Chapter 6
Chapter 6
The matron from the Palace Labor Bureau was ultimately left for Fusheng Duan to handle.
Shengsheng Zhou knew his methods. She had no fear that the woman would ever return to make trouble for her, so she claimed she had duties to attend to and excused herself.
Before she left, however, Fusheng confiscated the jade pendant Weiqing Song had given her.
Shengsheng nearly cursed him aloud.
“What is it? You are unwilling?” The constipated look of misery on her face put Fusheng in an inexplicably good mood.
He had thought matters through. She could curse him however she pleased in her heart. Outwardly, she still had to obey like a good little servant and did not dare resist him.
After Shengsheng left, Fusheng’s mind remained anything but quiet.
Only when she had walked roughly twenty yards away did her stream of abuse finally fade.
That distance must be the limit, he mused.
Then he yawned, suddenly tired.
“Shenglan, dispose of her. You know my rules.”
“Yes.” Shenglan’s voice held no emotion.
The matron kneeling on the ground looked up in disbelief at the child she had watched grow up.
“You cannot do this to me! I am your own aunt!” she screamed, swaying with fury.
“Your Highness! Noble Consort! That wretch ordered me to do it! Why else would I deliberately provoke your personal maid?”
In her panic, she lunged for Fusheng’s leg.
Before she could touch him, he kicked her away in disgust.
The blow sent her crashing into a pavilion pillar. Blood spilled from her mouth.
The world lurched before her eyes, dizziness and nausea overwhelming every thought.
Even so, she saw his face clearly.
The features that had bewitched their emperor curved into a malicious smile. His beautiful lips parted.
“And?”
Only then did the matron understand.
He did not care.
Whether she had bullied Shengsheng was irrelevant to Fusheng.
What mattered was that he wanted her dead.
It was that simple.
Human lives were no more valuable than grass. Who paused to ask whether an ant was good or wicked?
***
Shengsheng returned to the Palace Labor Bureau and changed her clothes.
She was a lowly penal servant now. Naturally, she no longer owned as many outfits as she had when she was Fusheng’s personal maid.
Each woman received only two plain, unpatterned dresses.
She had soaked one of hers today, which left only the other.
[Shengsheng, Siran Ming is about to meet the heroine. We have to hurry!]
A-Pang turned their back and covered their eyes with both paws. A proper System did not peek at a girl changing.
“I know.” Shengsheng could have wept.
Her hair was still wet.
Why did maintaining the plot feel even more troublesome than serving Fusheng Duan?
“Wait…” Her hands froze on her sash.
“The original says the lost heroine meets the male lead Siran Ming on a narrow road lit by only a faint glow. By that dim light, he immediately notices how much her face resembles the woman he has never forgotten. Then–bam–he falls for her.”
There was only one question.
Where, exactly, was the narrow, dimly lit road from the original novel?
A-Pang fell silent too.
That was an excellent question.
They had no idea.
Fortunately, Shengsheng was lucky.
She followed the direction Zhiyu had taken from the pavilion and soon spotted the heroine’s plain white dress amid red walls and green willows.
Zhiyu appeared to have realized that she was lost. She stood with her head lowered, fretting over what to do.
[Shengsheng, the male lead is coming from over there!]
A-Pang’s chubby body came flying back from the distance, panting for breath.
Shengsheng understood at once. She crouched down and concealed herself in the shadows beneath a tree.
Zhiyu Jiang had gotten herself lost.
If only she had not spent so long thinking about the handsome face of the Crown Prince of the Zhen Kingdom. Then she might have remembered where she was going.
She recalled something her mother had told her as a child: if she ever lost her way, she should take off a shoe and toss it into the air. Whichever direction the toe pointed was the way forward.
Zhiyu bent down to reach for her shoe.
A dark figure abruptly appeared before her.
She screamed.
“Ah!”
A palace lantern cast its weak glow across her face. Siran Ming had trained in martial arts since childhood. He could see even on a night so black that an ordinary person could not make out their own hand.
The lantern made the girl’s face perfectly clear.
Her limpid eyes overlapped with those of the girl in his memory. When she staggered, Siran–who had always disliked physical contact–reached out as if possessed and caught her.
“You…”
His deep, magnetic voice had barely formed the first word when she gave him a radiant smile.
“Thank you, sir.”
Siran’s face darkened at once.
“Do not smile!”
Watching from hiding, Shengsheng Zhou thought, *Oh, I know this one.*
The next line was supposed to be:
*You look more like her when you don’t smile!*
The bright voice that suddenly rang inside Siran’s head killed the rest of his sentence before it could be born.
“Who is there?”
His eyes sharpened. The sword in his hand swung around, pointing directly at Shengsheng’s hiding place.
Shengsheng went rigid.
*What the hell?*
*A-Pang! What do I do? Did he find me?*
A-Pang jumped as well.
[Do not panic, Host. Meow like a cat. That always works in television dramas!]
Shengsheng considered it. The novel was already riddled with nonsense. Someone mistaking a human imitation for a real cat would hardly be its greatest offense.
“Meow~”
Siran Ming stared at the tree.
He was the sovereign emperor of the Yong Kingdom. Did he look like an idiot?
Zhiyu remained confused from beginning to end. Why, exactly, was she not allowed to smile?
“I will give you one more chance,” Siran said. “Xunlan Liu will not object if I kill a rat on his grounds.”
Zhiyu was shocked to hear him speak the reigning emperor’s personal name.
“How can you address His Majesty by name?”
Siran gave her a derisive glance.
“Be quiet.”
“Oh…” Looking wounded, Zhiyu made a gesture of sealing her lips.
Unfortunately, Siran was no longer looking at her.
Shengsheng shot A-Pang a look that said *what a brilliant idea you had*, then stepped helplessly from the shadows.
“This servant greets Your Majesty, Emperor of the Yong Kingdom.”
Zhiyu’s eyes widened.
Siran looked mildly surprised. He arched a brow.
“You recognize me?”
Shengsheng bowed her head even lower, praying he would not see her face clearly.
“Your Majesty, no one else beneath heaven could wear a black imperial robe embroidered with a five-clawed serpent-dragon.”
Her inner voice added, *As if the whole world doesn’t know you only wear black so no one can see the blood on you. What a poser.*
A vein rose on the back of Siran’s hand. He was about to cut her down when he realized that the last remark had sounded directly inside his mind.
To test his suspicion, he pointed at Shengsheng and looked at Zhiyu.
“Did you hear what she said?”
Zhiyu was still reeling from the revelation that he was an emperor. At his question, she nodded blankly.
“Repeat it.”
Still baffled, Zhiyu repeated Shengsheng’s formal greeting word for word.
When she finished, Siran tapped one long finger against his sword.
Interesting.
So he alone could hear the rest.
*Is he worried the heroine might forget his lofty, glorious identity? Wow. Now that is some elite-level posturing.*