MY PRINCE HUSBAND HAS SEVEN WIVES AND I AM HIS FAVOURITE!
Chapter 177: A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do

Chapter 177: A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do

The Prime Minister looked up slowly, and that unsettling smile of his slithered across his face once more. His fingers tapped idly against his side. "My, my," he drawled. "What a surprise to see the Crown Prince here himself. Your lady said your rage would be quite strong if you came and saw what was happening. I must say, you two must have telepathic abilities. She isn’t wrong."

"Shut up!" Hua Jing shouted, staggering forward, her steps uneven, her strength nearly gone. Zhao Yan was already moving, swift and sure, his bow discarded, his steps purposeful. Before she could collapse, he caught her against his chest, cradling her as if she were something too precious to fall.

She looked up at him, his features sharpened under the torchlight—so handsome, so achingly familiar. There was comfort in his eyes, warmth that cut through the pain.

"Is this what you meant by ’coming late is better than not at all?’" she asked, her voice a whisper, weary but teasing, her lips trembling with fatigue.

Zhao Yan’s heart twisted. She was covered in blood and sweat, her breath shallow, her body nearly limp in his arms. The thought of arriving a moment later haunted him already. He clenched his jaw.

"I am so sorry," he said, voice low, sincere.

"The only apology you can give me," Hua Jing murmured, closing her eyes briefly, "is making sure that man is completely finished."

Zhao Yan looked at the Prime Minister, eyes gleaming with unspoken wrath. "It shall be done."

The Prime Minister watched them quietly, standing with his guard—a hulking figure clad in iron-grey armor, a massive sword resting across his back. The man stood in front of the Prime Minister, feet apart, eyes fixed on Zhao Yan with grim readiness.

"Isn’t this quite the excellent spectacle?" the Prime Minister said, clapping his hands once, mockingly. "But this is not what we came here for now, is it?"

Zhao Yan gently shifted Hua Jing in his arms and rose to his feet, his right hand unsheathing his sword in one graceful motion. The blade slid free with a silken hiss.

It was unlike any sword Hua Jing had ever seen.

Slender, deadly, its silver edge shimmered with an eerie coldness. The surface of the blade bore etched inscriptions—elegant, ancient runes that pulsed with a quiet, otherworldly energy. Along the spine of the sword ran a vein of cobalt, like frozen lightning embedded in steel. It glinted like moonlight on winter ice, regal and merciless.

The contrast was sharp.

The guard beside the Prime Minister brandished a brutish, wide-bladed sword, twice as thick and meant to crush rather than cut. Hua Jing looked between them, her eyelids heavy, and let out a soft sigh. Her head found rest on Zhao Yan’s chest.

She would not interfere.

This was no longer her burden.

It belonged to him.

"You know," Zhao Yan began, his voice calm but edged like his blade, "I never imagined I’d one day be standing across from my father’s most trusted man, only to find him cloaked in treason."

The Prime Minister tilted his head. "Treason, is it? What is treason if not an act of righteousness when the empire itself is rotting?"

"Rotting?" Zhao Yan echoed. "And you think you’re the cure? With bloodshed and betrayal? You betrayed the throne, you orchestrated the ambush that nearly killed me—"

"But it didn’t," the Prime Minister interrupted, a twitch in his eye. "It didn’t, and yet here we are."

Zhao Yan’s jaw tensed. "You tried to kill the woman I love. That alone seals your fate."

The Prime Minister’s eyes flashed with something—envy, perhaps. Then he chuckled. "Love. Dangerous, inconvenient. You speak of love when your nation teeters."

"And yet it is love that brought me here," Zhao Yan said quietly, raising the tip of his blade.

The burly guard stepped forward.

Wei Ling and Deng Mi were already flanking Zhao Yan, swords drawn, their loyalty unquestioned. Deng Mi gave him a subtle nod, the silent confirmation of readiness. Wei Ling’s eyes never left the Prime Minister’s henchman.

The Prime Minister spread his arms. "Then let us finish this farce."

Zhao Yan shifted Hua Jing gently to the side, where Wei Ling caught her with care and pulled her safely away.

"Don’t look," Zhao Yan told her, voice gentle.

"I wasn’t planning to," Hua Jing murmured, eyes already closed.

Zhao Yan turned.

And then the silence shattered.

Steel collided with steel.

The clang of swords echoed off stone walls. Sparks erupted into the night like fireflies. Zhao Yan and the Prime Minister’s guard met in a blinding clash—one blade thick and brutal, the other sleek and whisper-fast.

Deng Mi swept forward, intercepting a second attacker from the shadows. Wei Ling moved like lightning, blade dancing as he cleared the path.

But it was Zhao Yan’s duel that seized the center.

Cold light met brute force. Each strike of Zhao Yan’s blade carved arcs of brilliance through the dark. He moved like a storm: measured, unstoppable. The Prime Minister watched, face unreadable.

In an instant, it twisted.

The Prime Minister’s eyes narrowed as he watched his strongest man falter, his strikes slow against Zhao Yan’s unnervingly fluid movements. Every arc of the Crown Prince’s blade was too precise, too sharp, like it had been sharpened on the edge of purpose itself.

Some of the moves, the Prime Minister recognized — ones he had once taught the boy long ago, back when loyalty still wore simpler faces. Others, more devastating and elegant, bore the unmistakable mark of the Emperor’s fabled swordsmanship. And then there were those... strange ones, techniques not even rooted in the royal styles — swift, unpredictable, as though born from another world entirely.

A bitter laugh threatened to escape his throat, but he swallowed it down and instead offered a cold smile. "Impressive," he murmured under his breath. "Too impressive."

With a snap of his fingers, the air shifted.

Figures emerged from the darkness — dozens of them. Black robes, gleaming weapons, and eyes like obsidian glass. The ring tightened. Hua Jing’s expression soured.

"That sneaky man!"

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