His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird while his mind slammed into a wall of pure terror. Xie Yan held his chin firmly, maintaining that teasing, intoxicating smirk, but deep behind his dark eyes, the general mentally cursed his own slip of the tongue.
[WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!] Wen Yu’s internal voice shrieked so loudly inside Xie Yan’s head that the general almost winced from the sheer volume of the telepathic feedback. [Did he just say ’editor’?! How does a ancient fantasy warlord know the modern Chinese word for manuscript editor?! Is he transmigrated too?! Is he a fellow reader?! Or did I say that out loud while I was picking apart Tutor Lin’s thesis?! Think, Wen Yu, think! If he knows, my entire cover is blown!]
Xie Yan smoothly adjusted his posture, keeping his expression entirely unbothered as he stroked the side of Wen Yu’s jaw with his thumb. "An editor of academic texts, my sharp little consort," Xie Yan clarified in a low, purring tone, seamlessly weaving his defense before his spouse could spiral further. "You edited Master Lin’s entire life’s work in under ten minutes. What else would one call a person who ruthlessly trims the fluff out of a grand scholar’s treatise?"
Wen Yu let out a long, pathetic wheeze of relief, his shoulders visibly collapsing as the agonizing tension left his body.
[Oh, thank goodness!] Wen Yu sagged internally, his mental persona clutching its chest in utter relief. [It was just a contextual metaphor! For a second there, I thought the main male lead had unlocked modern publishing terminology! My soul almost left my body and filed for an early exit visa!]
"I... I see," Wen Yu squeaked out loud, offering a delicate, timid flutter of his eyelashes. "The General’s command of language is truly profound. This humble one was merely trying to defend your noble estate’s reputation."
"And you did so magnificently," Xie Yan replied, his thumb giving Wen Yu’s chin one last lingering caress before he finally released him. "Now, rest yourself. I have military reports to review in the western study. Do not push your strength too far today."
"Yes, General. I shall attend to minor household duties," Wen Yu bowed humbly, maintaining his sweet, submissive posture until Xie Yan’s tall frame disappeared around the corridor corner.
The instant the general was out of sight, Wen Yu dropped the fragile stance entirely, wiping a bead of cold sweat from his forehead.
"I need to clear my head," Wen Yu grumbled to himself, rolling his shoulders to work out the lingering stiffness from balancing three massive history volumes earlier. "If I stay in the main hall, the head housekeeper is going to try to feed me bird’s nest soup again."
Desperate to avoid the hovering estate staff and take a quiet stroll, Wen Yu wandered past the primary residential quarters and slipped into the older, southern wing of the sprawling estate. This section of the mansion was rarely frequented by the servants—a quiet, dusty labyrinth of heavy timber pillars, high arches, and quiet storage rooms that dated back to the first generation of General Xie’s military lineage.
The air here grew cooler, carrying the faint, dry scent of aged paper, pine sap, and old iron.
[Now this is more like it,] Wen Yu thought, running a finger along the carved wooden railing as he explored the dim hallway. [No snobbish tutors, no toxic nobles trying to poison my drinks, and zero risk of the General staring at me like I’m a five-course meal. It’s like finding an abandoned archival basement in a university library.]
At the very end of the long gallery, a set of heavy, double-leafed rosewood doors stood slightly ajar. Curiosity taking the lead, Wen Yu pushed the door open, the rusted hinges giving off a low, soft groan that echoed through the empty corridor.
Inside was a vast, forgotten archive room. Floor-to-ceiling bamboo shelves lined the walls, packed with thousands of bound parchment rolls, leather-bound ledgers, and dusty wooden map cases. Sunbeams filtered through high, paper-screened windows, illuminating billions of tiny dust motes floating in the quiet air.
"Whoa," Wen Yu murmured under his breath, stepping over a stack of old ledger boxes. "This place is a goldmine of world-building lore."
[If I were still at my desk in the publishing office, I’d give the author a ten-out-of-ten for background detailing,] Wen Yu praised mentally, scanning the labels on the nearest bamboo shelf. [Look at these historical tax records, territorial maps, border garrison logistics... Wait, what is this section?]
