Snow fell in great, feathery sheets, as though the clouds had shattered and the heavens were collapsing.
When Xie Shuishan’s consciousness returned, the first thing she felt was a bone-deep chill rising from her knees and spreading through all four limbs.
She was kneeling in the snow.
Her entire body had long since stiffened into numbness. Snow covered her shoulders and body, and even her eyelashes were buried beneath it, obscuring everything before her.
“Thud! Thud! Thud!”
“Mmph—mmph, mmph mmph mmph—”
A muffled, inhuman howl, strangled in someone’s throat, reached her ears first.
Then a heavy, foul stench seeped into her nostrils, accompanied by the faint, sharp fragrance of plum blossoms.
“Ah—!” A heart-rending scream shook loose the snow from the branches, yet failed to disturb the cold, massive palace walls buried beneath the snow.
“Quick, stuff his mouth properly!” someone ordered in a deliberately lowered voice, though the unpleasant shrillness still pierced through. “He still has enough strength to scream. What, have none of you eaten?”
The shrill voice rang out beside her once more. Only then did Xie Shuishan realize that its owner was standing right next to her.
She slowly turned her stiff neck. From the corner of her eye, she saw a narrow purple sleeve and a hand holding a horsetail whisk. The sleeve pointed toward a certain spot.
“Make sure you give him a good beating!”
“Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud, thud, thud—”
At the urging, the blows fell even faster.
The movement of her neck finally dislodged the snow piled over Xie Shuishan’s eyes. At last, her vision cleared completely.
Almost instinctively, she followed the direction indicated by the purple-robed man—the source of the repeated thudding.
Several men in short, bright-yellow robes were sweating profusely as they swung cudgel-like punishment staffs, bringing them down again and again upon something.
The blows were so heavy and urgent that they stirred up a mournful whistling through the air.
At the center of their assault, the source of those dull thuds, was unmistakably a person.
His mouth had been stuffed shut. His features were twisted in agony, and he lay facedown in the snow, his head turned to one side. Both hands clawed forward in every direction, gouging deep furrows into the snow.
His flesh had been beaten open, blood and meat flying everywhere. It looked as though the winter plums on the trees had fallen and piled together—a glaring, muddy scarlet. In the blink of an eye, he had already gone still.
The end of each punishment staff was wrapped in iron and fitted with barbed hooks.
Hundreds of blows from such a weapon could reduce a living person to pulp.
Just as Xie Shuishan took in the scene, one of the men in yellow must have put too much force into his swing. The staff flew from his hands and shot straight toward where Xie Shuishan was kneeling.
With a sharp clatter, it struck the snow in front of her. It did not hit her, but the barbs on the iron-wrapped staff were spattered with flesh. The hot, foul-smelling gore flew through the air and splashed across Xie Shuishan’s face.
It was as though whole clusters of red plum blossoms had opened across her skin.
Xie Shuishan slowly closed her eyes.
The execution stopped. The men in yellow dropped to their knees in a flurry, bowing in her direction.
The purple-robed man beside Xie Shuishan stared fixedly at her. She remained unmoved, not even the snow on her head sliding loose. He flicked his horsetail whisk, turned, and walked away, entering the palace hall not far from the garden.
Only after the purple-robed man had left did Xie Shuishan finally move.
She raised a hand and wiped the blood from her face.
Then she scooped up a handful of snow and began to rub her hands clean, slowly and methodically.
The bone-chilling cold jolted her senses, making her understand with certainty that she had truly come back to life.
She had died in a gas explosion after using a cheap secondhand gas canister to cook hot pot with a fellow patient.
Her death had come with only a momentary sensation of searing heat. In other words, it had not been particularly painful.
Her soul had drifted into some unknown place, where a system had appeared and offered to bind itself to her and help her obtain another chance at life. Xie Shuishan had felt no excitement or relief at the proposal—only absurdity.
Although her death had been unexpected, she had no unfinished business whatsoever.
To her, life simply held no appeal.
It was not that she found life meaningless because it had been especially difficult. Rather, life had been devoid of interest for her from the moment she was born, because she had possessed everything.
There was a saying that all roads lead to Rome. Xie Shuishan was the sort of person who had been born in Rome.
She was the sole heir to a powerful financial clan whose commercial empire spanned the globe.
Wealth, status, power—everything in this world that others longed for, and even the things they could never imagine, was hers for the taking without the slightest effort.
As the threshold for what she considered pleasurable continued to rise, she began to experience a sense of detachment from reality.
Her family had searched everywhere for renowned psychologists. The circumstance that ultimately led to Xie Shuishan’s death had begun when she visited a questionable counseling clinic and met several fellow patients, each suffering from different symptoms.
But now that she was dead, she had no desire to live through another tedious life.
