The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis
Chapter 60: The Curtains Lift

Chapter 60: The Curtains Lift

The air inside the banquet hall was syrup-thick with wine and tension, the kind that gathered when people smiled too long and waited for something to go wrong. The banquet had been going on for hours, and not a single one of the ministers or their families could leave until the Emperor retired for the night.

And it appeared that he wasn’t going anywhere.

While others might have been upset over that, Lady Zhao felt that it was absolutely perfect. She had one last act to perform, and it was almost time to start.

She sipped her tea slowly, watching the dancers swirl across the polished floor. Her gaze slid toward the doors where Zhao Xinying had exited nearly an hour before. She was late returning, but that, of course, was intentional. She would have been more upset if she had returned back to her seat beside the Crown Prince, perfectly put together, and her reputation still intact.

Taking one last sip of tea, she forced her smile away. It was time.

She leaned toward the noblewoman at her side and whispered just loudly enough to be overheard, "My daughter’s been gone a while, hasn’t she? One glass of wine and she vanishes? I do hope nothing unfortunate has happened."

Several heads turned. One fan stilled mid-flutter.

Then Lady Zhao straightened in her seat and raised her voice, her eyes narrowing with false concern. "Where is Zhao Xinying? Has anyone seen her? It’s been a while, I hope she is okay..."

The room quieted. A few notes of music warbled awkwardly from the strings before faltering into silence. The attention of half the court turned toward her.

"I sent her a servant," Lady Zhao added delicately. "But it shouldn’t take this long to rest and return. Perhaps..." She let the thought hang in the air, unfinished.

That was when the side doors creaked open, right on time.

A young servant girl stumbled in, her face flushed with theatrical urgency. She dropped to her knees before the dais and bowed low. "Your Majesties," she said, breathless, eyes wide with carefully rehearsed panic, "forgive the interruption, but there is a situation—one requiring urgent attention."

Zhao Meiling’s father leaned forward, a smirk on his face as he eagerly anticipated the show.

The Crown Prince, on the other hand, didn’t move.

The Emperor’s fingers tapped against his chair. "Speak."

The servant kept her eyes down, voice shaking. "It concerns... the side chamber. Two nobles. Together. A... compromising state."

She paused. Let the silence hang, heavy and hungry.

Lady Zhao gasped, clutching her chest with just the right amount of flair. "No!" she cried, rising as if she might faint from scandal. "But the only noblewoman resting in that chamber is—"

She trailed off dramatically, her hand trembling.

The Imperial Consort Yi rose from her spot beside the Emperor with measured grace, her robes sweeping elegantly around her ankles. "This is serious," she said, her face twisting with concern. "We should go immediately. If something happened to a noblewoman here in the palace, I don’t know what we would do. Anything along these lines must be handled at once. Justice must be served."

Lady Zhao nodded fervently, already moving toward the doors. "Yes, yes—I can only hope and pray that my daughter is not involved with this in any way. She may be my daughter, but I will not stand for disgrace. Come, all of you. Someone fetch the guards. Let’s see who is desecrating this banquet in front of His Majesty."

As if summoned, a handful of noblewomen, two concubines, and three minor officials’ wives stood and followed. The men of the court were not invited—but they watched, wide-eyed behind their sleeves and cups.

It was a performance, and as with any performance, an audience was a requirement.

But the audience already knew what to expect; it wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. This time, it was a staged scandal to humiliate Zhao Xinying. Nothing more. The goal was to catch her in bed—drugged, exposed, ruined. And everyone knew it.

Only the identity of her companion remained in question.

Zhao Meiling’s father looked down at his cup, pretending not to smile. A few ministers whispered. One of the younger courtiers exhaled and murmured, "Finally."

----

The procession made its way through the palace corridors with practiced haste. Lady Zhao’s expression tightened with each step, trying not to let anticipation break through her concern. The Imperial Consort walked just behind her, composed and calm, with a glimmer in her eye that said she was already anticipating the show.

Soon enough, they reached the chamber in question.

Lady Zhao didn’t bother knocking. She simply shoved the doors open and started to yell at Zhao Xinying. However, the scene that greeted them landed like a slap across all their faces, and Lady Zhao was forced to swallow her words.

Zhao Xinying was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, sprawled across the bed in a tangle of limbs and moaning silk were Zhao Meiling and Zhu Lianhua.

The silence that followed wasn’t silence at all. It was a roar of disbelief crashing against the inside of every skull in the room.

Zhao Meiling gasped and arched, her silk robes half-undone, her nails scratching against the Third Prince’s chest as their mouths collided in shameless rhythm. Zhu Lianhua groaned beneath her, eyes glazed, completely unaware of the stunned audience in the doorway. His hips never stopped moving as he pounded the young woman under him deeper and deeper into the mattress.

His eyes rolled back in his head as he felt her choking his cock with her tender flesh.

One of the older noblewomen made a choking sound, but it wasn’t enough to disturb the people in bed.

Lady Zhao took a half-step forward, lips parted, her face bleaching to ash. "No," she whispered, too quiet for anyone but herself to hear. "No, this isn’t—"

Zhao Meiling turned her head lazily at the motion. Her gaze was unfocused, her cheeks flushed, and her hair was wild as her body continued to move in motion with the man on top of her. Her chest rose and fell like she’d run a race barefoot.

"Mother?" she slurred, lips swollen and shining.

Zhu Lianhua’s hand groped at her hip like a man possessed. "Don’t stop," he muttered thickly. "Keep your eyes on me."

The Imperial Consort’s eyes went wide, not with horror, but with glee.

She had tried to arrange this match a few times already, between her son a the Left Prime Minister’s daughter. But their response was always the same...

They had an engagement with the Crown Prince, not the Playboy Prince.

"Well," she said, voice smooth as honey over a blade, "it seems we were wrong about which daughter was in trouble tonight."

A sharp breath from one of the concubines behind her. Another gasp. And then—

Laughter.

Soft at first, like a cough. Then barely stifled snorts from behind fans. One minister’s wife turned her head away, shoulders trembling with amusement.

The scandal had boomeranged.

Lady Zhao’s face contorted, her fingers clenched into fists. "Close the door," she hissed, her eyes flashing to the servant girl who had dropped to her knees when the door opened. The servant girl scrambled to her feet and slammed the doors shut behind them.

But it was already too late.

The entire capital city would know before sunrise. There was no saving Zhao Meiling’s reputation. The position of the Crown Princess had slipped through her fingers, and Lady Zhao needed to know how it had happened.

The Imperial Consort leaned in, her voice like a whisper in a grave. "You should be more careful with your performances, Lady Zhao. One never knows when the star of the show might change. We’ll be by tomorrow with the Imperial edict marrying your daughter to my son."

Lady Zhao didn’t respond.

She couldn’t.

Her daughter had just destroyed her carefully laid plans... with the wrong man.