As the final stroke of blood-red characters pierced her skin, the searing pain brought Wen Yan’s mind to an unprecedented clarity.
These past few days of clashing head-on with the “Plot Correction Force” had come at a heavy price, but the gains were equally immense.
She had traded a body full of injuries for three golden rules: it had a range, a priority hierarchy, and it could not tamper with local data.
This thing was like an administrator with the highest privileges—able to freely delete or modify cloud code on the server, yet powerless against the private hard drive in a user’s local computer.
With that in mind, her strategy shifted.
She needed to download the most crucial evidence of guilt from the “cloud” and store it in an absolutely secure “local hard drive.”
This “hard drive” absolutely could not be herself.
As the “female lead,” she was the eye of the storm. Any key item bound to her would be the system’s first target for deletion.
She needed an “offline backup point.”
A “background character” who existed outside the main plot, so transparent that even the system couldn’t be bothered to scan them.
In an instant, the image of the little maid trembling like a quail in the garden flashed through Wen Yan’s mind.
Chun’er.
In the vision of the “Truth-Seeking Eye,” that girl was as clean as a blank sheet of paper, without a single trace of the golden light that marked “important plot anchors.”
A pure, uncontaminated, blank-slate NPC.
You’re the one.
But that wasn’t enough.
To turn a complete stranger, a marginal NPC, into a die-hard loyalist, mere kindness wouldn’t suffice.
In this devouring, deep mansion, there was only one kind of bond that was truly unbreakable—the debt of a life saved.
She needed an opportunity to plunge Chun’er into desperate straits, only to swoop in like a divine savior and pull her out.
Wen Yan began to “convalesce.”
She stayed indoors all day, but her gaze was like a net, patiently waiting for the bait to take.
Three days later, the opportunity arrived.
In the afternoon, a burst of commotion suddenly erupted outside the courtyard. Steward Wang Fu’s raspy, duck-like voice pierced through with remarkable force: “Search everywhere! That wretched girl who just arrived has sticky fingers—she even dared to steal Madam’s gold hairpin!”
Inside the room, Wen Yan’s brow lifted slightly.
Wang Fu—an old acquaintance.
In the “Truth-Seeking Eye,” this fellow was connected to Qiu Chan by a thick, golden thread of causality—a classic “villainous tool.”
And that unlucky “wretched girl” was none other than Chun’er.
Wen Yan draped her outer garment over her shoulders and rose, leaning against the wall as she stepped out, a faint, imperceptible sneer curling at the corner of her lips.
In the center of the courtyard, Chun’er was pinned firmly to the muddy ground by two burly maids, her face pressed into the dirt, sobbing so hard she could barely catch her breath:
“I didn’t! I… it wasn’t me!”
Wang Fu stood with his hands behind his back, holding half of a broken gold hairpin, raising it high as if displaying some trophy of victory:
“The stolen goods were found under your bedding, and you still dare to deny it? Beat her!”
Wen Yan glanced at the hairpin.
In her vision, two restless golden points of light flickered on Wang Fu’s body. One of them extended a thread that firmly locked onto Chun’er on the ground.
Perfect. The Plot Correction Force had begun cleaning up “unexpected variables.”
“Stop.”
The voice was not loud, devoid of hysteria, yet carried a cold sharpness unique to those in authority.
The clamor in the courtyard instantly fell silent, as if paused.
Wang Fu turned and saw the “sickly” young mistress. A flicker of disdain passed through his eyes, but he still had to maintain appearances: “Young Mistress, such filthy matters are not worth soiling your eyes. This old servant is merely cleaning up the household for you.”
Wen Yan stepped into the center of the courtyard, her gaze as cold as tempered ice. Without so much as a glance at Chun’er lying on the ground, she fixed her eyes squarely on Wang Fu.
“My household?”
She let out a light laugh, but her tone was frigid enough to freeze the air.
“Since when does a mere steward presume to speak in the first person and define the threshold of the Wen family?”
This cutting remark froze Wang Fu’s smile on his face.
Only then did Wen Yan leisurely ask, “You claim she stole the gold hairpin. Where is the evidence?”
“This is the irrefutable proof!” Wang Fu brandished the broken half of the hairpin. “Found in her bedding—caught red-handed!”
Wen Yan did not take the hairpin, merely giving it a faint glance before smiling.
“This is your ‘irrefutable proof’? I see it as a joke riddled with holes.”
Wang Fu was taken aback. “What does the young mistress mean?”
“First inconsistency.”
Wen Yan raised a finger, her tone as calm as if she were reading a verdict.
“This hairpin bears traces of the rouge specially supplied by ‘Drunken Red Pavilion,’ a favorite of the madam. Chun’er works in the main kitchen tending the fires, her hands perpetually stained with soot and grease. She has never touched rouge in her life. Where did these marks come from?”
Wang Fu’s face paled slightly, and he argued stubbornly, “Perhaps… perhaps she stole and used the madam’s…”
“Second inconsistency.”