Therefore, she remembered that, in the end, she had rejected the system’s proposal with utter disinterest.
Xie Shuishan finished cleaning the blood from her fingers with the snow. Her long, bamboo-like hands had already reddened and begun to sting as though they had been burned.
Her weary, drifting gaze swept over the patch of scarlet still spreading across the snow and the several men in yellow kneeling beside it.
Bracing herself against her knees, Xie Shuishan slowly rose. She moved her stiff, numb body until she was standing upright.
At that moment, the purple-robed man holding the horsetail whisk emerged once more. He stood before the palace hall and raised his voice toward Xie Shuishan, though the shrillness in his throat was even harder to suppress now.
“His Majesty summons you. Come inside with me.”
The men in yellow kneeling on the ground acted as though they had not heard him. Apart from the rise and fall of their breathing, they might as well have been corpses.
Clearly, the words were meant for Xie Shuishan.
Xie Shuishan recalled the system that had sent her here, chattering on and on about the circumstances of this world.
Her frozen brows drew together slightly. She still felt no joy at having returned from the dead. She only felt troubled.
Xie Shuishan turned her head and looked over. After a moment’s hesitation, she nevertheless began walking toward him.
Her education and upbringing had taught her that she could die by accident, but she must never harm herself. Anyone who committed suicide because they could not bear pressure, bankruptcy, death, or any other upheaval would be expelled from the family.
The Xie clan had no cowards.
More importantly, Xie Shuishan had promised her grandfather that no matter when or where she was, regardless of how severe her illness became, she would never harm herself or take her own life.
With the snow creaking beneath her feet, Xie Shuishan walked up to the man holding the horsetail whisk.
He stood one step above Xie Shuishan, looking her up and down. Apparently dissatisfied with her appearance, he flicked his horsetail whisk and said quietly to the two men in crimson robes beside him, “How can she appear before His Majesty covered in filth and blood? Take her away, clean her up properly, and bring her back.”
The two men in crimson robes approached Xie Shuishan, each seizing one of her arms and trying to drag her away.
Xie Shuishan remained where she was. With a deft lift of her arms, she brushed the two crimson-robed men aside.
She stood below the steps, yet because she was tall, she was able to meet the purple-robed man’s gaze at eye level.
Xie Shuishan raised her eyes and looked straight at him. There was not the slightest trace of anger in the corners of her eyes or the arch of her brows, nor was there any particular expression on her face. Just as she had glanced indifferently at the person who had been beaten into a mass of bloody flesh, she regarded the man before her with detached calm.
The purple-robed man was the chief eunuch of the imperial palace—the Chief Eunuch, a third-rank official. In the emperor’s presence, he habitually referred to himself as “this servant,” but everyone except the emperor addressed him as “Ancestor.” The number of people who dared to look him directly in the eye could be counted on one hand.
Anyone who could climb to the position of Chief Eunuch and attend at the Son of Heaven’s side was naturally no ordinary person. Even ministers from the outer court had to treat him with the utmost respect. It was even less likely that he would be frightened merely because some random person looked at him.
Not even if that person possessed Xie Shuishan’s unusual beauty.
Still…
The purple-robed man cast a sidelong glance at the corpse, which lay like a pool of mud and was already nearly buried beneath the wind and snow. The person before him was clearly no coward, judging by her reaction just now.
He pressed his lips together. Deep furrows cut into the corners of his stern face.
Remembering that the person before him was the “gift of submission” the Dongzhou Xie clan had sent to His Majesty, he suppressed his temper and did not lash out.
After a moment, he spoke again. Looking directly at Xie Shuishan, he ordered the people behind him in a low voice without turning his head. “Help her inside. Have Caixia and Caiyue attend to her change of clothes.”
When the two men in crimson robes approached again, they were much more courteous. They gently supported Xie Shuishan on either side.
Xie Shuishan stepped forward with their assistance, climbed the stone stairs to the palace hall, and was taken to a side hall.
Outside, the cold pierced to the bone. Inside, it was as warm as spring.
The moment Xie Shuishan entered the side hall, the warmth jolted her. A sharp, needle-like pain stabbed through her ear canals. Her joints and the tips of her hands and feet, which had been frozen for a long time, were numb, unbearably itchy, and painful.
She inhaled the overly warm air, mingled with the unknown incense drifting through the hall, and her mind grew hazy for a moment.
Soon, several palace maids dressed in light blouses and skirts came toward her. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, their figures graceful, and their footsteps soundless.
They led Xie Shuishan into the inner chamber of the side hall and brought her beside a green-jade bathing pool wreathed in steam. Then they quickly began to undress her.
Xie Shuishan stood there with her arms slightly outstretched, allowing the palace maids to remove her cold, heavy garments.
