The scent of the wind has changed.
Anastasia put down the Northern Geography journal she had been reading for several days and looked through the carriage window at the horizon, which was gradually opening up.
The sky of Mondstadt is different from that of Snezhnaya.
It has less of the biting leaden gray and more of a flowing blue.
The women and children of the carriage were settled elsewhere; now, only the White Tsar and the Grand Duchess enjoyed this space.
Just then, a gentle breeze slipped into the carriage.
The wind carried the faint fragrance of Cecilias, the moisture of grass and dew, and the sound of harp strings.
“Oh my, I’ve been waiting for you for a long time—”
A clear, resonant voice arrived with the wind, as if whispering right by their ears.
“—Shall I give you a speed boost?”
The moment the words fell, the harp music suddenly brightened.
Anastasia felt the entire carriage—no, the entire procession—being pushed and accelerated by a force.
The jolts of the wheels grinding over the gravel road became gentle, the beasts of burden pulling the carriage quickened their pace, and even the scenery outside the window flowed by more rapidly.
This is the power of the Archon of Wind.
She turned to look at the other side of the carriage.
Morgan was leaning against the cushion, one hand supporting his head, the other holding a book.
His ice-blue eyes were focused on the pages, his slender fingers occasionally turning a page.
His posture was composed, his movements languid.
It was as if that divine transmission crossing the national border was nothing more than a passing sparrow chirping.
“Pay it no mind.” Morgan didn’t even look up.
“Barbatos is just impatient.”
Anastasia withdrew her gaze.
She lowered her eyes—what was so good about this book, anyway?
She had recently discovered that His Majesty’s taste in literature had become quite unpredictable.
The fae knew of his titles regarding literature and art, so they would constantly find ways to perform music for him at banquets.
His room was filled with portraits, and Kitezh was the culmination of the fae’s aesthetics.
In the past, the hymns offered by the fae praised his glorious military achievements and benevolence as radiant as the sun.
Those poems were ornate and rhymed perfectly, comparing Morgan to the unsetting sun of the North and the eternal blue fire on the frozen earth.
At first, Morgan thought it was fine, but as the fae continued to blow things out of proportion, and the subject of every praise remained himself, it gradually became tiresome.
He had to tell others to write about different topics, saying there were already enough works praising Morgan’s achievements, and only then did the fae quiet down.
If the nobles presented them personally, Morgan would politely flip through them, occasionally nodding and saying, “You have put in the effort.”
Nowadays, he didn’t even bother to unseal those piled-up eulogies.
When the guards presented them, he would just glance at the cover and say, “Archive it.”
Some poems never saw the light of day, and those unlucky ones were left on the shelf to gather dust.
Anastasia herself had read those books from the sea of stars on the Astral Express.
Compared to those otherworldly texts, the ornate rhetoric the fae took pride in was indeed…
less interesting.
In those stories from the sea of stars, there were stubborn travelers who chased a comet for centuries.
There were retired captains who ran bars on the edge of black holes, reviewing their legendary lives in flashbacks.
There were those who returned from the dead, just to hunt down enemies and uphold justice.
Absurd and bizarre, yet they left one stunned for a long time after reading.
Whereas the fae’s hymns—reading ten was no different from reading one.
She couldn’t help but ask again: “What are you reading?”
Morgan raised his eyes.
A hint of cunning flashed in his ice-blue eyes as he held up the cover of the book.
“The Overbearing Tsarina Falls in Love with the Dashing Duke · Part 2.”
Anastasia: “…”
Morgan passed the first part of the book to Anastasia.
[The beautiful Her Majesty Morgan was daydreaming at the morning court again.
She propped her chin in her hand, her ice-blue eyes drifting past the rambling Minister of Finance and landing on that handsome Duke.
Grand Duchess Anastasia was whispering to a colleague, her profile as cold as a glacier in the North.
“Why won’t he look at me?” Her Majesty Morgan thought.
“Is the territory I’ve conquered not vast enough?”]
Anastasia was expressionless.
She flipped a few more pages.
[“Your Grace.” The Tsarina blocked the end of the corridor, looking up directly into those cold eyes.
“I know you have someone else in your heart.
But I possess the wealth of the entire North and a thousand years of invincible military might—would you truly not consider it?”
Grand Duchess Anastasia lowered her eyes, her tone as calm as a frozen lake: “Your Majesty, you possess everything in the world, except the ability to command the human heart.”]
Anastasia closed the book.
She took a deep breath.
She put it back beside Morgan.
So, it was just some trashy CEO novel with no substance.
She knew that some fae who didn’t know the truth were making up stories about her and His Majesty’s relationship, but why did this book have to gender-bend both of them and get them involved in a melodramatic love triangle?
“…So this is what you’ve been reading all these days?”
“It’s quite interesting, isn’t it?” Morgan turned the page, his tone sincere and frank.
He tapped his fingertip on the page:
“Compared to those hymns praising my wisdom and might, this kind of work that deconstructs imperial and divine power is much rarer.”
“Even transcendent beings can be confused by love and can be rejected.
To the author, this means,” he paused, his voice slowing down.
