The sun had barely dipped below the palace rooftops when the summons arrived.
A royal attendant—stiff-backed, eyes fixed on the marble floor—delivered the sealed scroll directly to Li Xuan's chambers. The crimson wax bore the imperial dragon seal, unbroken. No servant dared open it. No one needed to. Everyone in the palace knew what it meant when the King personally sealed a message and sent it by hand rather than through the usual channels.
Li Xuan stared at the scroll as though it might bite him.
He had spent the afternoon hiding in the eastern library, pretending to read military treatises while actually napping behind a stack of forgotten alchemical scrolls. The humiliation of the morning council meeting still burned in his chest. His father's parting words—"Exactly. You're not different. That's the problem."—looped in his mind like a badly tuned guqin string.
Now this.
He broke the seal with trembling fingers.
The parchment inside was short. Terribly short.
Imperial Edict
To Crown Prince Li Xuan:
You are hereby commanded to select and wed a principal wife within one solar year from this date.
Failure to comply will result in the Crown selecting a suitable match on your behalf.
The Imperial Realm requires a ruler who understands duty, responsibility, and legacy.
This is not a request.
By order of Emperor Li Feng and Empress Li Ruoyan
Li Xuan read it twice. Then three times.
His knees gave out. He sat heavily on the edge of his bed, scroll crumpling in his fist.
One year.
One miserable year to find someone willing to marry the laziest prince in three generations.
He laughed—short, bitter, more air than sound.
Then the doors opened without a knock.
His parents entered together.
Emperor Li Feng moved like a storm held in check: tall, broad-shouldered, black hair streaked with silver at the temples, eyes sharp enough to cut jade. His Immortal Realm aura pressed against the room like gravity itself had decided to sit down. Beside him, Empress Li Ruoyan looked almost delicate—silk hanfu the color of dawn clouds, hair pinned with jade phoenixes—but the gentle warmth in her expression could not hide the steel underneath.
Li Xuan stood automatically. Bowed. Deeply.
"Sit," his father said. Not unkind. Just… final.
Li Xuan sat. His parents remained standing.
The Emperor spoke first.
"You will choose a bride within one year."
The words landed like stones in still water.
Li Xuan opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried again.
"Father, I—"
"You are twenty-five," Li Feng continued, voice low and even. "When I was twenty-five I had already pacified the Northern Marches, reached the peak of Gold Realm, and married your mother. The realm was bleeding. I had no luxury of indecision."
Li Xuan stared at the carpet. "The realm isn't bleeding now."
"No," his father agreed. "Because men like me bled so that you would never have to. And yet here you are—still asleep when the council convenes, still hiding when duty calls. Married men are more responsible, Xuan. They have something greater than themselves to protect. Something real."
Li Xuan's throat tightened. "And if I don't want—"
"You don't get to not want," the Emperor cut in. "You are Crown Prince. Want is irrelevant. Duty is not."
The room fell silent except for the faint chime of wind through the open lattice.
Then his mother stepped forward.
She knelt—actually knelt—until she was eye-level with him.
Li Xuan's heart lurched. Queens did not kneel to their sons.
"Xuan'er," she said softly.
Her hand found his. Warm. Steady. Callused in places from years of holding swords and brushes and infants long grown.
"I want to hold my grandchildren before I grow too old to chase them through the gardens," she whispered. "I want to see them laugh. I want to teach them the songs I sang to you. That requires you to be ready. Not perfect. Just… ready."
Tears shimmered in her eyes but did not fall.
"Someone who will make you a good father," she continued. "Someone who will want children with you. Someone who sees the man you could become, not the boy you hide behind."
Li Xuan felt something crack inside his chest.
"I'm not ready to marry," he said. The words came out small. Childish.
His father's expression did not soften.
"That's exactly why you will," Li Feng said. "In one year. Or we will choose for you."
The threat hung between them—cold, absolute.
Li Ruoyan squeezed his hand once more.
"I believe you can be a wonderful father," she said. "But you have to want it first."
She rose gracefully. Pressed a kiss to his forehead—the same way she had when he was five and afraid of thunderstorms.
Then both parents turned and left without another word.
The doors closed with a soft, final click.
Li Xuan sat alone in the gathering dark.
The scroll lay crumpled on the floor like a dead bird.
One year.
He thought of the candidates already whispering through the capital's noble houses. Daughters of military commanders. Heirs to merchant empires. Foreign princesses sent as political olive branches. Even—rumor had it—mysterious women from sects and shadow organizations who moved like smoke.
All of them accomplished. All of them powerful. All of them expecting a prince worthy of the title.
And him?
A man who would rather nap than cultivate.
He laughed again—this time it sounded dangerously close to a sob.
Then he stood.
Walked to the window.
Looked out over the sprawling capital: lanterns blooming like fireflies, spirit towers glowing with faint qi, distant pavilions where nobles were already plotting alliances and marriages.
Somewhere out there was the woman—or women—his parents would force upon him if he failed.
Or worse: the ones he might actually want, if he ever bothered to look.
He pressed his forehead to the cool glass.
"I'm not ready," he whispered to his reflection.
The reflection did not answer.
But deep in his dantian, where his stagnant Gold Realm qi slumbered like an untended fire, something stirred.
Not much.
Just the tiniest flicker.
Enough to notice.
Enough to frighten him.
Because if he didn't move—if he didn't change—then in one year he would lose the last shred of choice he still possessed.
And Li Xuan, for the first time in years, felt the cold touch of real fear.
Not fear of his father.
Not fear of his mother's disappointment.
Fear of becoming exactly what they believed he already was:
Nothing.
He closed the window.
Turned back to the empty room.
And for once, he did not crawl into bed.
Instead he sat cross-legged on the floor—awkwardly, stiffly—and closed his eyes.
He breathed in.
Breathed out.
And tried—actually tried—for the first time in months to feel the qi moving through his meridians.
It was sluggish. Weak. Pathetic.
But it moved.
And somewhere in the dark, in the part of him that still remembered being a boy who dreamed of becoming a hero, a small, stubborn voice whispered:
One year.
You have one year.
Don't waste it.