She looked around the room. Everywhere she saw painted beams and carved rafters. Coiled around the vermilion pillars were dragons treading on clouds. The straight-latticed windows, covered with paper, admitted none of the dim light from outside. Numerous low tables had therefore been placed throughout the chamber, each holding a ceramic candlestick topped with a thick candle.
The light was soft and warm, and the incense drifted faintly through the air.
Xie Shuishan soon withdrew her gaze and glanced at the screen where her blue cotton robe had been draped.
The screen was carved from a single piece of golden-thread nanmu, depicting the scenery of the four seasons. Its relief work was exquisite beyond compare, a masterpiece of craftsmanship.
Xie Shuishan entered the water and leaned back against the side of the bathing pool, allowing the palace maids to scrub her body. They used ladles to pour fragrant water over her, while she closed her eyes and felt her numb, aching limbs rapidly warming again.
At the same time, she recalled the plot of this world as explained by the system.
Her transmigration had not brought her to an ordinary ancient world. She had entered the fictional world of a novel.
The original plot was simple enough.
The emperor of the current dynasty, Zhu Huan, was a remorseless tyrant and the villain of the story. He ruled through brutality, imposed cruel punishments, abandoned the virtues of a sovereign, and lost the hearts of his people.
The male protagonist, Zhu Xiao, was the posthumous son of the late emperor. After being found by the empress dowager and other aristocratic factions, he joined forces with the assassin organization led by the female protagonist, Ling Bixiao, whose members fought on behalf of the people. Together, they overthrew Zhu Huan.
Zhu Xiao ascended the throne and then turned against the empress dowager. Along the way, he dealt with the aristocratic clans and successfully centralized power. During this process, Ling Bixiao, the head of the assassin organization, eliminated Zhu Xiao’s enemies and executed corrupt officials. In the end, the emperor and empress became renowned for their devotion, and their achievements were recorded in the annals of history.
The system called this a “power couple.”
But because the tyrant Zhu Huan was ruthless in both method and action, and far stronger than either the male or female protagonist, he often killed them before they had grown strong enough to spread their wings.
Thus, the world restarted again and again.
By the time Xie Shuishan transmigrated, it was the twenty-sixth restart—the final restart, according to the system.
If she wanted to survive in this world, the system had offered her several possible paths.
These included, but were not limited to, warming Zhu Huan’s heart, changing him through compassion, and redeeming him. Of course, judging by how frequently the transmigrators had been killed by Zhu Huan during the previous twenty-five resets, a gentle approach was clearly unworkable.
Zhu Huan was utterly inhuman, suspicious, cruel, and merciless. His moods were unpredictable, and he was extraordinarily difficult to approach.
Therefore, the system most strongly recommended that she cooperate with the male and female protagonists and look for an opportunity to kill Zhu Huan.
Because Xie Shuishan had seemed so unwilling to get involved, the system had also told her that, if she truly did not want to interfere with the plot, she could try to fake her death and escape, then travel the world.
Unfortunately, the path of wandering the world would not keep her alive for long. If Zhu Huan secured his position on the throne, then within a few years he would not only kill the male and female protagonists, but also slaughter the court officials and exterminate the aristocratic clans spread throughout the empire. The land would run red with blood, the world would descend into chaos, and the world itself would naturally collapse.
So, if she wanted to live, she had to find a way to stop Zhu Huan from destroying the world.
At the time, Xie Shuishan had found the whole thing so ridiculous that she had laughed outright and refused.
But now, she had come anyway.
Since she was already here, there was no point dwelling on it.
No matter which path she chose, she first had to see how many arms and legs the villain Zhu Huan in this novel actually possessed—how else could she figure out how he had managed to destroy the world twenty-five times in a row?
After bathing, Xie Shuishan changed into a brand-new black outfit. The palace maids then led her to meet the great villain, Zhu Huan.
She waited in the outer chamber of the main hall. The doors were tightly shut, and a palace maid went inside to announce her arrival.
Beyond layer upon layer of curtains, someone lay on a bed, surrounded by attendants who were arranging his clothing.
At the head of the bed stood an iron brace designed to support the body in a seated position.
A person reduced to skin and bones was supported by several attendants as they lifted him into the brace. Only then did the attendants retreat one after another, kneeling in two rows beside the bed, ready to respond at any moment.
Several layers of curtains were lifted, yet gauze curtains still hung down. Through the soft light, one could see only the figure of a person sitting quietly and upright.
The Chief Eunuch stood not far from the bed, his horsetail whisk draped over one arm. Bowing, he said, “Your Majesty, the ‘grand gift’ sent by the Xie clan has been prepared.”
The figure behind the gauze curtain did not move in the slightest. After a long while, a graceful, languid voice finally drifted out.
“What was her reaction just now?”