“‘His Majesty might be the same as everyone else.'”
He raised his eyes.
“This proves that in the eyes of at least one fae, I am not an absolute authority.
I am very happy that someone thinks this way.”
Anastasia was silent for a moment.
“…But it gender-bent you in this.”
“Artistic license.”
“And it gender-bent me, turning me into your love interest.”
“Oh, that,” Morgan waved his hand, his tone light, “Bold artistic imagination.”
Anastasia looked at him expressionlessly.
Morgan coughed lightly and put the book back on his lap.
The movement was casual, yet it carried the preparatory posture she was familiar with before every deep conversation.
“Anastasia.”
His voice relaxed, but it was a bit more serious than before.
“The Grand Duchesses who follow me hope that I will lead Snezhnaya forever.
They tie the destiny of the nation to me and entrust the future to my every decision.”
He paused.
“But pinning the rise and fall of a nation on a single individual is inherently dangerous.”
Anastasia looked at him, waiting for his next sentence.
Morgan’s gaze fell on the book spine, yet it seemed to fall somewhere much further away.
“Archons have a day of erosion.
I, too, will eventually have to leave.
By then, those who see me as their only way out will be like headless flies, unable to find their direction.”
“I hope the fae can grow.
Can master their own destiny.
He raised his eyes, his ice-blue eyes reflecting the daylight outside the window.
“Otherwise, how am I any different from those Hyperboreans?
Just changing a name and continuing to be a slave owner for the fae.”
Anastasia did not answer immediately.
She lowered her eyes, looking at the intricate silver thread patterns on her cuffs—the knitting craftsmanship that only the Court of the Pale Star could enjoy.
The intertwined ice crystals and stars, embroidered with secret silver thread, each stitch condensed the painstaking efforts of fae artisans for dozens of days.
She had once thought this was an honor.
At this moment, she suddenly felt that it was just another kind of thread binding her.
—Was she His Majesty’s successor, or His Majesty’s most exquisite “work”?
Morgan’s voice continued.
“In the second part of this ‘Overbearing Tsarina,’ the Grand Duchess rejects the Empress’s advances to pursue her own true love.
A subordinate rejecting a superior—this is a rare ending in current fae literature.
Especially since the one being rejected is the Emperor who rules over all fae, the master in their hearts.”
His mouth curled slightly, and that smile carried a hint of ambiguous self-deprecation.
“You know, in the eulogies presented to the court, there are quite a few fae who hope I will wield a whip and fiercely—well, ‘whip’ them.”
Anastasia’s brows twitched.
“Not all fae have been persecuted by the Golden Kingdom,” Morgan said calmly.
“Some, due to their outstanding appearance, have received preferential treatment.
To them, from the Golden Kingdom to Snezhnaya, it’s just changing a master who determines their fate.
This’servitude’ has yet to be liberated.”
The carriage was quiet for a moment, with only the dull sound of wheels grinding over the frozen earth.
Anastasia asked softly: “What do you…?”
Morgan did not answer; he simply opened the book again.
When he transmigrated, the game had only just reached Natlan, and the descriptions of Snezhnaya were only about the Fatui; things native to Snezhnaya were revealed very stingily.
After arriving in Teyvat, he had scrambled his way up bit by bit.
He didn’t know if he had changed the game’s predetermined fate or if he had been spinning in circles under the fate set by the Heavenly Principles all along.
Transmigrating so early, with over a thousand years left before the game’s timeline, he was completely in the dark.
What should he do?
Morgan followed the will of the Trailblazer and practiced the belief of [Trailblaze].
In the end, as he walked, he found that unknowingly, he had been draped in a yellow robe by the fae and participated in the fate of Teyvat.
It was only because of an Archangel and a Human Emperor who sought [Tuning] methods from him that he discovered he had transmigrated into allogene and had become the founder of Snezhnaya.
Providence plays tricks on people.
Given Snezhnaya’s current population composition and the scarcity of resources, a feudal monarchy was the most appropriate.
But Morgan hoped Snezhnaya could take a different path.
After all, he came from the third dimension and had studied abroad in a country that was the prototype for Snezhnaya.
During the most brilliant period of the Great Russian Empire, when it was the most avant-garde and forward-thinking, he sincerely hoped he could create that era.
But with the planning of the Heavenly Principles, and the existence of Archons and dragons—super-spec existence—that kind of concept was very difficult to realize nowadays.
But this was his path, and Anastasia had her own path to walk.
Anastasia looked at his lowered brows and eyes.
—What he was thinking about was never just the book itself.
Those texts she treated as entertainment were, in his eyes, slices of the fae society’s ideological trends.
Anastasia didn’t think as deeply as Morgan; she really thought His Majesty had just suddenly started liking this kind of popular novel.
For those words, it was like doing reading comprehension in Chinese class.
The veteran Morgan could already feel the values and thoughts conveyed by the author from the article.
While Anastasia was still a student taking the test, without seeing the textbook or the teacher’s guidance, she only saw the superficial, frivolous story.
—No wonder His Majesty always said she still needed more experience.