Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Back then, the mission I accepted was to assist a wise ruler in building a prosperous empire. Once the deed was done, I was to withdraw quietly. History did not need to leave too many traces of me behind.

That was why, all these years, I had been doing my best to erase my own presence.

I avoided forming ties with too many people, and whenever I accomplished anything, I tried to shift the credit onto others.

But if they saw my memories and exposed my identity as a mission-taker, then no matter what happened afterward, I would inevitably leave a bold, indelible mark on this world. I had no idea whether that would affect the completion score and performance review for my mission.

Just as I was worrying, the Great Shaman arrived.

He wore a black shaman’s robe, his body adorned with multicolored gemstones.

Perhaps it was just my imagination, but the moment he stepped through the door, he winked in the direction where I was.

At first I was not entirely sure. But then he opened his mouth, and his voice was exactly the same as that wretched System of mine.

Only then did I finally relax.

He shot me a sly grin as well, as if his prank had succeeded. Then he furrowed his brows and said to the emperor, “The Imperial Tutor departed this world with composure, which shows she left very few lingering obsessions behind. This old man cannot summon all of her memories. I can only draw out a few scenes she herself remembered most deeply. Would Your Majesty still wish to proceed?”

The moment the words “remembered most deeply” were spoken, Gu Qing, standing to the side, tightened his grip on the handle of his fan.

He asked, “Only those who were extremely important to her can appear in her memories?”

“Yes,” the System replied.

In that instant, Gu Qing’s expression darkened. His breathing gradually grew heavier, and he abruptly turned to look at me, collapsed across the desk.

“I only want one answer. As long as I know why she did what she did, that will be enough. Great Shaman, begin,” Si Li said in a flat voice. The System immediately set to work.

He ordered people to bring in a bronze mirror and set it up in the hall. Then he formed hand seals and chanted an incantation. After a burst of blazing light, my memories were projected onto its surface.

Ripples spread across the image.

No one knew what they would see first in my memories. Gu Qing stared so hard at the bronze mirror it was as if he meant to bore through it. The Chief Minister, who had achieved success at a young age and had always carried himself with brilliant confidence, now had hands trembling beneath his sleeves.

Beside him, Xie Cheyun’s face was full of disdain. The great general stood off to one side in silver armor with a long-plumed helmet, arms crossed, his expression mocking. “She was nothing but a treacherous villain. What could be in her head besides her schemes to harm others and all the gold and silver she embezzled?”

The next second, the speaker froze.

No one had expected that the very first scene in my memories would be about Xie Cheyun.

It was the seventeenth winter of the late emperor’s reign. I was nine years old. While traveling with my family, we passed by a Xie family estate and saw a group of half-grown boys beating a child.

That child was about my age. He was crouched in the middle of the crowd with his arms over his head, his body and face covered in frightening bruises.

When the child in the bronze mirror lifted his head and revealed his face, Xie Cheyun, outside the image, went utterly still.

“How could…” Then he seemed to realize something and gave a cold snort. “So you were there when Sister Xiu saved me.”

When Xie Cheyun was young, he had once been saved by a maidservant from the Tutor’s Estate.

But later, that maidservant died of illness in the Tutor’s Estate. Rumors spread outside that it had all been caused by my harsh treatment of servants.

This was also one of the reasons Xie Cheyun hated me.

But very soon, the expression on his face could no longer hold.

Because he realized that no matter how one looked at it, the perspective shown in the image had to belong to the person who had saved him.

And the one who had saved him was indeed me.

Back then, I happened to pass by the scene. Out of a sense of justice, I sent several servants to break it up, only for all of them to return with swollen noses and bruised faces.

So I simply went myself. Before coming here, I had already known how important it was to have a strong body in a chaotic age. When I reincarnated, I had maxed out my height, stamina, and health.

Now that I took the field in person, I swung a silver whip, and in just a few moves, I scattered the entire group.

But Xie Cheyun did not thank me. The first time we met, he did not even tell me his name. He only told me not to get involved with him in the future.

I asked him why. He frowned tightly and said to me, “If you get mixed up with me, they’ll bully you too.”

“That is their fault. The malice of others should not become your reason for turning yourself into a lone boat adrift. The more a person is oppressed, the more they should resist, and use every method they can to climb to the highest place.

“As long as you stand high enough, no one will ever be able to step on your head again,” I said calmly.

I did not pay attention to the astonishment on the child’s face.

I only thought that he was still too young to understand any grand principles, so after offering him a little encouragement, I left him some silver and went on my way.

Unexpectedly, I saw him again very soon.

Only this time, he had fallen into an icy lake. The people who had pushed him in had already fled in a swarm. His face was deathly pale, and he clung desperately to the ice.

In the snowy wind, his tears mingled with the freezing lake water and soaked his entire face. “I fought back. But why? Why do they still bully me? Why are heaven and earth so unfair?”

The grand, mighty general of later years was, at that moment, only a pitiful child being bullied in the dead of winter, his life hanging by a thread.

Outside the bronze mirror, everyone fell silent.

Si Li signaled to those on either side of him, dismissing the trusted aides stationed at the door so they would not see the young general’s wretched past.

As for Xie Cheyun himself, he had long since lost the presence of mind to notice any of that. He stared at the bronze mirror in complete shock, and even unconsciously walked right up to it.

I knew what he was so shocked by. That time he fell into the lake, I had been the one to save him as well.

Not only did I save him, I also pointed him toward a clear path.

I told him that resisting with one’s fists was the lowest form of resistance.

Those who truly achieved great things all knew how to endure and lie low. Their resistance lay in cherishing their own lives, and in seizing every opportunity to climb upward, no matter how desperate their circumstances.

