Chapter 139
Chapter 139
Shengsheng Zhou was only an ordinary palace maid. Her experiences might have been unusual, but what had she ever done to deserve Fusheng Duan’s love?
There was nothing to be sad about, was there?
She had never taken it seriously to begin with. Fusheng had never directly defined their relationship either. They had simply lingered in an endless, ambiguous entanglement.
Her arm had gone numb, so Shengsheng straightened with a grimace. Taking advantage of the darkness, she blinked furiously, hoping the tears would fall faster and dry quickly so A-Pang would not notice when they went outside.
Sigh. She had wanted to give Jierge a brutal beating, but she never got the chance.
What a waste of all those expensive System Points…
Shengsheng waited until the numbness in her limbs subsided before standing. Yet her tears flowed without end, like a faucet someone had opened.
A-Pang could not see her, but when Shengsheng remained standing there for so long, he could not help asking, *Shengsheng, are you all right?*
Forcing down the sob lodged in her throat, Shengsheng kept her voice even. *I’m fine. Let’s get out of here.*
She trudged toward the exit, unable to stop herself from remembering when she had first come to this world.
She had watched countless comics and anime with Ran, and every time she saw a story about an ordinary, unremarkable heroine transmigrating into a book and ending up with the male lead, she could never help feeling envious.
There were far too many ordinary, unremarkable girls in the world, and most of their youths were gray with insecurity.
Our feet planted on soil named reality, we willingly lose ourselves in false stories and fabricated worlds, looking up at other people’s dazzling, unrestrained youths. From them, we draw happiness that was never ours to nourish our hollow souls and force our numb bodies to continue moving.
In her previous life, Shengsheng had merely been one of them.
Even after becoming a ghost, she never met a handsome exorcist who would share with her an earthshaking, taboo romance that made both gods and ghosts weep.
Even as a ghost, she never found a grand, blazing love.
Later, time gradually wore away all that intense resentment.
By the time A-Pang found her, she could no longer taste what love was.
Then she saw Fusheng. Just like in a comic, the heart she had only recently acquired began pounding wildly, and flowers seemed to burst across the backdrop behind her.
But she had only glimpsed him from afar. As a palace maid of the lowest rank, he was an exalted figure she could never hope to touch.
The violent beating of her heart was a novel experience. Cradling an emotion she had not yet learned to understand, she grew up slowly and climbed step by step.
Until, at last, she touched him.
As expected, he was more beautiful than every protagonist she had ever seen in a comic.
But the flutter that had never truly taken root was ultimately stillborn beneath his capricious temper and a nature that looked affectionate but was cold to the bone.
Whenever she saw someone lose their life at a word from him, she wondered whether she was any different from those people in his eyes.
Slowly, she woke completely. Her gaze grew clearer and clearer whenever she looked at Fusheng.
Even on the day her character was supposed to die, she could face the man about to kill her without a ripple in her heart.
Perhaps that was one reason she had been utterly defenseless against Fusheng’s inexplicable interest.
She smiled bitterly.
That was right. They had been together for five years. If he had truly felt anything for her, he would have felt it long ago. She had mistaken it for one of his inexplicable bouts of madness, when in truth, he had simply worked her into his schemes.
You really did make perfect use of the words *to slave away for you*, just as we agreed back then, Fusheng Duan.
*Shengsheng, where are we going now…?*
The two had already emerged, and the tears on Shengsheng Zhou’s face had completely dried.
She might not have realized it herself, but no matter how hard she tried to hide them, her swollen red eyes could not be concealed.
A-Pang pretended not to notice. If he mentioned it now, he feared it would only make her sadder.
Shengsheng thought with her muddled mind for a moment. “Mm… Let’s go to Xiaoyun’s house first. We have money now, so we can give it to them as thanks for taking me in.”
“But we’ll have to leave it in secret. With that family, if I give it to them directly, we’ll probably still be shoving it back and forth when Xiaoyun is fully grown.”
Shengsheng stroked the money she had robbed from the petty thief and rambled on.
As though talking about other things could crowd the unpleasant memories from her head.
But Shengsheng never made it to Xiaoyun’s home.
The fire-red sky merged with vast blooms of blood across the ground.
Curses, pleas, and screams rose one after another throughout this city that had never been particularly prosperous.
Shengsheng saw the petty thief who had tried to rob her. He had been hacked in two, his corpse sprawled across an overturned vegetable board.
Vegetable leaves rotting in the bloody water clung to his body like mud.
Every person who passed his corpse wore a look of terror. They trampled it without care, fleeing like frightened animals, only to be crushed into the earth by enemy cavalry and cut down beneath their blades.
This was the first time Shengsheng had ever stood in the midst of war.
These living enemies were even more terrifying than evil ghosts.
“Ah! Help!!”
As a sword swung toward him, Xiaoyun’s father screamed and shut his eyes.
An arrow had struck his leg. He had no way to escape.
Normally, he would have finished work and gone home long ago. But he had thought of the young lady searching for her fiancé and worried she might have nowhere to stay tonight, so he had spent some time looking for her in the city.
Who could have imagined that this brief delay would mean–
Border City had fallen…
The honest, dutiful man who had lived a simple life could not stop his tears when the faces of his wife and son surfaced in his mind.
A scream rang out, yet the expected pain never came. Xiaoyun’s father opened his eyes.
A slender figure stood in front of him. When he turned his head, he saw the cavalryman who had been about to kill him lying flat on the ground with his horse, wailing without end.
Shengsheng turned to look at him. “Are you all right?”
Emotion churned in Xiaoyun’s father’s eyes.
*Who says only those standing in the light can be called heroes?* A-Pang supplied for the poor man.
Under Xiaoyun’s father’s astonished gaze, Shengsheng swept him into a bridal carry and promised firmly, “Xiaoyun’s father, don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
The man, nearly six feet tall, shed tears of relief at having survived.
It was the Yong army.
Shengsheng frowned at the banners streaming in the wind.
Xiaoming… What exactly are you thinking?