Chapter 6

The maid’s name was Ning Yingcai.

At the sight of me, her eyes widened. “I’ve been dumped in the Long Alley, and I can still unlock a special event? Am I actually the chosen one?” she whispered.

The woman supervising the labor had the sense to set aside a small room for us to talk. Yuzhu stood guard at the door.

Ning Yingcai poured herself tea from the pot on the table and gulped it down contentedly. “I’ve been banished to this hellhole so long I haven’t had tea in ages.”

Feeling guilty, I apologized. I had been blind, unable to judge people. Only now did I know that there really was something wrong with Siluo.

She froze. “Your Highness… can tell something’s wrong with Siluo?” she asked uncertainly.

“Strange,” she murmured to herself. “Was I wrong? Isn’t Siluo a player?”

“What’s a player?” I felt closer and closer to the truth.

But she shook her head, smiled, and waved a hand. “Nothing, Your Highness. A fever damaged my brain when I was little. I talk nonsense all the time. Pay no attention.”

It couldn’t be that simple. She was hiding a secret. If I could uncover it, I would know what manner of “ghost” lurked in Siluo.

After some thought, I hinted, “I once considered killing Siluo.”

Just as I expected, Ning Yingcai’s eyes widened in shock. “And… and then?”

“I failed,” I said lightly.

She was silent for a while.

At length, seeming to have made up her mind, she raised her head and spoke slowly. “I see. Then I was right. Siluo is a player. But why would you want to kill her, Your Highness? That doesn’t make sense.”

Siluo had always been the person I trusted most, right up until the year I turned twenty, when sharp arrows nailed me to the ground.

I clenched my fists, then relaxed them, keeping my voice as calm as I could. “Certain things happened that made me suspicious of her.”

Seeing that I couldn’t explain, Ning Yingcai withdrew her curious gaze.

“Siluo and I are both outsiders in this world. We’re here to experience it. We can each choose a goal to work toward, then claim a reward once we’ve achieved it. I chose the female-official route. If I keep climbing the ranks and making money, my mission is complete. But as soon as I came to Fucai Palace, I realized the senior maid was trouble. To clear the way for my promotion, I said a couple of bad things about her.”

She gave an embarrassed chuckle.

“I didn’t expect Siluo to turn the tables and dump me in the Long Alley.” Her face darkened. “She even told me that, for people like us, being trapped with no hope of rising again is worse than death. That was when I began to suspect she was a player in this world, like me.”

I only half understood. Feeling my way toward the question that mattered, I asked, “Then can you all live forever, unable to die?”

“Players aren’t immortal. But major events can happen to a player only if they make logical sense. For instance, Siluo could die if she committed a grave offense or suffered an accident. The reason you can’t kill her is the murderous intent in your heart.

“According to the normal logic of events, you should trust Siluo completely and value her highly. Instead, you wanted to kill her. That’s illogical.”

Ning Yingcai frowned, unable to understand why I had suddenly become aware.

After a brief silence, she coughed softly and set the puzzle aside.

“It’s not just death. Banishment, imprisonment, abuse… if a life-changing event doesn’t make sense, the system automatically erases it. Time rewinds to a point when things were right.” She spread her hands. “But no one except the person who caused it remembers that stretch of time that shouldn’t have existed.

“So you can rest assured, Princess. Siluo doesn’t remember you killing her.”

“Will you forget this conversation too?”

“No. As long as we don’t do anything drastic, we won’t be detected. But you still need to be careful. Siluo doesn’t know yet, but if you let clues slip, she’ll eventually realize you’ve discovered her secret.”

I asked, “You said your goal is to keep rising through the ranks. Is that right? What’s Siluo’s goal?”

Ning Yingcai fell silent.

“I can’t work that out yet. Has she done anything you think might harm you?”

I took out Xiao Jue’s jade ring.

“She seems very close to my guard.”

The warm, smooth ring turned between my fingers.

“I gave him this once. I found it in Siluo’s room. Her room is strange—the weather inside is different from outside, and a broken lock repairs itself… After I took the ring, I heard a strange voice from the sky congratulating me on obtaining some treasure.”

“An official announcement. Only players can hear those.” Ning Yingcai put down her cup with a thump. “I thought it was odd just now. Even if a player’s identity is exposed, the system should automatically overwrite and erase that knowledge. Why were you alone able to discover something was wrong with Siluo? Now it all makes sense.”

She rose and bowed to me. “Heaven is helping you, Your Highness. From the moment you heard that announcement, we can assume you gained player status.”