Wen Yan gave him no chance to catch his breath.
“Chun’er’s bedding is taken out to air every day. If she truly stole it, why hide it in the very bedding that is turned over daily? Was she afraid she wouldn’t get caught quickly enough?”
The surrounding servants began to whisper among themselves, their expressions shifting.
Indeed, that would be an incredibly foolish way to steal.
Beads of sweat formed on Wang Fu’s temples, his eyes darting nervously. “This… this wretched girl is cunning. Who knows what she was thinking! Or perhaps she hadn’t had time to move it yet…”
“Third inconsistency—the final blow.”
Wen Yan had no patience for further excuses. Her gaze sharpened abruptly, zeroing in on Wang Fu’s sleeve.
“You, roll up your right sleeve.”
Wang Fu’s pupils contracted violently, and he instinctively hid his hand behind his back. “Y-Young Mistress, what is this about? This old servant is filthy…”
“Restrain him.”
At Wen Yan’s command, the two matrons who had been holding Chun’er down were momentarily stunned, then quickly understood. They immediately turned their attention to Wang Fu, scrambling to seize him.
“How dare you! What are you doing! Young Mistress, you cannot…”
In the struggle, Wang Fu’s coarse cloth sleeve was forcibly rolled up to his elbow.
The midday sun beat down mercilessly, illuminating everything without reserve—
On the inner side of his dark gray sleeve, scattered like stars, were several faint but unmistakably glimmering specks of gold dust in the sunlight.
That was the debris from when the gold hairpin had been violently snapped in two.
The entire courtyard fell dead silent.
“Do I need to explain further?”
Wen Yan looked at Wang Fu, whose face had turned ashen, her voice clear and cold.
“The truth is simple: you stole the hairpin, and when you broke it, gold dust splattered onto your sleeve. Then, amidst the chaos, you slipped it into Chun’er’s bedding.”
She swept her gaze around the courtyard, delivering the final crushing blow.
“As for the other half of the hairpin… to complete the act, I imagine you hid it somewhere no one would ever think to look. For example—”
Her finger pointed toward the large water vat in the corner of the courtyard, usually kept for fire prevention.
“Flour jars and rice jars would be searched, but this vat of stagnant water, untouched year-round, is the perfect place to dispose of evidence.”
Wang Fu’s legs gave way beneath him, and he collapsed to the ground with a thud, as if all the bones had been pulled from his body.
No further words were needed. A sharp-eyed servant had already rolled up his trousers and jumped into the vat.
In less than a moment, the other half of the gold hairpin, coated in mud, was lifted up.
The logical loop was closed, the ironclad evidence undeniable.
Wen Yan couldn’t even be bothered to glance at Wang Fu again, simply instructing the steward beside her calmly:
“Handle it according to the household rules. If he deserves death, then kill him; if he deserves to be sold off, then sell him off. As for this one called Chun’er…”
She paused, pointing at the little maid on the ground who was already stunned.
“Since she’s been frightened, transfer her to my courtyard to calm her nerves. I happen to need someone to run errands.”
A certain-kill trap, dismantled by her with brute force in less than a quarter of an hour.
…
In the deep quiet of the night.
Chun’er knelt before Wen Yan, knocking her head three solid times against the floor, each thud resonating dully.
“Miss, your grace in giving me a second life—Chun’er would die ten thousand times without regret! From now on, this life of mine is yours!”
The little maid’s forehead was red and swollen, but her eyes shone with a startling brightness.
Wen Yan helped her up, handing her a bottle of golden wound ointment.
“What would I do with your life? Living well is stronger than anything.”
She took out a seemingly ordinary white silk handkerchief from her sewing basket and passed it to Chun’er.
Embroidered on it was half an orchid blossom, and within the veins of the petals, hidden in extremely fine threads, were the false account details of Jishi Tang and Qiu Chan’s contact signals.
This was nuclear-level evidence—enough to give Prince Jing’s household a serious headache.
“Keep this handkerchief close to your body. Don’t let it leave you, even when bathing or sleeping. Even if your parents ask, don’t show it to anyone.”
Wen Yan stared into her eyes, enunciating each word clearly, “Can you do it?”
Though Chun’er couldn’t understand the handkerchief’s secrets, she felt its weight.
Solemnly, she tucked the handkerchief into the innermost hidden pocket of her undergarment, patting her chest firmly.
“Miss, don’t worry! The handkerchief stays with me; if it’s lost, I’m lost!”
The next morning.
The first thing Wen Yan did upon waking was to have Chun’er produce that handkerchief, using the excuse of checking her injuries.
In the morning light, the handkerchief remained intact.
Those fine stitches were as clear as ever, with no trace of being “corrected” or “faded.”
Wen Yan rubbed the cool silk, finally revealing the first heartfelt smile since her rebirth.
In this world tightly monitored by the plot, she had finally found that absolute safe zone—
where she could exploit a bug.