Pei Yuan pressed his palms together and bowed to her, his eyes sincere without a trace of impurity.
"From today on, I am the sharpest blade in your hand, the most obedient tool. You point east, and I won't go west. You tell me to hit a dog, and I won't chase a chicken. I have only one request—when you finally rewrite the ending and travel back, you absolutely must, without fail, take me with you!"
"Fine, deal!"
Chu Mingzhao agreed without hesitation.
More friends meant more paths forward, especially a prince who wielded military power and possessed explosive combat skills. In this ancient world riddled with dangers at every step, having a completely trustworthy fellow modern as a bodyguard was like a pie falling from the sky.
"But we need to agree on this first—in public, you'll have to maintain your persona. We can't get too close, or it'll raise suspicion."
Pei Yuan patted his chest, giving her his guarantee.
"Don't worry, I'm a pretty good actor. Besides, this Seventh Prince's personality is pretty close to my own. I won't crack!"
Behind the rockery, one man frantically pledged his loyalty, while the other quietly plotted how to squeeze every last bit of value out of him. The atmosphere was strangely harmonious.
Yet neither of them noticed that, no more than ten paces from the rockery, two pairs of eyes were fixed on that corner.
Pei Lin stood silently in the shadow of the rockery, like a flawless white jade statue.
And on the other side, beneath a withered tree, Pei Yan seemed to have merged with the darkness.
The two stood there in silence, neither making a sound first, each harboring their own hidden agenda.
Pei Yan couldn't see what was happening behind the rockery, nor could he hear anything clearly.
But he knew they had gone behind it.
And they had stayed there a long time.
A man and a woman alone in such a secluded place—what could they be doing?
His mind uncontrollably conjured the image of Pei Yuan leaning close to Chu Mingzhao in the great hall, her coy, half-resisting, half-yielding shy look.
Would Pei Yuan lean into her like that? Would he catch that cloyingly sweet fragrance on her? Would he touch her hand, so supple it seemed boneless?
The thought made Pei Yan burn with jealousy.
Pei Lin's situation was even stranger.
He, too, couldn't see what the two were doing in the shadow of the rockery, but he could clearly hear Chu Mingzhao's inner thoughts.
Transmigration? System? Plot?
He understood each word individually, but together they felt alien.
What chilled him to the bone was the ending hinted at in Chu Mingzhao's thoughts.
Old Seven would be skinned alive and turned into a human-skin lantern?
By whom? By that disgraced former crown prince Pei Yan, who now groveled worse than a dog?
Pei Lin suddenly felt that the cunning and scheming he prided himself on had become a joke in the face of these absurd inner monologues.
His entire life, his mother's careful planning, the deep brotherly bond between him and Old Seven—was it all nothing more than a script already written in some so-called "novel"?
And that Pei Yan, whom he had trampled into the mud, never to rise again—was he the true chess player destined to fight his way back in this drama?
Ridiculous.
Pei Lin let out a cold, silent laugh, but there was no trace of humor in his eyes.
A natural-born rebel, the more absurd something was, the more he wanted to crush it with his bare hands and see what god or demon lay inside.
Since Chu Mingzhao was a variable, then he absolutely couldn't let her go.
...
Behind the rockery, Pei Yuan lowered his voice, his tone carrying a relieved lightness.
"I'll head out first. If I stay too long, people will get suspicious. We'll find another chance to meet."
"Go on, go on. Keep up your persona, and don't slip up."
Chu Mingzhao's voice was equally bright with obvious delight.
Pei Yuan, like a large dog that had finally found its owner, slipped away satisfied along the other side of the path.
Chu Mingzhao tightened the fox-fur coat around her and let out a long breath of white steam.
As she turned around, she bumped straight into a wall of solid flesh.
"Ah..."
Her startled cry caught in her throat.
The pale moonlight mercilessly illuminated the face before her.
Pei Yan had unmelted snow still resting on his shoulders, his face as pale as paper, utterly expressionless. Only the red mole at the corner of his eye, usually so cold, was now so flushed with anger it seemed ready to drip blood.
"It seems I've come at a bad time, disturbing the Eldest Miss's tryst with her lover."
Chu Mingzhao's heart raced in panic.
She instinctively stepped back half a pace, her back pressing against the cold, rough rock of the rockery.
Pei Yan closed in step by step, his tall frame trapping her completely between the rockery and his chest.
"Cat got your tongue, Eldest Miss? Just moments ago, you were chatting so intimately with Old Seven here. You even exchanged secret code words. What kind of underhanded business are you two up to?"
Chu Mingzhao broke out in a cold sweat.
He heard?!
No—Pei Yuan had lowered his voice, and they had spoken so quickly. Even if Pei Yan heard something, a native ancient like him couldn't possibly understand modern references.
He was just bluffing!
"What nonsense are you spouting!"
Chu Mingzhao forced herself to calm down, lifted her chin, and sneered.
"Who do you think you are? A lowly slave daring to meddle in your mistress's affairs? Who gave you the audacity to follow me?"
A cold laugh forced its way out of Pei Yan's throat.
"Chu Mingzhao, don't forget—you are still nominally my wife. First, you cast seductive glances at Pei Lin, and then you sneak off to meet Pei Yuan. Do you take me for a dead man?!"
Hearing this, Chu Mingzhao finally began to piece things together.
She remembered a similar scene in the original plot.
The vicious ex-wife, dissatisfied with being betrothed to a deposed crown prince, secretly met the Third Prince she adored—the one her heart truly belonged to—only to be caught in the act.
Although Pei Yan didn't love her, the pride of a male protagonist could not tolerate the shame of being cuckolded.
Especially when the one slipping the horns on him was his hated and beloved third brother.
Chu Mingzhao's mind raced for a solution.
But just as Pei Yan closed in within three steps of her, the system chimed in again.
[Detected key plot node: Caught in the act of adultery. Extracting original text passage...]
[Pei Yan looked at his faithless fiancée before him, his mind replaying images of her meeting Pei Yuan in secret over and over. Though he felt no love, he sensed his male dignity being thrown into the mud and trampled. His anger turned into a grim smile, reason entirely abandoning him. He stepped forward and viciously grabbed Chu Mingzhao's throat, wanting nothing more than to tear this fragile body apart right then and there.]
[Please complete a reasonable modification within 10 seconds. Current permission level: LV2 (modifying one to two words).]
[Countdown: 10, 9, 8...]
Chu Mingzhao's pupils shrank.
So the caught-in-the-act plot point had arrived after all.
But the current scene didn't match the original script either.
Shouldn't the man in this "caught in the act" scene have been Pei Lin? Why had it become Pei Yuan?
The system's indifferent voice cut her off.
[Due to the ripple effects of previous plot modifications, the storyline can no longer develop exactly as per the original text. Please adapt on the fly; do not rely too heavily on memory.]
[Countdown: 7, 6, 5...]
Chu Mingzhao cursed inwardly.
