Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Through the maneuvering of Prince Regent Xiao Lin and Empress Shen Yin, eleven-year-old Xiao Yu was named Crown Prince.

Xiao Yu’s path to the throne was anything but smooth.

Five years later, the Old Emperor died of a grave illness.

That very night, before the funeral bells had even tolled, the empress secretly summoned the Prince Regent to the palace. The Crown Prince led the Imperial Guard to surround the place and shot Xiao Lin dead through a window in front of everyone.

With the Prince Regent dead, unrest swept through the capital. Even heretical cults started crawling out of the woodwork.

For those three months, the palace was a complete mess.

The former emperor’s funeral, the empress taking religious vows, an assassination attempt on the Crown Prince, the imperial clan forcing their way into the palace…

The most chaotic scene of all happened at the doors of the great hall just before dawn, when a mob of cultist rebels carried the Dragon Throne outside.

They claimed they were going to melt me down and distribute me among the suffering poor.

At the time, Xiao Yu had gone to escort the former emperor’s coffin.

By the time he returned, I had been propped up in the middle of a bonfire and roasted.

Seventeen-year-old Xiao Yu sat on horseback at a distance and gave a faint scoff.

“Real gold fears no fire.”

He lifted his hand slightly and crooked two fingers.

In an instant, archers poured out from every corner of the palace walls around the great hall and loosed arrows at the disguised rebels.

Arrows fell like rain.

The bodies of those struck collapsed all around me, as if adding more fuel to the fire. The flames immediately burned even higher.

Theoretically speaking, it was nowhere near the melting point of gold.

But being roasted was extremely uncomfortable. My whole body burned from the inside out, so hot my head started spinning.

“System, don’t you think it’s really hot?”

“System, where are you?”

“System! Damn it, did you get burned into a crash?”

In front of the great hall, where flames lit up the sky, over a hundred corpses were piled into a small mountain.

I crawled out from among them and stood grandly in the very center, meeting Xiao Yu’s gaze from afar.

With such a horrifying entrance, everyone was stunned.

Xiao Yu narrowed his eyes and reached to the side. He took the bow his subordinate handed him, drew an arrow from the quiver, pulled the bow into a full moon, and aimed the arrow at me.

He was going to shoot me dead.

The arrow came whistling through the air, sharp and fierce. I caught it barehanded.

System: [Ding-dong! I’m online. Pretty awesome, right? I even got you a new body!]

Only then did I snap back to my senses. I lowered my head and looked at myself, then stretched out both hands in doubtful disbelief before lifting my legs a little.

“I… I turned human? But… why am I charred black…?”

The System snapped its fingers.

In the blink of an eye, torrential rain poured from the sky. It quickly doused the bonfire and washed the blood and grime off my body.

Immediately afterward, I realized something-I wasn’t wearing a single stitch of clothing.

“System, you didn’t buy me a skin!”

Amid the noisy, chaotic rain, Xiao Yu’s voice carried an overwhelming authority.

“All of you, turn around!”

Every archer turned away in unison, the friction of their movement neat and uniform.

Xiao Yu tossed aside his bow and arrow, squeezed his horse’s belly, and rushed toward me.

At last, the horse’s hooves came to a steady stop right in front of me.

“Look up.”

I lifted my head to look at him. Rainwater streamed down my face as our eyes met.

Xiao Yu showed no reaction. His voice grew even colder and harder.

“Speak.”

I suspected I must not be very good-looking. After all, I had made such a revealing entrance, and he was still looking at me like I was a dog.

I hadn’t spoken in more than ten years. Tentatively, I opened my mouth.

“H… hello?”

Although I cursed people out in my head every day, the moment I opened my mouth, I was nothing but civilized.

Xiao Yu froze for a moment, then looked away. Gripping the reins with both hands, he hurriedly turned his horse around.

With his back to me, he untied his cloak and threw it over without looking back.

The rain gradually stopped.

Wrapped in that cloak, I remained standing where I was while the corpses were hauled out by the cartload.

Half an hour later, the mound of bodies had been cleared away, leaving only bloodstains all over the ground.

“Your Highness, Crown Prince! The Dragon Throne! The Dragon Throne is gone!”

Xiao Yu stepped forward to inspect the area. In an instant, his palm clenched tight, and he turned a razor-sharp gaze on me.

What the hell kind of look was that?

Don’t tell me he thought I stole his precious Dragon Throne?