Chapter 5 Second Wear

Wei Tingchun had imagined that this place must be dilapidated and drafty from all sides—how else could it be used to torment the pitiful Eleventh Prince?  

But when she actually arrived at Chan Wu Courtyard, she realized it wasn’t just dilapidated and drafty—it was the Cold Palace, long neglected, where people were sent specifically to suffer.  

Chan Wu Courtyard was especially harsh. This was where convict slaves were made to repent for their sins, and it offered less shelter than a decent stable.  

It was practically open to the elements!  

Wei Tingchun followed behind Cuiyun, walking while recalling the fragmented plot she had gathered about this world.  

In the story, the Eleventh Prince had been imprisoned here by the joint efforts of the Seventh Prince, Ninth Prince, Fifth Prince, and Tenth Prince.  

According to the plot, by the time the Eleventh Prince was discovered two days later, he was already starving and freezing, further tormented by the convict slaves in the Cold Palace, barely clinging to life.  

The cause was the Emperor praising the Eleventh Prince’s proposed flood prevention strategy for the Qiantang River during the spring flood season while evaluating his sons. This slight praise angered the other princes.  

Moreover, the Eleventh Prince’s birth mother was already dead, leaving him with no protection in the palace. Even the Emperor paid him little attention.  

Had the same strategy been proposed by the First Prince or Second Prince, the Emperor would have been overjoyed and lavished rewards. But coming from the Eleventh Prince, it only earned a few casual words of praise.  

Yet even those few words were enough to bring disaster upon the Eleventh Prince—motherless, neglected in the palace, with no relatives outside to rely on, and insignificant in court.  

According to the plot, Wei Tingchun was the leader of the convict slaves who tormented the Eleventh Prince in Chan Wu Courtyard, ensuring he suffered unbearably until a loyal eunuch risked his life to raise an alarm, finally alerting the Imperial Guards.  

By the time the prince was taken out of the Cold Palace, his condition was worse than those released from the Criminals Tribunal.  

He spent over half a year bedridden, teetering on the brink of death before finally recovering—though he was left with lasting ailments.  

How pitiful.  

Wei Tingchun sighed inwardly.  

Cuiyun, walking ahead of her, didn’t proceed directly into the open hall but stopped at the entrance, turning back to await Wei Tingchun’s instructions.  

Wei Tingchun kept her face cold, her round, plump features taut as she said to Cuiyun, “Go guard the outer courtyard gate.”  

Cuiyun’s eyes flickered uncertainly. The girl should have been lively and bright, but years of hardship in the Cold Palace had left her sallow, with only her large, watery eyes still holding a trace of spirit.  

She seemed to have something to say, but under Wei Tingchun’s murky, ruthless gaze, she didn’t dare speak.  

“Yes, Matron.”  

She had wanted to advise against going too far—no matter how insignificant the Eleventh Prince was, he was still a prince.  

If he were discovered and taken back, killing a few convict slaves from the Cold Palace would be as easy as turning a hand for him.  

As for the promises made by the princes’ envoys—that if they did their job well, they would be helped to find a way out—Cuiyun saw them as nothing but delusions.  

Those sent to the Cold Palace were all serious offenders. Take Cuiyun herself—she had once accidentally tripped, spilling a large bowl of scalding soup onto Noble Consort Gao’s leg.  

Not being beaten to death was already lenient. Noble Consort Gao held a status nearly equal to the Empress in the rear palace. As long as she remained in power, Cuiyun would spend the rest of her life in the Cold Palace.

Cuiyun believed that the old nanny had been bewitched by the followers of several princes. After all, she had previously served Consort Qing. Though the consort wasn’t favored, the Qing family had several Masters holding real power in the court during those earlier years.

Had Consort Qing not hanged herself, the nanny wouldn’t have fallen to such a state. Women in the palace belonged to the emperor, and a consort’s suicide was a grave crime that implicated her family.

With Consort Qing’s death, the Qing family’s Masters were either suppressed or exiled by the emperor. Even the Eleventh Prince was implicated—otherwise, how could he have been tied up like a lowly servant and brought here to suffer?

But Cuiyun dared not speak out, and the nanny wasn’t one to listen to advice.

Cuiyun obediently went to guard the outer courtyard gate, while Wei Tingchun, who only knew fragments of the plot and not the full story, stepped inside.

Ten years.

A decade had flown by. Wei Tingchun had spent her time in the system space eating, drinking, and “traveling,” living in utter bliss.

But only now did she realize how concretely those years had passed.

Because the little one she had pitied and fed a bowl of Ginseng Tea to ten years ago had grown up.

Even though he lay unconscious on the ground, curled on his side with bound limbs, his disheveled hair covering his face, and his body hunched against the bitter cold—this person before her now clearly had the stature of an ordinary grown man. Though thin, no one would mistake him for a child anymore.

Wei Tingchun stood at the doorway. The sunlight was weak today, the sky gray and gloomy.

