Every pair of eyes in the courtyard was fixed on that half-open, carved wooden door. The air seemed to have solidified, and even the autumn breeze had stalled in mid-air.
In everyone’s imagination, the new Princess—who was surely facing her final moments—must have gone back inside to retrieve a weapon for her last stand. Perhaps a pair of embroidery scissors to defend herself. Perhaps a strip of white silk to hang herself. Or maybe she had simply been scared out of her wits and was planning to crawl under the bed, determined never to come out again.
The servants held their breath. Several of the sturdy maids even tightened their grip on the hemp ropes, ready to rush in and drag her out. Steward Li knelt on the ground, a malicious, venomous sneer curling his lips, waiting to witness Shen Yu’s final, pathetic death throes.
Then, amidst this suffocating, deathly silence, that petite figure finally appeared once more.
Shen Yu shuffled slowly over the threshold, her hands behind her back as if she were indeed brandishing some heavy-duty weapon. She walked one step, then two, strolling to the very edge of the stone steps. Looking down from above, she surveyed the crowd in the courtyard, each person wearing a different mask of fear, shock, or confusion.
Then, under the gaze of dozens of eyes, Shen Yu brought her hands from behind her back with slow, deliberate movements.
There was no pair of scissors, no white silk, no hidden weapon. In her hand, she clutched an incredibly ragged, small wooden stool with legs of uneven length. She had simply grabbed it from under a vanity in the corner of the room.
Clack.
With a crisp sound, Shen Yu set the rickety little stool firmly on the bluestone steps. She gathered her cumbersome skirts, sat down in a bold, carefree manner, and settled in.
But she wasn’t done.
Under the bewildered, ghost-like stares of the entire courtyard, Shen Yu reached into her oversized sleeve pocket. After a moment of rustling, she pulled out a large handful of plump, glistening, caramel-coated sunflower seeds.
Crunch.
The sound of her cracking the seeds was extraordinarily distinct in the deathly quiet courtyard. Shen Yu expertly rolled the kernel into her mouth, even taking the time to spit the shell over the edge of the steps with refined precision. A breeze blew by, and the sweet, nutty aroma of the caramel seeds instantly dispelled the pungent stench of the Croton medicine lingering below.
This fluid, natural sequence of actions left everyone in the courtyard completely dumbfounded. This was the residence of the “Living Yama King”! This was a killing ground where one could lose their head at any moment! In the face of the Prince’s fury and the Steward’s harassment, this “foolish” substitute bride was not only unafraid and unwilling to beg—she had moved a stool and started eating snacks?
The tone of the scene had shifted so abruptly that it felt like watching a comedy play!
Steward Li, still kneeling, felt his sneer freeze and then shatter into pieces. He glared with his cloudy, aged eyes, staring in disbelief at the girl lounging before him. A sense of humiliation—of being completely ignored and toyed with like a court jester—rushed straight to his brain. He was the Chief Steward of the Ninth Prince’s mansion; even third-rank court officials treated him with respect, hoping to slip him a bribe. Today, he was being used as entertainment by a cast-off pawn in front of all the servants!
“You… you…”
Steward Li was shaking with rage; his finger pointed at Shen Yu, twitching uncontrollably as if he were having a seizure. He scrambled up from the ground, not even bothering to dust off his knees, and began to spit with fury.
“Insolent! This is insolence to the extreme!”
“How dare you act like this in front of the Prince! Do you have any respect for the law or the rules of this house?”
“Someone! Seize this manic, wretched woman! Use the house discipline rods at once!”
Steward Li roared hysterically, his wrinkles distorting into a grotesque mask of rage. However, facing his monstrous display, Shen Yu, lounging on the steps, merely lifted her eyelids lazily. She didn’t pay any heed to Li’s shouting; in fact, she began cracking the seeds even faster.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
The crisp sounds were like loud, rhythmic slaps across Steward Li’s face.
Just as Li prepared to rush up the steps himself to grab her, Chu Xiao, who had been sitting in his wheelchair at the corner of the corridor observing the scene coldly, felt a flicker of movement in his eyes. His deep, abyss-like dark pupils were locked onto the petite figure sitting on the little stool.
In truth, when Shen Yu had turned back into the room, he had felt a spark of curiosity. He wanted to see what kind of “trump card” this woman full of secrets would pull out when faced with a dead end.
And she had brought out a stool.
A secret twitch crossed Chu Xiao’s mouth; he barely managed to maintain his cold, Yama-King persona. But he quickly centered his entire attention on her. He knew the main event was about to begin.
Sure enough, the moment Steward Li flew into a rage, the cheerful, bouncing girl’s voice rang out right on time inside Chu Xiao’s mind. This time, the voice was filled with irrepressible excitement and a thick, rich scent of gossip.
[Tsk, tsk, this old man has quite a talent for drama! He’s screaming worse than a wild dog with its tail stepped on.]
Shen Yu was frantically mocking him in her heart while simultaneously calling for her “cheat” in her mind.
[System! System! Hurry, look it up! Tear off the mask of this old man for me!] [I want to see, since he’s just a servant, whose power he’s relying on to be this arrogant under the nose of the Living Yama King!]
Hearing this inner thought, Chu Xiao’s gaze darkened. Although this woman appeared to be acting recklessly, her mind was exceptionally clear. She had seen through the deeper background of Li Quan’s arrogance at a single glance. Chu Xiao gripped the armrests of his wheelchair slightly. He, too, wanted to know who this old fox—who hid so deeply in the mansion that even he hadn’t found a flaw until now—actually belonged to.
