MY PRINCE HUSBAND HAS SEVEN WIVES AND I AM HIS FAVOURITE!
Chapter 180: She was simply... his

Chapter 180: She was simply... his

Xia Lin bowed with a flurry of movement—part grace, part chaos. "Y-Yes, Your Highness."

But Zhao Yan wasn’t finished. He added, "After that, you may retire for the night."

There was a small hitch in her breath. But she bowed once more and disappeared down the corridor without another word, her slippers softly pattering across the stone as she hurried to fulfill his request.

He crossed the threshold of Hua Jing’s chamber alone now, the doors closing behind him with a sigh. The silence that filled the room was weighty but calm, like the last exhale before sleep claims a soul. The low light from the lanterns on the wall flickered, casting golden halos across the polished wood floor, the walls, the silks that adorned her canopy bed.

He walked toward it with reverence, the same way he had once walked into battle—every movement laced with meaning, with purpose.

When he reached the edge of the bed, he slowly bent his knees, lowering her with the care of a man placing a piece of his own heart upon sacred ground. His arms resisted the motion, reluctant to let go, but finally, he eased her down onto the soft mattress, her hair spilling across the silk pillow like ink across parchment.

Even asleep, she was captivating.

Her face was streaked with tiny beads of blood—some dried, others still fresh. Her cheeks were flushed from strain. There were fading shadows beneath her eyes, hints of fatigue and distress. And yet... she looked beautiful. Painfully beautiful. As if battle and blood only served to etch the true shape of her soul across her features.

Zhao Yan knelt beside the bed, unable to move. His gaze drank her in. Every breath she took seemed to steady something in him, and yet unsettle it all at once.

She is a peculiar woman, he thought. More than peculiar—singular.

How many times had he watched her, puzzled by the unpredictable way she moved through the world? She was soft in one moment, fierce in another. Smiling like mischief incarnate, and then storming like a goddess of wrath. She had defied every expectation, every role, every limitation placed upon her. In court, she was graceful. In war, she was ruthless. And here, asleep in his arms, she was simply... his.

Zhao Yan reached forward, and with the edge of his sleeve, began gently wiping away the flecks of blood from her cheek.

"You sleep," he murmured to her, "as if the world has never hurt you."

He paused. His hand lingered against her skin. He could feel the warmth of her breath, the soft flutter of her lashes. "Even in other worlds," he whispered, "you are like this. Bold, reckless, maddening—and yet..."

His voice broke.

"And yet, it took me this long to see it."

He looked at her lips, the faintest parting of them as she slept. So close. So heartbreakingly close.

He did not kiss her. He didn’t dare—not now. Instead, he exhaled softly and leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the edge of the mattress, against the curve of her arm. His eyes shut tight.

Outside, the wind stirred the lanterns. The flickering light danced across her sleeping form and the silhouette of the man who knelt beside her—broken, whole, everything and nothing, all at once.

He stayed like that until Xia Lin returned, quietly placing a basin of steaming water and a cloth nearby. She bowed deeply and exited without a word, leaving the prince in peace.

And still, Zhao Yan didn’t move.

He just watched her. This woman who had nearly bled for him. Who had waited, fought, trusted—and who now slept, as if he were the safest place in the world.

A pang—sharp and cruel—gripped Zhao Yan’s chest as he sat beside her, watching the quiet rise and fall of her chest. It was subtle, the way the pain bloomed, yet it clawed through him with merciless precision. Hua Jing lay still, lost in sleep, her face softened by the glow of the lanterns that flickered like restless fireflies on the walls.

And yet, all he could see was the blood that had once stained her robe. The way her body had jerked, not long ago, as she fought so fiercely. How she had pushed forward with blade and fury against a man who had once, so long ago, ambushed them on the night that was supposed to be the beginning of peace between them—their honeymoon.

He remembered it now, in painful flashes. The moon had been full that night too. The ground covered in snow. The sky had looked just as dark. But they did not have an idea of what they were going to be.

Newlywed. Almost fragile in their optimism. He had not been as guarded, not nearly as prepared. And it was she—always she—who had saved him. Then, just as now.

It was always her blade that stood between him and death.

Even in this world that was not their own.

Even here, where the sky looked familiar but the stars felt alien, where people bore names and faces they almost recognized yet could not trust, she was his shield. His mirror. His burden.

And he... he was the one who kept dragging her into these storms.

She was not meant to bleed for him. Not in this life. Not in the next. Yet every thread of fate seemed woven to bring her pain whenever he was near.

In their original world, he had not known the pain his careless words had caused and she had lived in pain.

In this world, he was somehow the prince and her saving him that night had brought an attack on her.

The pain he was feeling, the responsibility he was carrying was huge.

He never, ever meat to hurt her.

He loved her like crazy. He loved her to the point of insanity. If it was death, he would die for her.

If she was lost, he would look every universe until he found her.

Life was nothing without her!

"This isn’t our world," he whispered to himself, barely louder than breath. "It never was."

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