remained around her, anchoring her gently. The wind stirred the bamboo chimes outside. Time ticked forward again.

Outside, wind rustled faintly through the paper windows. A bell somewhere in the palace courtyard marked the hour before dawn. The world was waking up. He wasn’t ready for it to take her from him yet.

He was still staring down at her when the door creaked open.

Zhu Mingyu stepped into the room without knocking. His hair was tied back in a simple band, robes unbelted but neat. He froze the moment he saw them. His eyes narrowed, not in surprise—but in calculation.

Yaozu’s hand tightened around the blanket draped across Xinying’s body.

The Crown Prince’s gaze flicked to the curve of her body against Yaozu’s. His mouth opened—to say what, Yaozu would never know.

A sharp thunk interrupted the silence.

A throwing knife whistled past Mingyu’s cheek, embedding itself deep in the wood of the doorframe just behind him.

He went still.

"Don’t wake her up," Yaozu said calmly. His voice didn’t come from the bed but from directly behind the Crown Prince’s shoulder—thrown perfectly through the air with a low echo.

Mingyu’s jaw clenched. He didn’t turn his head to look at the blade.

"I need you in my study," he said instead, voice unconsciously lowered. "We need to talk."

Yaozu’s thumb drifted idly across the back of Xinying’s hand. She didn’t stir.

"When she’s ready to let me go," he replied, just as low.

Mingyu’s eyes flicked to her sleeping face.

He didn’t argue.

After a moment, he nodded and stepped back out the door, shutting it without another word. The click was quiet. Controlled.

Yaozu didn’t relax until the footsteps had faded completely.

Only then did he look down at her again.

His hand returned to her spine. Her skin was warm. She breathed like nothing had happened.

And that was the moment he knew.

Not as a servant. Not as a soldier.

He was hers.

Wholly. Irrevocably.

And gods help anyone who tried to take that from her.