Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I received my mission from the Main God Space thirty years ago.

The System wanted me to descend into an age of division and chaos, assist the Young Emperor in unifying the realm, and establish a prosperous dynasty that would be remembered for a thousand years.

The difficulty level of that mission was honestly far too high. I didn’t want to take it.

But the System said that once I completed it, I would receive fifty million and a private island.

…It was simply offering too much.

And so I first spent two years in that space studying everything required for conquest, political maneuvering, statecraft, and bringing peace and stability to a nation.

Then my soul transmigrated into the body of an infant girl named Shi Qihua, and I began my life as a native of another world.

At eleven, I entered the palace as a study companion. At fourteen, I was promoted to a female official in the empress’s palace.

When I was sixteen, the empress was deposed and, in the cold palace, entrusted her child to me.

Taking advantage of the great fire arranged by the new empress, I escaped the assassination in the cold palace with Si Li, who was only ten years old at the time.

What followed was the standard course for a fallen prince.

During nearly two years of wandering and hardship, Si Li tasted the bitterness of common life, and a deep love for the people slowly took root in his heart.

After that, by fortune, he earned the appreciation of a noble patron and found a place to rely on.

Then he recruited troops, gathered horses, and rose again.

Before long, our forces swelled like the tide.

Throughout that time, I always kept my mission firmly in mind.

It was not only to support Si Li’s ascent to the throne. More importantly, it was to found, from that moment on, a great dynasty of peace and unity.

Every step along the way looked easy from the outside, yet every single one was soaked in blood and suffering.

Everyone said Si Li held two sharp blades in his hands, one in the light and one in the dark.

Xie Cheyun was the blade he wielded openly.

Then I was the blade Si Li used in the shadows.

In the future, he was meant to become a great emperor praised by tens of thousands. Some filthy deeds were destined to be done by someone else in his place.

No one who reached this position had clean hands.

Over the years, I witnessed far too much blood and darkness.

Sometimes, in moments of distraction, I even wondered whether my past life had only been a dream.

Perhaps my true body was actually in hell, and I myself had already become a vengeful ghost, doomed never to reincarnate.

The souls of those who had died by my hand shrieked day and night, demanding I pay with my life, corroding my heart.

But I never stopped because of it. Instead, my steps forward only grew firmer.

The hour before dawn has always been the darkest. It has been so since ancient times.

Peace and justice have always had to be bought with blood and sacrifice.

As long as Si Li and I remained of one mind.

As long as I endured a little longer and continued forward with a little more resolve.

When the yellow sands of time finally buried me, and the ash-gray dust of history covered my name…

By then, more common people would be laughing happily beneath the sunlight.

That was Si Li’s original intention and mine. For the sake of that wish, we had prepared ourselves from the very beginning to place our pieces and never regret the move.

Only, in the end, I still forgot that Si Li was not like me, a soul with a century’s worth of experience housed inside a body in its twenties.

After seeing too much darkness, he could not help being drawn to souls that were pure and unstained. It was simply the nature of youth.

It was also the beginning of the rift between us.

He had once loved a girl very deeply. In his eyes, she was the purest woman in the world.

And she ultimately died by my hand.

That day, Si Li arrived too late. He held her corpse and sat lifelessly in the hall through the entire night.

The next day, he still walked out with a smile and called me teacher.

Only the warmth in the young man’s eyes had faded. From then on, all that remained for me was frozen coldness and a heart full of suspicion.

Thinking back, from that moment on, he had probably already decided that I had to die.

Unwilling to dwell any further on that cold war that had lasted nearly a year, I forcibly pulled myself out of my memories.

Even my soul, drifting in midair, began to grow somewhat dazed.

It was at that moment that another figure walked in.

He was the host of today’s banquet, Gu Qing, the youngest and most promising chief minister of this dynasty, and the dream husband of countless lovestruck young women.

He came from a prominent family, and he was gentle, modest, and courteous. From top to bottom, everyone in the capital praised him endlessly.

After the new emperor ascended the throne, he had originally intended to purge the remnants of the former court one by one. In the end, I was the one who persuaded Si Li to keep him.

Gu Qing was a man of great ambition. His aspirations would never be confined to blind loyalty toward a single sovereign.

When Si Li asked me how I understood him so well, there was something strange mixed into his probing tone.

I was silent for a long while. In the end, I still did not tell him.

A fine young noble like Gu Qing and I had once been friends who trusted each other with life and death back in the capital.

Gu Qing had still been more inexperienced then. He knew me well, but he did not know I was a woman. At first, his only wish had been to stay far from fame and profit, and spend his life in the company of mountains and rivers.

But later, the way he looked at me became increasingly fervent and admiring.

He said, “Brother Qihua’s thoughts are truly beyond this age. This little patch of land called the capital cannot confine you. If one day Brother Qihua wishes to spread your wings and leave, then Qing is willing to travel with you.”

When he said those words, his gaze burned bright, and his tone was filled with utter sincerity.

But I gave him no answer. On the day I left the capital, I did not take Gu Qing with me. I did not even tell him.

