The veins on Pei Yan’s temples pulsed violently.
He stared at Eleven, whose face was plastered with sincerity, and ultimately swallowed the words that would have followed, resigned. Trying to explain to a brain-dead assassin why he had kissed a viper of a woman was nothing short of self-inflicted humiliation.
He raised the back of his hand and rubbed his lips hard, attempting to wipe away that lingering, cloying sweetness.
“Focus on the real matter.”
Pei Yan shut his eyes. When he reopened them, his cold, stern demeanor was back.
“I want you to investigate Pei Yuan. His recent behavior is wildly out of character. This is not normal.”
Eleven immediately composed himself, straightening his spine. “Understood! I will carry out your orders!”
Standing in the biting wind, Pei Yan mentally dismantled and reassembled every detail of the night.
He knew exactly what kind of man Pei Yuan was. The two brothers born to Consort Shu—Pei Lin, a schemer hidden behind a smiling mask, and Pei Yuan, a muscle-bound brute with little brain—were transparent to him.
But the Pei Yuan who had stepped in to help Chu Mingzhao tonight, then lured her to talk behind the rockery, carried an inexplicable strangeness about his every move.
Most crucially, he couldn’t decipher the odd code words exchanged between Chu Mingzhao and Pei Yuan.
Chu Mingzhao—a sheltered daughter of the Chancellor’s manor, raised in the seclusion of inner chambers—and Pei Yuan—a prince who had spent years in military camps.
These two had barely exchanged a few words in the past. Where the hell did they pick up this routine?
“Trace his activities over the past month. Who he met, what injuries he sustained, what medicines he took. Everything. Report it all to me in detail.”
Pei Yan’s voice was ice as he issued the command.
Eleven cupped his fists once more, acknowledging the order, then melted silently into the dense shadows of the night.
…
The water clock dripped on, and the palace banquet finally ended.
The Chancellor’s carriage rumbled over the cobblestones, its wheels grinding in a dull rhythm.
Leaning against the carriage’s soft cushions, Chu Mingzhao felt like a salted fish too exhausted to even twitch a finger.
This single night had been more draining than three days and nights straight of overtime back in the modern world.
First, she’d had to tread carefully through the plot, her heart in her throat. Then she’d met a fellow time-traveler and exchanged coded recognition signals. Afterward, she’d narrowly escaped being strangled by the unhinged male lead, only to have to deal with the dark-hearted second male lead on top of it all.
One misstep at any point, and she’d already be a stiff corpse by now.
The carriage came to a stop before the Chancellor’s residence.
Her maid, Cuizhu, lifted the curtain, reaching out to help her down. Chu Mingzhao waved her hand away.
“No need. Tell Mother I drank too much fruit wine tonight, and my head aches terribly. I won’t be paying respects—I’m going straight to bed.”
Clutching the collar of her fox-fur cloak tightly, she hurried through the mansion gates.
Sneaking through the corridors like a thief, she finally reached her quarters, slid the bolt shut behind her, and let out a long, relieved breath.
The room was warm, filled with the glow of premium silver charcoal. She yanked off her cumbersome fox-fur cloak, sat down at her dressing table, and leaned toward the bronze mirror.
In the dim candlelight, the mirror reflected a face of striking allure.
Arching brows, inviting eyes—her gaze carried an innate, seductive charm that flirted with danger. Even in her exhaustion, her almost aggressive beauty was undeniable.
It was a pity that such a top-tier face had been given to a villainess destined to be ground to dust.
Chu Mingzhao sighed, tilting her chin up slightly as she brushed aside strands of loose hair.
On the snowy skin of her neck, a deep purple-red mark was starkly imprinted.
The moment her fingers grazed it, she gasped in pain.
Cursing Pei Yan’s ancestors down to the eighteenth generation in her mind, she fished out a medicine box and hastily smeared a cooling balm over the wound.
As the ointment seeped in, bringing some relief, she collapsed onto her bed and began mentally summoning the System, the culprit pretending to be dead.
[System! Stop faking it! Get out here!]
A faint blue light flickered across her retina. The System’s mechanical voice drawled lazily.
[What does the Host wish for?]
[You have the nerve to ask?] Chu Mingzhao’s fury flared. [In the original novel, the original owner and Pei Lin are only caught red-handed in the late stages. How did it turn into Pei Yuan tonight? And I changed it to “kissed”! Take a look at my neck—does this look like a kiss? This is attempted murder!]
The System paused for two seconds, as if running some complex calculations, then delivered an extremely robotic response.
[The divergence from the original plot is a butterfly effect resulting from the Host’s earlier modifications. As for the male lead’s actions, the System is only responsible for forcibly executing the command. The intensity of the execution is influenced by the male lead’s emotional state at that time.]
[In short, the stronger his desire to kill you, the harder he bites when he kisses you.]
Rubbing her throbbing temples, Chu Mingzhao pressed on. [So what now? This plot is bolting off like a runaway wild dog. I don’t even know when I’ll trigger the death trap. How am I supposed to change it?]
The System fell silent, as though flipping through a nonexistent employee handbook. Finally, it offered an emotionless suggestion.
[Passively waiting for plot nodes indeed carries uncontrollable risks. The Host may attempt to take the initiative by visiting high-frequency locations from the original story and interacting with key characters to manually trigger the plot line.]
Chu Mingzhao understood.
This world was like a massive map in a game. Wandering around at random might trigger special hidden storyline quests.
Completing these side quests would also yield experience points.
But going out of her way to show herself in front of Pei Yan to trigger the plot? Might as well stick her neck onto a guillotine.
Still, after some thought, she realized her current power was only Level 2—barely enough to change a single word. If she wanted to survive the inevitable death scenes ahead, she had to level up fast.
“Offering up your life is just as sure as death.”
“I’ll do it.”
Chu Mingzhao wrapped herself tightly in the blanket and gritted her teeth as she closed her eyes.
The next morning.
Chu Mingzhao sat before her dressing table as Cuizhu coiled her black hair into an elaborate cloud-shaped bun. She angled her head slightly, and the mirror caught the mottled bruise on her neck.
The ointment from last night hadn’t eased the swelling; instead, the blood had spread into a seductive, morbid purple-red.
She chose a silver-red, gold-threaded high-collared jacket, fastening the buttons all the way up to her chin, covering that tempting stretch of her neck completely.
The stables in the northwestern corner of the Chancellor’s manor were a place even the lowliest servants despised.
The moment Chu Mingzhao stepped through the moon-shaped gate, she heard the sharp crack of wood splitting cleanly under a blade.
In the yard, Pei Yan had his back to her, his sleeves rolled high, revealing his taut, powerful forearms.
As he raised the ax, the muscles in his back and shoulders tightened immediately.
The cold air condensed into white mist around him, and sweat traced down the faint valley of his spine, soaking through the fabric of his clothes, clinging to his skin and outlining the silhouette of broad shoulders and a narrow waist.
Chu Mingzhao’s steps faltered. Her gaze lingered on that sweat-soaked back for two seconds.
Setting aside his rabid-dog tendency to try to strangle her at any moment, if you looked purely at his body and appearance, he was absolute top-tier. No wonder the novel was filled with female antagonists throwing themselves at him one after another.
