In the twelfth year of Chongning of the Great Qian Dynasty, winter, heavy snowfall.
Crack—!
A sharp and harsh whip sound tore through the wind and snow, followed immediately by the dull thud of torn flesh.
The moment Chu Mingzhao regained consciousness, she felt a numbing pain in her thumb and forefinger, and her palm stung sharply.
Dazedly, she lowered her lashes. Her eyes fell on a delicate hand, fair as jade, with nails painted red, gripping a horsewhip.
The tip of the whip was still dripping with blood, bead by bead, falling onto the snow, a shocking splash of red.
Chu Mingzhao’s pupils suddenly contracted.
Her gaze moved stiffly downward, landing on the man kneeling in the snow.
The man’s padded coat was already torn to shreds by the whip, revealing several fresh bloodied welts on his arm. His hair was disheveled, strands of dark locks clinging to his pale, damp cheeks, soaked by the snow and water, making him look utterly ragged.
Yet, despite everything, his face was remarkable.
His brow bone was high, his eye sockets deep, and his thin lips pressed tightly into a bloodless line.
Even though he knelt humbly like an ant in the muddy slush of snow, there was a startling resilience in his proud bearing.
At the corner of his left eye there was a bright red mole.
Set against his pallid, paper-white complexion, this mole seemed almost to bleed red, lending his cold, ascetic face an unnervingly sensual, almost demonic allure.
But at that moment, his narrow, phoenix-like eyes were staring at her with the kind of look meant for dead men.
Chu Mingzhao’s mind buzzed, like she had been struck a dull blow between the brows.
As an avid reader who had devoured countless novels, she grasped her current situation within half a second.
She had transmigrated into a novel.
She had unwillingly been transported into a male-oriented political intrigue novel called Grand Ambition, where she became the malicious supporting female character, the one specifically meant to humiliate the male lead, thereby forging his resolve. Ultimately, she would be made into a “human vase” by the male lead as an offering.
And the man kneeling in the mud before her was none other than the future tyrant who would conquer the nine provinces, cleanse the court with blood.
Chu Mingzhao’s hand holding the whip trembled slightly.
Pei Yan.
The protagonist in the novel, the deposed crown prince—tormented to the point of despair early on, only to later torment everyone else to ruin.
And she, Chu Mingzhao.
The arrogant and overbearing legitimate daughter of the Grand Chancellor.
Because she was infatuated with the current third prince and was instead betrothed to the deposed crown prince Pei Yan, she harbored resentment and took pleasure daily in torturing and humiliating him.
She even forced the once-pristine and shining prince to live beside the stables and serve as her groom.
Oh, she was doomed.
A worst possible start.
Chu Mingzhao wanted to drop the weapon in her hand and force out a friendly, calming smile to ease the tension.
But her body would simply not obey.
Driven by the lingering obsession of the original host, her alluring red lips parted and closed uncontrollably, spitting out the lines of the villainess.
“Pei Yan, you’re nothing but my dog—I’ll beat you whenever I want! If you dare glare at me again, I’ll gouge out your eyeballs!”
Chu Mingzhao screamed inwardly: shut up! Shut up now!
But her body not only refused to stop, her hand once again raised the whip uncontrollably.
Just then, an icy mechanical voice crackled with static electricity, abruptly sounding in her mind.
[Ding— System activating…]
[Pao Wen Se Bi System bound successfully. Current plot node: Humiliation in the Snow. Due to the original host’s deliberate torture of Pei Yan by refusing to give him winter clothes to keep warm, Pei Yan secretly saved three months of his allowance to buy a worn cotton coat. When the original host found out, she flew into a rage and came specifically to humiliate him.]
[Warning! Fatal crisis detected. Host must immediately use the “Pao Wen Se Bi System” to revise the plot!]
[Current level: LV1. Permission: modify one character.]