Clenching your fists and staking your life on a fight to the death with a few ants, as if there were no tomorrow, is the stupidest thing a person can do.

In the end, Xie Cheyun was still a boy. He flew into a rage at once, his eyes reddening as he rushed over and seized me by the front of my clothes. His voice was hoarse from shouting as he demanded what else he was supposed to do.

“You have everything, so of course you can stand there and preach your grand principles. If you were in my place…”

“If I were in your place, I would never stay in the capital and exhaust myself fighting people to the death just to hold on to this little bit of family property.” As I spoke, I coldly pried his hand away and looked straight at him.

I told him, “If you stay here and let people bully you, it will be the same even if you endure it for another ten years. What you can’t protect, you still won’t be able to protect, and you will only strangle your own chance to grow. If I were you, I would go beyond the Pass. I would find the brothers-in-arms your father once had in the army. I would inherit the aspirations your father and elder brother once carried. That is what you truly need to hold fast to.”

Seeing that the child was about to cry from my words, I could not help softening my tone and gently stroked the top of his head.

I said, “When you become a general, the things you’ve lost will naturally come back to you. Just think of it as lending them out for the time being.”

“How could it be… How could it be her…” As if he could not bear this realization, Xie Cheyun’s expression turned terrible.

Gu Qing, standing off to the side, glanced at him. Then his eyes suddenly lowered, and the corner of his mouth curved into a self-mocking smile.

“You are kind to them.”

I was right beside him, so of course I heard his murmur.

I remembered that, in the past, I had always comforted Gu Qing like this whenever he felt trapped by his status as a child of an aristocratic family.

Yet Gu Qing thought I treated everyone this way. If he knew that I counseled Xie Cheyun and helped Si Li because this era needed Xie Cheyun and Si Li, while the only reason I comforted Gu Qing was simply because he was Gu Qing, what would he think?

The scene continued. After hearing my words, the young Xie Cheyun looked at me with eyes full of admiration and worship.

After that day, Xie Cheyun made up his mind to leave the capital.

He valued favors deeply. Before parting, he asked for my name so he could repay me one day.

He said that as long as Xie Cheyun lived, he would never forget the kindness I had shown him.

But I did not wish to form ties with too many people, so I left him only the name of my personal maid, Yunxiu.

I told Xie Cheyun that his father and elder brother had both been renowned generals, and I believed Xie Cheyun would do even better than them.

In the sixty-third year of the old calendar, having lost the protection of his parents, Xie Cheyun completely gave up the idea of stubbornly staying in the capital to defend his parents’ inheritance from his relatives. Instead, he turned and joined the army alone.

Later, he met someone who recognized his talent and won military merit.

When he returned, he was covered in glory.

He had not forgotten the promise he made in his youth. The first thing he did upon returning to the capital was go to the old Shi Family residence to ask for a maid named Yunxiu.

But Yunxiu had died of illness three years earlier. Xie Cheyun asked around in every possible way, only to hear rumors that the Shi Family’s former Third Miss, the current Imperial Tutor Shi Qihua, had often mistreated her servants.

Those words had been deliberately spread by Xie Cheyun’s enemies, all to provoke this hotheaded fool into turning against me.

But Xie Cheyun did not know that. From that moment on, he was convinced I had a vicious heart.

We met many times after that, and each time we crossed paths, his hatred for me deepened.

He decided I was cruel and malicious, that even though I stood in a high position, I was incapable of cherishing the people.

Yunxiu’s death was only the cause. What he could tolerate even less was that someone like me remained by Si Li’s side.

While he was at the border, memorial after memorial requesting my execution was sent to Si Li like falling snow.

He even went so far as to pressure the Young Emperor with the border war in order to push him into making up his mind.

He was not afraid of bearing infamy. For the dead Yunxiu, and for Si Li, to whom he had decided to devote his life, he could sacrifice anything.

Only, what he had never imagined was that there had been no so-called Yunxiu.

The person who had risked herself to save him and awakened him back then was me.

A girl like that, broad-minded at such a young age, someone who could risk her own life to save an orphan who had fallen into a lake-how could she ever abuse and torment innocent servants?

And now, upon learning the truth, Xie Cheyun staggered two steps back. It was as if he had lost all support, his entire body on the verge of collapse.

Once he understood this, the great general who had always been so high-spirited turned deathly pale. His lips trembled, and shock and agony warred across his face.

For a long while, he could not say a word.

“Impossible… How could it be Shi Qihua? I don’t believe it! Sister Xiu was kind and gentle. How could she possibly be that woman who would stop at nothing to achieve her goals?”

As he said this, the undisguised pain on his face completely betrayed what he truly felt.

Yes. If Yunxiu had only been a servant, how could she have possessed such breadth of knowledge at so young an age, and understood so many principles?

He had been away from the capital for more than a decade. The voice and face, the smile and manner of the girl who had saved him back then-he had long since forgotten them.

Only the words she had spoken had remained carved into his heart.

And now, his pupils trembled as he stared fixedly at the figure of the seven-year-old girl in the mirror.

In a daze, the image in the mirror seemed to overlap with the illusory form of my soul floating here now.

The general who had always been mighty was trembling all over.

“But Shi Qihua embezzled funds, disregarded the lives of one hundred thousand soldiers at the border, and sent people to assassinate generals several times. Those are facts…”

His voice was hoarse. When he raised his head again, both eyes were blood-red, as if filled with broken veins.

Before his words had even fully faded, the scene in the bronze mirror changed.

By sheer coincidence, what appeared was the truth behind the very assassination incident he had spoken of.