Chapter 221: Royal Consort

Behind him, Han Shuying finally spoke. "Father." Her voice dropped low. There was a tremble in it that gave her emotional state away.

General Han Zheng stopped.

She looked at his back. "You may have wanted a son." Her voice was steady now. "But you got me. And one day, you’ll realize that was enough."

His eyes hardened when he looked at her from over his shoulders. "No." He opened the door. "That will never happen." Then he walked out and the doors closed behind him.

That was when her composure finally shattered. She stood perfectly still for several breaths, staring at the place where he had disappeared, her father’s final words echoing through her mind with unbearable clarity.

You should have been a son.

Her fingers curled into fists.

Then she swept the entire stack of books from the table.

They crashed onto the floor, pages scattering across the polished wood, followed by the inkstone, brushes, porcelain cup and everything else within reach. The sudden noise seemed to break something loose inside her, because once she started, she could no longer stop.

"Useless," she spat.

She seized the porcelain vase beside the window and hurled it against the wall.

It shattered violently, fragments scattering across the floor.

"Useless..."

Her breathing became heavier.

She grabbed another vase.

This one struck the wooden cabinet and broke apart, sending water across the floor and soaking the scattered papers.

For years, she had swallowed his words. She had swallowed every comparison, every disappointed sigh, every time he looked at her as though her existence had been some unfortunate mistake.

She had learned to hold a sword because he wished she were a son.

She had learned military strategy because he wished she were a son.

She had cut her hair because he wished she were a son.

She had forced herself to stand straighter, speak lower, walk like a soldier and bury every softness he might have considered shameful.

And somehow...somehow after all of it, she still wasn’t enough. Never enough. Never the son he dreamed of.

Han Shuying seized the small wooden table beside her bed and shoved it over. It struck the floor with a heavy crack.

"Then what was I supposed to do?"

Her voice broke.

She kicked the overturned table, then immediately regretted the pain shooting through her foot, but the pain only made her angrier. "What more did you want from me?"

There was no answer. Of course there wasn’t. Han Zheng had never been interested in answers. He had only ever been interested in obedience.

Her eyes burned.

She grabbed the nearest cushion and threw it across the room before tearing open the cabinet beside her and pulling out the ceremonial armor she had once worn during her first military ceremony.

She stared at it.

The armor was beautifully crafted, dark metal engraved with the crest of the Han family. Her father had given it to her.

Not because he was proud of her.

But because he had wanted everyone watching to believe that the daughter he had been forced to raise was capable of standing where a son should have stood.

Her hands trembled. Then she threw it against the wall. The metal struck with a deafening clang. She watched it fall.

For a moment, she simply stared. Then she walked toward it and kicked it aside. "To hell with your expectations. One day you’re going to go down on your knees and beg for my forgiveness." Her voice was barely above a whisper.

She turned and saw herself reflected in the polished bronze mirror across the room.

Her short hair.

Her rigid posture.

Her expression.

For a moment, she couldn’t recognize herself. She had spent so long trying to become the person her father wanted that she had almost forgotten who she had been before him.

A tear finally slipped down her cheek.

While other girls had spent their time growing their hair and looking beautiful, she had cut hers and went to bed praying she’d wake up a boy.

She wiped the tears away angrily. "No." She looked at her reflection again. "I am not useless." Her voice shook. "I am not..."

She walked toward the mirror, gripping the edge of the table beneath it. "I am not your failed son."

Her eyes hardened. "I am your daughter."

The words sounded strange coming from her. But they also felt like something she had been waiting years to say.

Han Shuying slowly released the table. Her anger had not disappeared. Neither had the hurt. But beneath them, something colder had begun to form.

Resolve.

If Han Zheng wanted to spend the rest of his life regretting that he had not fathered a son, then so be it. She would stop trying to prove that she could have been one. She would show him what the daughter he considered useless was capable of doing.

And when everything he had built finally came crashing down around him, she would make certain he remembered exactly whose hands had pushed the first stone.

Then she remembered the Empress’s proposal.

Marriage.

The thought should have disgusted her like before. Instead, it made her pause.

If she accepted Empress Lihua’s offer, she would no longer be merely General Han Zheng’s daughter, the child he had spent her entire life trying to mold into the son he never had. She would become the Empress’s chosen consort, someone whose authority could stand above even her father’s military rank.

A faint, bitter smile touched her lips.

Maybe that was the answer. 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

Perhaps she had spent too many years trying to become worthy in her father’s eyes when she could simply climb high enough that he would have no choice but to look up at her.

She imagined standing before him one day, dressed not in the masculine armor he had forced upon her, but in robes bearing the authority of the imperial household, with ministers bowing before her while he remained beneath her command.

The thought was intoxicating. Yet beneath it was something colder than ambition.

If she married the Empress, she would gain access to the court, influence over the throne, and perhaps enough power to stop Han Zheng before he destroyed everything. She could become the person who decided his fate instead of the daughter waiting for his approval.

Han Shuying looked down at the broken pieces of porcelain around her feet. If she became powerful enough, she would not have to stop at merely surviving her father’s shadow. She could erase it.

Her expression hardened as she stared at her reflection. It was time to become something far worse than the son he had imagined.