[Extracting original text segment…]
A line of faint blue glowing text appeared before Chu Mingzhao’s eyes:
[The bitter wind howled as Chu Mingzhao looked down at the man at her feet, her eyes full of contempt. She raised her hand and lashed the cotton coat Pei Yan had saved up to buy, shredding it to pieces. The cotton fluff scattered like snowflakes in the wind. Pei Yan stared at her, his eyes bloodshot, his hatred gnawing at his bones.]
The system urged coldly: [Host, please complete a reasonable revision within ten seconds. Countdown begins: 10, 9, 8…]
Chu Mingzhao stared at the line of text, her mind going blank for a moment.
Pei Yan wanted to tear her apart alive right now—how could changing one word save her life?
Change what? And how?
Change it to “gnawing with pleasure”? No, that made no sense. Pei Yan wasn’t some masochist—why would he be pleased by being beaten?
Change it to “gnawing with no hatred”? That wouldn’t save her either. Even if his hatred didn’t gnaw, he could still just kill her outright!
[5, 4, 3…]
Chu Mingzhao watched Pei Yan’s eyes gradually turning bloodshot, her heartbeat threatening to burst out of her throat.
She was a die-hard beauty fan, sure, but she was even more a lazy coward who valued her life.
This Pei Yan really was gorgeous, but his murderous aura was also terrifying!
Wait… what was this system called again? Pao Wen Se Bi?
Chu Mingzhao frantically stared at the text, her fingers unconsciously swiping in the air.
In a flash of lightning, the text before her shimmered with golden light and shifted form.
[Modification successful! Reloading plot…]
The floating text instantly changed:
[…Pei Yan stared at her, his eyes bloodshot, gnawing with that itch.]
Chu Mingzhao: …
Even though she had made the change herself, seeing that line actually take effect still left her breathless.
[Time flow restored.]
Crack—!
The whip finally came down. The sharp wind of the lash kicked up the snow on the ground, slashing heavily across Pei Yan’s chest.
Cotton fluff exploded into the air, mingling with the heavy snow.
Chu Mingzhao held her breath, a thin layer of cold sweat breaking out on the palm gripping the whip.
Pei Yan gritted his teeth, the crimson in his eyes almost spilling over.
That was the coat he had saved three months of his meager salary to buy.
For the sake of this garment, he had endured spoiled meals and even gone so far as to haul chamber pots for others—all just to stay a little warmer in this bone-chilling winter, to avoid the unbearable itch and pain of his perennial frostbite flaring up again.
But now, his dignity and hopes had been shattered by this venomous woman.
Hate. Such deep hatred!
Chu Mingzhao, Chu Mingzhao, Chu Mingzhao… if I ever rise again, I will tear you apart limb by limb and grind your bones to ash!
Just as he was about to erupt, his body suddenly stiffened.
An utterly absurd surge of heat shot up from the base of his spine, crackling through his meridians, gathering straight toward that most unspeakable place.
His back, taut from humiliation and cold, now trembled uncontrollably.
“Ngh…”
A maddening, bone-deep itch.
Pei Yan’s once pale-as-paperface rapidly flushed with an unnatural crimson, the blush spreading all the way to the roots of his ears, making the small mole at the corner of his eye seem as if it might bleed.
His Adam’s apple bobbed violently. The curse that had been on the tip of his tongue turned into an ambiguous, muffled moan.
Pei Yan was utterly dumbfounded.
In his nineteen years—from being a radiant crown prince to falling into the dust as a horse groom—he had endured countless humiliations and torments, but never anything so absurd as this.
He wished nothing more than to slice Chu Mingzhao into a thousand pieces, yet his body had betrayed his will.
The greater his hatred, the more that place… itched.
An itch that gnawed at his bones, an itch so unbearable it made his legs go weak, almost unable to keep kneeling.
Pei Yan bit down hard on his lower lip, drawing blood, using the pain to remind himself to stay lucid.
Was he actually… aroused by that venomous woman?
Had he lost his mind?