At first, he thought I was dead, and he sank into despair for a long time.

Later, he stood out from a crowd of rivals and became the head of the Gu Family.

In doing so, he learned many of the dark secrets that had unfolded within that magnificent capital.

I did not know how he would view the fact that I was alive, yet had hidden it from him and left the capital. In any case, life and death were far from the only things I had lied to him about.

For example, the friend who had once debated the ways of a gentleman with him had in fact been a woman. For example, I was the daughter of the Shi Family, the Gu clan’s sworn enemy in the capital.

Two people who understood each other in their youth should have met each other with complete sincerity.

But I had hidden far too much from him. Even the hopes that had filled his entire heart-I had never given him any response.

Perhaps Gu Qing had begun to hate me from that moment on.

So much so that when we met again years later, the close friend of my youth had become a stranger.

After the founding of the new dynasty, Gu Qing and I clashed over policy on many fronts.

Si Li carried out the imperial arts and political stratagems I had taught him very well.

Under the new emperor’s deliberate maneuvering, Gu Qing and I each formed our own faction, and in court we became as irreconcilable as fire and water.

Even when we ran into each other in private, we treated each other with cold indifference.

I was one of the founders of the new dynasty, the most radical vanguard pushing for reforms to sweep away the old order.

In the mouths of the noble families that had entrenched themselves in the land of the Yun Dynasty for a hundred years, I was a hen crowing at dawn.

In the mouths of those who hated me, I was a demonic woman who had thrown the court into chaos.

And now, I had died in Gu Qing’s estate.

He was the host of today’s banquet, yet he was dressed quite casually.

He wore only a robe of emerald green, his black hair bound beneath a tall crown. Those eyes, once clear and gentle, now held only the aloof indifference of one long accustomed to standing above others.

That indifference cracked only after he saw my corpse.

Gu Qing’s steps faltered as he entered the room, and his fingers tightened again and again around the folding fan in his hand.

Dark emotions churned in his star-bright eyes.

But in the end, he said nothing. He simply strode to Si Li’s side and said in a low voice, “Your Majesty, the Great Shaman is waiting in the outer hall.”

I floated in midair, looking at the three people now gathered here. At present, these three were almost the ones holding up the whole of Great Yun.

And now that all three had gathered in one place, it was merely to kill me.

The chancellor laid the trap, the general stationed the troops, and the Young Emperor personally fed me the poison.

With such a lineup, they truly were treating me like some monstrous calamity.

But thinking about it another way, if I truly had not wanted to die, they would indeed have been unable to kill me.

I had been in the Yun Dynasty for nearly thirty years.

In the eyes of the world, I, Shi Qihua, was an undying monster, someone with heaven-defying powers and a heart so ruthless it bordered on demonic.

I had always thought there were many who loved me by my side. But from the look of things now, there were even more who hated me and feared me.

Before Si Li could answer, Xie Cheyun, having removed the thorn in his heart, was the first to burst into laughter. “Excellent. Let the Great Shaman draw out the memories of that traitor Shi Qihua and present them to the world. Let her confess her crimes before all under heaven, lest some meddlesome wretches claim that our Holy Sovereign is ungrateful and unjust.”

“Great General, mind your words,” Gu Qing said, his expression cold and his tone edged with warning.

He said, “Whether this is to be revealed to the world should be decided by His Majesty. General Xie, you have overstepped.”

Such sharpness, almost never shown outwardly by Gu Qing, darkened Xie Cheyun’s expression.

But Gu Qing paid him no mind. His gaze softened as he walked to the table.

With cool fingertips, he brushed a loose strand of hair at my temple behind my ear. Crimson wine stained his jade-white skin, yet he seemed not to notice. His smile was gentle.

That intimate gesture made Xie Cheyun frown deeply, and my own expression was no better.

Whenever Gu Qing met me on ordinary days, he was always icy cold. Seeing him act like this now made me suspect he had some rather peculiar tastes.

Just as his fingertips gradually shifted, about to trace my cheek, an icy voice cut him off.

“Chancellor Gu, summon the Great Shaman,” Si Li said.

“Yes.” Gu Qing drew back his hand, lowered his eyes, and turned to leave.

After he left, Si Li moved slightly and stepped out of the shadows.

In the end, we had depended on each other for more than ten years. Si Li thought no one had seen it, but I knew clearly that he had just cried.

The corners of the Young Emperor’s eyes still held a trace of damp red.

Just now, when he handed me the poisoned wine and I had tilted my head back without hesitation to drink it down, Si Li had wavered.

But in the end, his knuckles had merely twitched. The words to stop me never left his mouth.

He watched coldly as I collapsed. Then, after a long while, he looked at my face, already turning bluish-white, and called out to me in a daze, “Sister…”

In that one word, there was heartache, but even more than that, there was towering hatred.

Even now, he still hated me. Hated me for using his trust to kill the person he loved most.

A voice outside the door announced the arrival of the Great Shaman.

My soul, drifting in midair, went half-cold.