Tucked away in a dark, recessed alcove behind a massive tactical map frame, Wen Yu noticed a small, iron-bound wooden chest resting on a low stool. The lock had been unclasped, its heavy brass latch hanging loosely against the wood.
Driven by pure editorial instinct—the urge to rifle through documents he wasn’t supposed to see—Wen Yu knelt beside the chest and carefully pulled open the lid. Inside lay several thick, black-inked scrolls stamped with the red seal of the Northern Border Defense Garrison.
He picked up the topmost scroll, carefully unrolling the brittle parchment across his knees.
"Logistics and Supply Requisitions: Year Thirty-Four," Wen Yu read the title aloud in a quiet whisper.
As his eyes scanned the tightly written rows of brushwork, his modern analytical skills automatically kicked in. The scroll cataloged winter grain shipments, iron weapon dispatches, and medical supplies sent from the capital to Xie Yan’s front-line army during the border campaign three years ago.
[Hold on,] Wen Yu brow furrowed as he cross-referenced the numbers down the margin. [The central treasury logged three thousand crates of winter coats dispatched from the capital in November... but the garrison intake stamp only recorded twelve hundred received at the border fortress in December? Where did the other eighteen hundred crates go?]
He set the scroll down and quickly pulled out three more ledgers from the chest, spreading them out in a wide arc on the wooden floorboards. His slender fingers flicked through the pages with blistering speed.
"Weaponry alloys... missing thirty percent," Wen Yu muttered softly, his tired voice growing increasingly sharp and focused. "Horse feed allocations... slashed by half before the siege of Red Pass. Medical salve shipments... replaced with low-grade salt water batches."
[This isn’t just bureaucratic inefficiency,] Wen Yu’s mind screamed in horror, his editor brain instantly piecing together the terrifying narrative structure underlying the raw data. [This is a systematic, multi-year supply sabotage! Someone in the imperial capital was deliberately starving Xie Yan’s troops on the front lines! Every single major military crisis he faced was preceded by a massive, artificial supply deficit engineered right under his nose!]
He reached the bottom of the fourth scroll and froze.
Stamped right beneath a suspicious authorization seal for a diverted grain shipment was a familiar, intricate crest: a silver serpent surrounded by cross-hatched lines.
"Marquis Vane," Wen Yu gasped softly into the quiet room, his stomach dropping into a cold, heavy knot. "That petty villain from the banquet... his family has been siphoning military resources and orchestrating Xie Yan’s army failures for years. It wasn’t just political rivalry; it was high treason!"
[Oh, this is bad!] Wen Yu’s internal broadcast went into a panicked frenzy. [This is a classic late-stage webnovel conspiracy plot! Marquis Vane isn’t just an arrogant noble with a bad attitude; he’s part of a massive court syndicate! If Xie Yan doesn’t know about these altered supply receipts, his entire northern front is sitting on a active landmine!]
Wen Yu reached out to carefully roll the treasonous scroll back up so he could take it directly to the general’s study.
CREAK.
A sharp, distinct sound shattered the quiet silence of the archive room.
It came from directly behind him—the unmistakable groan of an old wooden floorboard bending under the weight of a heavy, deliberate footstep near the rosewood doors.
Wen Yu froze instantly, his hands remaining glued to the cold parchment on his knees. His pulse spiked violently, a cold sweat breaking out across the back of his neck as the quiet air in the room suddenly turned suffocatingly heavy.
[Someone is in here,] Wen Yu’s internal voice whimpered, his editor brain wildly calculating his survival odds. [Someone followed me into the abandoned wing! Did Marquis Vane have an insider watching these archives?! Or did one of the court spies realize I was poking around where I shouldn’t be?!]
He didn’t turn around immediately. Instead, he slowly shifted his eyes to the right, catching a faint shadow stretching across the dust-covered floorboards beside him—the long, looming outline of a tall figure standing silently in the doorway, holding something long and narrow in their hand.
"Searching through private military records is a dangerous habit for a consort, Wen Yu," a raspy, unfamiliar voice echoed quietly from the shadows of the unlit corridor.