After a brief delay, the ghost-blue translucent panel in Shen Yu’s mind began to refresh its data wildly. Then, the system’s mechanical but strangely excited “loudspeaker” effect exploded simultaneously in both Shen Yu’s and Chu Xiao’s minds.
[Ding! Data scan complete!] [Host, please pay attention! A massive piece of gossip has arrived! I guarantee it’ll be juicy enough to make your mouth water!]
Shen Yu was so excited she nearly swallowed a seed shell whole.
[Speak, speak! Don’t keep me hanging!]
The system cleared its throat and began to broadcast the scoop in a theatrical, news-anchor voice.
[Here’s the tea! This Steward Li, on the surface, is a diligent servant of the Ninth Prince’s mansion, a veteran of three reigns who served the late Emperor. In reality, he is no loyal servant! His black heart has long since shifted to the other side!] [This old man is actually a high-level mole planted in the Ninth Prince’s mansion ten years ago by the current Crown Prince!]
As these words fell, Chu Xiao, sitting in his wheelchair, felt his pupils shrink violently. A terrifying, almost tangible killing intent erupted from his upright frame.
The Crown Prince! It was the Crown Prince!
The Great Chu court was a tempest of intrigue; he and the Crown Prince, who sat high and mighty in the Eastern Palace, had long been mortal enemies. He had originally thought his mansion was as solid as iron, with not even a fly able to slip in. He had never expected that the hardest thing to guard against was the traitor within. This steward, who held the power of the inner mansion and enjoyed his complete trust, was actually a man of the Eastern Palace! No wonder the secret movements of his household had always inexplicably found their way into the palace.
Chu Xiao’s gaze turned into a sheet of eternal ice; his frigid killing intent locked onto the Steward Li who was still shrieking below the steps. But Shen Yu’s inner thoughts and the system’s revelations were not over yet.
[Holy crap! He’s a man of the Crown Prince? This old guy plays a big game!]
Shen Yu screamed in her heart, then urged the system on with even more excitement.
[What else? What else? Being a mole isn’t exciting enough! He must have done other evil deeds, right?]
The system immediately dropped an even more devastating hammer.
[Of course! Not only is this old man a mole, but he’s also a degenerate gambler with an addiction the size of the heavens!] [Just last month, he took advantage of the mansion’s inventory audit and personnel changes to secretly manipulate the accounts. He was so bold that he stole three hundred taels of pure silver directly from the Prince’s private treasury!]
Three hundred taels of silver! To an average citizen, this was a fortune one could never earn in a lifetime. To the Ninth Prince’s mansion, while not enough to break his foundation, this kind of embezzlement and theft was equivalent to trampling wildly on the head of the Living Yama King!
Chu Xiao’s low-pressure aura dropped another degree. The air around him seemed to freeze into frost, and even Jifeng, who was pushing his wheelchair, couldn’t help but shiver. What is wrong with the master? Why has he suddenly erupted with such terrifying killing intent?
The system continued its lethal assault.
[The funniest part is, this old man stole the three hundred taels hoping to win back his fortune at the ‘Changle Workshop,’ the biggest gambling den west of the city. As it turns out, he’s terrible at gambling but addicted, and his luck was rotten to the core! In one night, not only did he not win, he lost the principal and the interest, down to the last copper! He even nearly pawned off the fox-fur undergarments he wears to keep up appearances! Hahahaha!]
Shen Yu was rolling on the floor in her heart, though her face remained one of “innocent seed-cracking.” Hearing this, Chu Xiao’s eyes turned into a cold sentence of execution. A man who betrayed his master, embezzled public funds, and was a degenerate gambler—and yet dared to use the mansion’s rules to throw his weight around here. He is truly tired of living.
Chu Xiao said nothing, simply lifting his cold, piercing eyes. As if looking at a corpse, he fixed his gaze on Steward Li. That tidal wave of oppression and killing intent poured out without restraint.
Steward Li, who had been shouting and commanding the maids to move in, suddenly felt a bone-chilling cold rise up his back, as if he were being watched by a bloodthirsty predator. He subconsciously turned his head and locked eyes with Chu Xiao’s killing-intent-filled gaze. Steward Li’s entire body stiffened, his heart constricting sharply.
However, his brain, blinded by arrogance, made a fatal misjudgment in that instant. He assumed the Prince had finally been enraged by Shen Yu’s arrogant, stool-sitting, seed-cracking behavior. That terrifying killing intent must be aimed at the foolish substitute bride who didn’t know whether she was living or dying!
Thinking this, the fear in Li’s heart vanished instantly, replaced by undisguised ecstasy. He could practically see the scene of Shen Yu’s blood staining the floor and himself returning to the Crown Prince to claim his reward. Steward Li suppressed his triumph and replaced it with a look of heart-broken, loyal-servant grief, smiling even more smugly and maliciously.
“Your Highness, look! This wretch is still so arrogant even at death’s door! Your Highness, hurry and order her execution!”
Just as he thought victory was in his grasp and was frantically courting his own death, Shen Yu’s crisp inner monologue—tinged with a playful “watching the show” tone—echoed leisurely once again in Chu Xiao’s mind.
[This old man’s smile is truly disgusting. If he knew I’d stripped him down to his base secrets, would he still be able to smile?] [System, keep spilling the tea! The best part is, he hid the remaining stolen money and the secret letters of communication from the Crown Prince in…]