Fu Jue’s pupils contracted to pinpoints. The look he gave Pei Liang could no longer be described as mere wariness.
Only now did he understand what this woman had meant by saying that her origins were “somewhat unusual.”
She was different from all the transmigrators they had dealt with before. The transmigrators of her era came from a time when information was abundant and imagination ran wild.
But not all of them were fortunate enough to transmigrate into the bodies of the powerful. Quite a number had ordinary identities.
People like that generally posed no threat to Xianluo Mountain, so Xianluo Mountain did not usually exterminate them all.
Instead, they would seek these people out and organize and summarize their ideas about later generations—their philosophies, technology, social structures, and political systems.
That way, they could lay a solid foundation for entering the new era.
Unfortunately, the transmigrators who could actually be put to use were usually not especially talented. In their original worlds, they had been nothing more than ordinary people, with no particularly advanced knowledge or specialized skills.
Or else they relied on the advantages of their circumstances to drift from man to man, spending their days doing nothing but eating, drinking, and waiting to die.
Those with real ability, on the other hand, mostly wanted to realize their ambitions in this world. To them, Xianluo Mountain was the number-one obstacle in their path.
In short, according to the records compiled by Xianluo Mountain, some works from later generations could, in fact, explain the opportunities encountered by the ancestors of Xianluo Mountain.
However, there was more than one possible explanation. Why, then, had Prince Liang so directly concluded that their legacy came from a “system”?
Pei Liang noticed that he had been silent for some time and looked at him. “Are you really that surprised?”
“If we exclude the possibility that transmigrators have to meet certain conditions, then that means you’re restricted by rules as well, doesn’t it?”
“At first, I thought your Ancestor of Xianluo Mountain had simply been a future person who transmigrated into this world. But I soon rejected that theory. You can predict the distribution of natural disasters in far too much detail. As far as I know, no dynasty could preserve historical records so completely.”
“Even if society transitioned peacefully, not even a scholar who had studied this dynasty in depth could remember every natural disaster, large and small, over the course of several centuries—and remember nothing but the disasters.”
“History is not recorded with that sort of priority.”
“Put plainly, if the founding ancestor of Xianluo Mountain had been a transmigrator, the information in her head would not have been enough to sustain Xianluo Mountain for all these years.”
Pei Liang continued, “Once we rule out some sort of prophetic foresight, only three possibilities remain. The first is that your Xianluo Mountain truly can communicate with the gods and immortals—of course, I’ve already ruled that one out.”
“The second is that you possess some sort of computational theory or technological device, something far beyond this era and already proven to be absolutely accurate.”
“For example, if the ancestor of Xianluo Mountain had come from an even more distant future, then we couldn’t use the theoretical framework of the twenty-first century to understand her. Perhaps, in the future, the laws governing the operation of all things have already been fully deciphered.”
“But you can predict not only natural disasters, but also major disasters caused by humans and wars. You even possess the ability to send me away. So this possibility is ruled out as well.”
“That leaves only the final possibility.”
Pei Liang looked at Fu Jue. “Though even I find it incredible.”
“Whatever Xianluo Mountain calls ‘it,’ it fulfills all the necessary conditions: predicting the trajectory of this world’s development and excluding foreign souls. However you look at it, this thing is very much like a system.”
When she finished speaking, Pei Liang wore an expression of genuine surprise. “It can be passed down, too?”
Seeing that she was already convinced, Fu Jue knew that denying it would be pointless. A woman like her would not doubt a conclusion she had reached through deduction.
Unless she received new evidence sufficient to overturn the logic behind her reasoning, no one could sway her with words.
So Fu Jue simply said, “That question is worth far too much. Surely Your Highness doesn’t expect me to answer it for nothing.”
Pei Liang smiled. “Consider it compensation for stabbing me in the back.”
Fu Jue gave a derisive laugh. “That wound of yours has probably healed by now.”
“Still, since Your Highness has been honest with me, it would be petty of me to hide behind evasions. How about one secret for another?”
Pei Liang nodded. Just as Fu Jue thought she was about to agree, he heard the shameless woman say, “Then forget it. I’ve already made up my mind. It’s not as if I need someone else to admit I’m right.”
Fu Jue: “…”
Then she continued, “But if you’re willing to let me take a look, I don’t mind letting you ask whatever you want.”
Fu Jue stared at her as though she were insane. “You think you—”
He stopped halfway.
The way Prince Liang looked did not seem like she was testing whether she could seize his legacy.
Rather, she seemed utterly certain that as long as he was willing to share it, she would definitely be able to see it.
Something that existed in the soul—judging by their understanding as modern people, it was certainly an intangible thing.
Yet since she had spoken so confidently, that meant—
Fu Jue understood. “You have one too?”
Then he frowned. “But I haven’t seen any sign of you using it.”
