The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis
Chapter 89: The Morning After

Chapter 89: The Morning After

After a good night’s sleep, Zhu Deming rose and walked out of his tent, watching the sun bleed in the eastern sky. The colors were warm—orange, gold, deep red; a bright promise for those who were alive to see it. But all he could smell was blood.

The camp was quiet as the soldiers slept, not worrying about anyone attacking them. The cooks had already started breakfast, the smell of cooked rice wafting over to him and making his stomach growl.

It was starting to feel more like a training day outside of the capital and not the day after everyone had given up the very thought of making it off the battlefield alive.

Reinforcements continued to arrive. Soldiers rode in with dirt-crusted boots and red-rimmed eyes, expecting to die by nightfall. Instead, they found themselves walking through orderly tents and cooking fires, past soldiers polishing their armor and calling out to them like longtime friends.

They stared at the battlefield. At the corpses. At the blackened ground where horses had melted mid-gallop. Some gagged. Others fell to their knees.

But none spoke, and Zhu Deming didn’t blame them.

He had lived through it. And even he wasn’t sure what to say.

Behind him, Sun Baotai remained inside the healer’s tent, refusing to leave his son’s side even though he was completely fine. Sun Longzi was determined to play sick so that no one would know that the Witch could heal just as much as she could kill.

Deming thought it was useless. After all, the medics had witnessed the white mist. The news of her being both a savior and a reaper would make it back to the capital before they did.

Shi Yaozu stood like a shadow in the doorway, one hand on the hilt of his blade, eyes tracking every newcomer with quiet precision. It wasn’t that he was protecting Sun Longzi because he wanted to, he was asked to by Zhao Xinying.

And the Witch—

No.

The Crown Princess.

She had vanished again.

Deming wasn’t surprised. That woman didn’t wait around for applause. She saved lives like someone who didn’t value her own.

But she hadn’t done it for the Empire. She’d done it for him. And maybe for Shi Yaozu.

He ran a hand through his hair, trying to shake off the thought, but it lingered. So did the image of her standing at the center of the battlefield, her mist curling like fingers around his waist, tugging him out of the line of fire.

She had smiled.

Not warmly, but not cruelly either.

It was the smile of someone who already knew the ending. Like death had bent to her, not the other way around.

He was still trying to understand it.

Boots crunched behind him. He turned to see a junior officer approaching—young, probably no more than twenty, his armor still polished but his face pale.

"Sir," the boy said, voice tight. "General Sun has asked for you in the command tent."

Deming nodded, forcing his thoughts aside. "Tell him I’ll be there in a moment."

The boy saluted and left.

However, Deming didn’t move. He looked once more to the southern horizon. The enemy banners had stopped fluttering. There were no survivors. No more charges. No distant horns.

Just the scent of fire and fear.

And the ghost of a woman who walked untouched through it all.

----

Inside the command tent, Sun Baotai stood over a war table strewn with maps—most of them now outdated. What use were troop estimates when half the army had been obliterated overnight?

Yaozu stood beside him, silent.

Baotai looked up as Deming entered.

"Sit," the general said. "You need rest."

"I just woke up," Deming replied, stepping closer. "You saw it too, didn’t you?"

Sun Baotai didn’t bother to answer.

Instead, he pulled a scroll from the table and unrolled it. "This came an hour ago. From the capital."

Deming scanned the document. Troop movements. Civilian losses. The Emperor’s order to prepare for withdrawal in the event of total collapse.

His hands tightened.

"They thought we’d be overrun," he said flatly.

"We were supposed to be," General Baotai agreed. "Which is why they were willing to send only two thousand men. Sacrificial. For morale."

Deming’s jaw clenched.

"And now?"

"Now they’ll scramble," Baotai said. "Try to understand what happened before they commit again. But I doubt they’ll send real aid until the next wave of Chixia troops crosses the border."

Both Shi Yaozu and Zhu Deming scoffed at that statement. "There are no more troops coming. At least, not anytime soon. I didn’t even know that it was possible for Chixia to have that many soldiers. They won’t be replaced any time soon."

"We’re alone, then," sighed Sun Baotai.

"For now," nodded Yaozu. "Until the other countries decide to pull a Third Prince and just come take the perfect weapon."

Deming let out a long sigh. That would be for the future. Right now, everyone knew what came next. Reorganization. Scouting. Reburying the dead. And coming up with a way to explain everything that happened without asking Zhao Xinying to display her talents in front of the Emperor.

"She’s not like them," grunted Sun Baotai suddenly, his voice low.

Deming turned. "Like who?"

"The court ladies. The ministers. The army. She doesn’t serve anyone."

Deming didn’t speak for a long moment. Then finally, he said, "She protects what’s hers."

General Baotai nodded slowly. "And that’s more terrifying than anything I’ve seen in the past forty years of war."

Deming didn’t disagree.

He left the tent in silence, the cool wind brushing over his face like a whisper. In the distance, Shadow—the great black wolf—lay curled beside a fire, its glowing eyes half-lidded but watchful.

The soldiers gave it a wide berth.

Smart of them really.

And in the distance, Zhao Xinying stood at the stream, rinsing dried blood from her fingers in silence. The water was red, then pink, then clear again.

Deming stopped a few paces behind her. He didn’t speak right away.

Instead, he dropped to one knee—not in reverence, not in love, not in surrender.

In vigilance.

He unsheathed his blade and drove it into the dirt beside him.

And then he simply remained there.

Guarding her.

Not looking for permission. Not asking for praise. Just making a quiet statement to the world: if anything approached her, it would go through him first.

She looked over her shoulder.

"You know I don’t need protection," she said, voice flat.

"I know," he said.

They stayed like that, framed by the early morning light—her standing in the stream, bloodstained and divine, and him kneeling at the edge of the world like a knight who had never bowed to anyone until her.