The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis
Chapter 64: What He Wanted

Chapter 64: What He Wanted

Shi Yaozu walked through the corridors of the servants’ section of the Crown Prince’s manor quietly, his head filled with everything that Zhao Xinying had revealed.

He knew about demon sects, everyone had, but while he worked on both sides of the line, the sects left everyone alone. The normal people were too far beneath them to want to interfere with what went on, but while information was hard to find on the sects, it wasn’t impossible.

And nothing he had heard even came close to what Zhao Xinying had said. Was there really such a world where everyone just lived together like that? Where everything shifted because of a wish? Where humans and demons lived side by side?

The concept was completely foreign to him... but he couldn’t deny anything that she had said. He felt the beast inside of him even now... a product of his own wish.

The world had completely changed, and now, he was scrambling to catch up.

Zhao Xinying’s words still echoed in his head, her words both soft and strong at the same time. "You have a demon inside you now."

He touched his chest. Not to feel his heartbeat—though he could still hear it, steady and low—but to confirm that his body was still his. His skin was warm. His breath even. His hands, when he flexed them, still obeyed.

But she was right.

Something else was in there with him.

It wasn’t speaking. It wasn’t trying to take over. But it watched. He could feel it—coiled deep in his ribs like smoke or fire, quiet and still, but alert. Like a beast beneath the surface, waiting to be acknowledged.

Shi Yaozu had always been good at ignoring feelings.

Fear. Rage. Pain. Any one of them could have killed him at any given time, so they were pushed aside, ignored.

But this wasn’t something he could ignore. It pulsed through him now. Every step he took felt heavier than the last, as if he was no longer walking alone.

He paused beneath a hanging lantern near his quarters. The guards nearby straightened but didn’t speak. They never did. He was the Commander of the Shadow Guard—their silence was how they breathed.

Still, their eyes lingered a fraction longer than usual. Perhaps they sensed it too.

Inside his room, Shi Yaozu removed his outer robe and stood near the window, watching the courtyard where Zhao Xinying had shown him what power looked like. He could still see the shimmer of that metal in the air, the way it danced like it belonged to her. And maybe it did.

She didn’t just have control. She was control.

But he didn’t envy her for it. He didn’t want to be her.

He just wanted to understand what was happening to him.

Because for the first time in his life, he felt something he didn’t know how to master.

Desire.

Not for her, though it was there, too. He would be lying if he said she wasn’t beautiful in her own sharp, feral way—but the desire he felt at the moment was for something deeper.

To be seen.

To be more than a shadow.

Shi Yaozu sat cross-legged on the floor and closed his eyes, like Zhao Xinying told him to.

"Talk to it," she had advised. "Reach inside." And so, he did.

The moment he stilled his thoughts, he felt it stir.

The heat came first. Not fire, not pain. Just a dry, smoldering warmth beneath the surface of his skin, as though his veins had been replaced with coal and someone had struck flint.

Then the pressure. Like a second heartbeat—slower, heavier—beating from my spine outward.

The room blurred.

He wasn’t dreaming. He wasn’t hallucinating.

But he wasn’t fully here either.

It was like standing at the mouth of a cave and knowing that something inside had just opened its eyes.

"What are you?" Shi Yaozu murmured, his voice low.

The answer came not in words, but sensation. Anger—not wild, but focused. Pure.

Not rage for the sake of destruction. It was anger that had purpose.

Wrath.

It wanted to protect. To defend. To punish.

And in a strange way, it recognized him. Not as its master, not even as its equal—but as a body it now shared.

A soldier.

A vessel.

It didn’t speak, but it listened when Shi Yaozu did. He told it he needed to understand. That he didn’t know how to want things. That he didn’t know what he was allowed to want.

The response was simple.

Then learn.

Shi Yaozu’s eyes opened.

The room was cold. He hadn’t moved for almost an hour. But he could still feel it, the thing inside him—closer now, not a stranger anymore.

He rose to his feet slowly, testing the weight of his limbs. His body felt normal. Maybe a bit sharper. But the very air around him seemed to have texture, the wood beneath his feet had a warmth to it that he never noticed before.

But the greatest change was something only he could feel. He wasn’t empty anymore.

And he didn’t want to go back to being hollow.

------

When he returned to the training pavilion at dawn, Zhao Xinying was already there.

She was sitting on the edge of the raised wooden platform, her hair unbound and spilling down her back like a curtain of black ink. In her hands, a ring of polished copper spun lazily between her fingers, catching the morning light.

She didn’t look up when he approached.

"You came back," she said, her tone unreadable.

Shi Yaozu stepped onto the platform without a word and dropped to one knee in front of her. "I want to learn," he said at last, the early morning sun shining on the collar that was still around his neck.

She tilted her head. "Learn what?"

"How to control it. How to use it. How to make it mine."

Her eyes finally met his.

"You can’t make it yours," she said softly. "It already is. You don’t own Wrath. You are Wrath now."

Shi Yaozu nodded, but his body remained kneeling.

She stood and tossed the copper ring in the air. With a flick of her wrist, it sharpened into a throwing blade before she caught it.

"I’m not going to teach you how to be a demon," she said. "I’m going to teach you how to be yourself—with a demon inside you."

"That’s enough."

Her eyes searched his for something. He didn’t know what she found, but it was apparently satisfactory. She gestured for him to rise.

"We start with intention," she said. "You can’t use Wrath’s power unless you mean it. No hesitation. No doubt."

Shi Yaozu rose to his feet and waited.

"Imagine you’re in a fight. You don’t have a weapon. But you need one. What do you want?"

"A knife."

"Why?"

"To kill."

"Good. Not ’to defend.’ Not ’to scare.’ You’re learning."

She stepped back.

"Now close your eyes. Tell it what you want. If the need is sharp enough, it will give you what you ask for."

He inhaled and closed his eyes, focusing on the idea of a knife. He needed a knife. The power pulsed beneath his skin again, rising like a tide.

In his hand, something began to form. It wasn’t cold. It wasn’t hot. It was alive—liquid and solid at once. His fingers curled around the shape, and when he opened my eyes—

There it was.

A blade.

Small. Rough. Primitive.

But very much his.

Zhao Xinying gave a slight nod. "You’re ahead of schedule."

"I’m a fast learner," Shi Yaozu replied, his eyes fixated on the knife.

Her lips twitched, and then she was already moving toward the next drill.

And as the morning sun broke through the eastern windows, casting warm gold light across the training hall, he realized something.

This wasn’t just power.

It wasn’t just survival.

It was the first time he’d ever been allowed to want something.

And Shi Yaozu wanted everything.