According to the transmigrators’ records, something like a “system” would inevitably provide its host with some sort of “cheat ability.”
The turning point in Prince Liang’s conduct had come after she was made Crown Princess. The Empress must have been aware of it, because the reports previously sent by the hidden Xianluo Mountain forces within the court indicated that the Empress had once intended to eliminate Prince Liang.
Yet in recent days, Prince Liang had become increasingly brazen and reckless. Though she was no longer Crown Princess, she had already gained complete control over the government.
If the Empress truly wished to preserve the stability of the Great Liang Empire, she would not be indulging Prince Liang more openly while also putting her covert arrangements on hold.
When all was said and done, after all these years of preparation, even if the Empress now wanted to uproot Prince Liang, she was no longer capable of doing so.
Fu Jue asked tentatively, “Perhaps you can seize others’ fortunes, or forcibly make those in power lose their minds?”
Pei Liang tapped him on the forehead. “Who are you looking down on? Do you really think your current predicament is because you were being stupid?”
“Don’t make excuses for yourself.”
Fu Jue fell silent. Suddenly, he felt incredibly irritated.
He flicked his sleeve and said to Pei Liang expressionlessly, “Your Highness has already paid your respects to my elder sister. As her widower, I find it inconvenient to receive you. Please see yourself out.”
He was throwing her out.
Pei Liang said, “Don’t be like that. I genuinely don’t think we have any reason to be enemies.”
“I understand the original intention of your Ancestor of Xianluo Mountain. She merely wanted the family’s glory to endure through the generations, all the way until the arrival of the new world.”
“She went to enormous lengths to make the greatest possible use of her opportunity without disrupting the existing social structure.”
“Look at the rules she established. If nothing unexpected had happened, even an ignorant fool like Fu Xin could have maintained the system’s normal operation and stood on equal footing with an Empress capable of earning a place in the history books. That alone shows how excellent and ahead of its time the system she created was.”
“So although I deduced that the trump card of your family progenitor did not originate from her own abilities, but rather from being bound to something through another opportunity, she was indeed a transmigrator.”
Fu Jue felt an ominous premonition. “What are you trying to say?”
Pei Liang smiled. “You’re different from an uneducated fool like Fu Xin.”
“You’ve read through the transmigrators’ handbook, so you should already have some idea of what the future world will look like.”
“But when it comes to things one has never seen, no one can truly understand their convenience as if they had experienced them firsthand.”
“For example, when you were trying to tempt me earlier, you mentioned being able to hear Prince Liang’s voice simply by thinking about it.”
It was rather amusing. Just moments ago, Fu Jue had spoken about his affair with Pei Liang in front of Fu Xin without the slightest hindrance, and without a trace of shame.
Yet now, after hearing Pei Liang say it, his face had turned red instead. He looked both embarrassed and indignant at being made into a laughingstock.
Pei Liang continued, “You’ve never experienced such convenience yourself. Even if you know that these technologies will become commonplace in the future, you still won’t truly feel the gap.”
“And we transmigrators—or, to be precise, your ancestor—had records of someone who was fully capable of creating such conveniences during her lifetime.”
After all, the principles behind telephones were not particularly complicated. Even with the limitations imposed by the productivity of the era, if she had won over that transmigrator who was clearly a scientific genius, or even gathered together the transmigrators who would appear over the next several centuries, they should have entered the industrial age by now.
Fu Jue immediately realized that something was wrong. He looked at Pei Liang, his eyes filled with the tremor of something shattering within him.
Sure enough, Prince Liang continued, “For someone who has gone from luxury to simplicity, recreating the environment they were originally accustomed to is instinctive, provided they have the means.”
“Yet the Fu family progenitor rejected that instinct. Instead, she focused on ensuring the Fu family’s prosperity for generations to come.”
“What’s so strange about that?” Fu Jue said in a low voice. “Preserving one’s family line is human instinct.”
Pei Liang raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you believe that?”
“Think carefully about what was written in the manuscript.”
Fu Jue had completely abandoned any hope of deceiving himself. With the changing times and the development of society, the clan-based values of an agrarian society had long since faded. Most of those transmigrators had never possessed much of a desire to preserve their bloodlines.
Most of them had thought, “After I die, I won’t care if the world falls into chaos.”
And yet their ancestor’s plans had truly been far too farsighted.
From the consciousness preserved through the inheritance, Fu Jue could see that his ancestor’s true purpose had been to allow the Fu clan to accumulate technology and capital within the old order, remaining hidden behind the scenes while pushing the Pei dynasty into the spotlight.
Then, when the new order arrived, the Fu family would become a clan standing at the pinnacle of the world, bringing prosperity to its descendants.
Seeing Fu Jue’s expression, Pei Liang knew that her guess had been correct.
That bastard had merely wanted to create a Rothschild family for a world ruled by women. Her sights had been set entirely on the modern society of several centuries later. Naturally, she had no interest in the throne of an ancient dynasty.
Once the new era arrived, if Great Liang’s political structure transitioned peacefully from a feudal monarchy to a constitutional monarchy, the imperial family might lose its real power, but at least it could continue to exist as a symbolic figurehead.
But if the revolution escalated, the remnants of feudalism would naturally meet a miserable end and face retribution.
The faction that had gone into hiding first, however, would not need to face any of that. The only unexpected complication, presumably, was that her descendants had been stupid enough to resort to close-kin marriage in order to avoid being controlled by the imperial family, nearly wiping out their own clan in the process.
In the end, Pei Liang arrived at her conclusion.
“For the sake of the Fu family’s interests in the modern era, she was even willing to sacrifice the rest of her own life. That means she wasn’t restricting the transmigrators from using their knowledge to advance society simply to preserve history.”
“Although over the centuries, as long as transmigrators continued to appear, their traces and the progress they brought were unavoidable.”
“Since there was no rule that absolutely had to be obeyed, the development of productivity would have been beneficial both to her and to the people of the world. Why, then, would she restrict it?”
“So the only explanation I can think of is that the future was absolutely crucial to her—so crucial that helping the Founding Emperor establish a glorious dynasty, and laying the foundation for Ancestor of Xianluo Mountain to transcend the world, were nothing more than minor preliminaries.”
Pei Liang looked at Fu Jue. Her gaze seemed to pass through him, penetrating all the way into his soul, where she stared directly at the system bound to him—and at the will of the Fu family progenitor preserved within that system.
Fu Jue could feel the impact and tremor coming from his very soul.
Then Prince Liang uttered those horrifying words:
“So you went back, didn’t you?”
“You went back to enjoy the results of Xianluo Mountain’s centuries of effort. But if she had nothing to do with you, how could she enjoy them?”
Pei Liang placed a hand over Fu Jue’s lower abdomen and looked at him with a faint, mocking smile. “So you should know exactly where she came from, shouldn’t you?”
Fu Jue’s lips trembled. He looked as though his entire understanding of life had been overturned.
“That’s impossible.”
“History has already been changed beyond recognition. Even if she is a descendant of the Fu family, how could she guarantee that she would be born?”
“I don’t know that,” Pei Liang replied. “But she must have found some way to verify it.”
According to the original plot, Fu Jue would ultimately seize power, completely suppressing the imperial family in the struggle for control.
And the world now possessed all the conditions necessary for industrial development. At this rate, no more than two centuries would pass before that bastard was born and began enjoying the fruits of her efforts.
Presumably, after living out her life here, she would return to the point in time before she had transmigrated. Her ordinary fate would have been transformed into one of unimaginable nobility, allowing her to lie back and enjoy everything.
But how many transmigrators had suffered brutal purges simply to make her existence possible?
Many of them had been ordinary people who only wanted to live quiet lives. Some had even genuinely cared about the world, using their knowledge to advance society and improve the lives of the common people.
Pei Liang asked Fu Jue, “Are you certain that you’re the only one left carrying the Fu family bloodline?”
Fu Jue answered with difficulty, “Certain.”
Pei Liang smiled. “Then there’s no mistake. If that person is able to be born, she must be your direct descendant.”
Fu Jue was suddenly filled with disgust. His face twisted.
He had ambitions of his own and a life’s purpose he wanted to fulfill. What he hated most was being treated as a mere tool for continuing the bloodline.
And now he had discovered that his entire life had already been calculated into someone else’s plans. Whether he wanted it or not, everything he did would ultimately serve only to ensure the birth of one person.
At that moment, Prince Liang glanced at his lower abdomen, then looked back into his eyes.
Once again, Fu Jue felt that sensation of her gaze piercing through consciousness and space, staring directly at someone else.
A smile spread across her face. It was filled with malicious amusement, as though she had just carefully hidden something for several centuries, painstakingly built a tower of blocks a thousand feet high—only to knock it down in an instant.
“You won’t be born,” Pei Liang said.
At that moment, Fu Jue’s vision suddenly went black. His head throbbed violently, and frantic warnings and unease surged through his soul.
[Kill her! Kill her! Kill her! Kill her! Kill her! Kill her…]
A voice screamed wildly, urging him to eliminate this threat at once. For a time, his body even slipped beyond his control.
But what kind of person was Fu Jue?
He had endured in silence for years and possessed a mental strength far beyond that of ordinary people. He never allowed the other party to get its way.
Meanwhile, the smile on Prince Liang’s face grew wider, her mockery resembling that of someone who had just watched a fish take the bait.
“So this is how you ensure that you’re born!”
As soon as she said those words, Fu Jue could clearly feel the alien consciousness within his soul shudder.