Snow was likely on its way.

Peering at the boy through such dim light, she inexplicably felt a strange sense of trepidation, as if returning to a long-lost home.

She raised a hand and waved it vaguely, as though scattering her tangled thoughts.

Then, clearing her throat, she stepped closer.

According to the plot, every time she came here, it was to torment the Eleventh Prince.

Methods included but weren’t limited to dousing him with water, pinching him, kicking him, or even dragging him around.

After carefully studying the plot, Wei Tingchun also learned that her current body wasn’t system-generated but an existing character in this world.

She had once served Consort Qing—the Eleventh Prince’s birth mother, the woman known throughout the palace for despising her own son.

So tormenting the Eleventh Prince was practically second nature to her, a familiar routine.

To the prince, she was a childhood nightmare.

Wei Tingchun crouched beside him. Though she hadn’t personally done any of those things, she inexplicably felt a pang of guilt.

Oh, you poor thing.

She nudged the Eleventh Prince. He didn’t move, just like when he had knelt in the snow years ago—lifeless.

She nudged him again, then, finding her own crouched position uncomfortable, knelt on the ground and leaned forward to brush aside his tangled hair.

Dust and dried grass clung to his matted locks. As she pushed them aside, the Eleventh Prince’s tightly shut eyes and gaunt profile were revealed.

Wei Tingchun paused, a flicker of joy in her heart.

It felt like encountering a stray cat she’d once rescued years ago—now grown, now filled out.

Though still pitifully thin and dirty, his body wasn’t ice-cold. There was warmth.

Holding her breath, she crouched there, as if afraid of startling a wary kitten. A faint smile touched her lips as she gazed at the Eleventh Prince.

Wei Tingchun even automatically recalled the plot details she had read in her mind—the Eleventh Prince, Xue Ying, aged fifteen.

His name was Xue Ying.

The moment Wei Tingchun assigned this name to the face before her, her fingers trembled slightly, and she let go of the hair she had been holding back.

Kneeling in the desolate, cold, and ruined palace, her emotions surged, rising and falling repeatedly.

It just didn’t feel right.

She shouldn’t be like this.

She had always avoided getting involved with any characters in the small worlds. Over the years, every time she transmigrated, her completion rate and evaluation level were perfect precisely because she never lingered in these small worlds.

But ten years ago, she had accidentally “seen the pattern of a stray cat,” and now, a decade later, she had encountered that same kitten again. She had broken another rule she had set for herself—she shouldn’t have remembered the stray cat’s name.

Wei Tingchun frowned, yet the corners of her lips curled into a faint smile.

Part of her was happy the little one was still alive, while another part feared she was about to make the same mistake again.

Because right now, she had already realized a rather serious problem.

She simply couldn’t bring herself to splash cold water on him, kick him, or torment him as the plot demanded.

At this thought, Wei Tingchun braced her hands against the ground, preparing to stand up. She couldn’t dwell on this any longer.

But as she struggled to push herself up, her overly plump body—especially her stomach—hindered her agility.

Just as she placed her hands on her knees to straighten her back, she sensed movement beside her.

Wei Tingchun froze in place and saw him curl up slightly before slowly turning his head toward her…

His dark hair slipped to the side of his face with the motion, revealing his features fully.

He opened his eyes, turning them in Wei Tingchun’s direction, and then remained utterly still.

Startled by his sudden gaze, Wei Tingchun snapped out of her daze and quickly straightened up, finally getting a full look at him.

Arched brows, phoenix eyes, a straight and elegant nose, full lips, and sharp, handsome features—truly a rare and striking appearance. Only, he was deathly pale.

But then, those of royal blood were never unattractive.

The first thing Wei Tingchun noticed was the tiny mole between his brows—the same one she had been forced to remember because she had one just like it.

It sat just below the center of his forehead, above the bridge of his nose, vermilion red and smaller than a grain of rice.

Her breath hitched as their eyes met, her posture rigid, before her gaze slid downward to Xue Ying’s eyes.

What kind of eyes were they?

In all her years, Wei Tingchun had seen countless people, all kinds, but never a pair of eyes like Xue Ying’s.

The outer corners tilted slightly upward, his thin single eyelids covering his pupils like smooth, ink-washed mountain ridges in a single brushstroke. The inner corners tapered into delicate curves—a textbook example of phoenix eyes. Yet, there was no light in them.

Not even the dying people she had met, or those who had lost their loved ones and become numb with grief, had eyes this lifeless.

Had someone told her he was blind, Wei Tingchun would have believed it.

His gaze held no focus, nor was it dark and unfathomable. Under the current lighting, his irises carried a faint tea-like hue, utterly transparent yet hollow.

Wei Tingchun struggled to recall the child from ten years ago, his face blue with cold under the palace lanterns, but she could hardly connect that little face to the young man before her now.

Back then, even on the brink of death, his eyes had at least held a flicker of light, his pupils straining to see as he blinked up at her.

But now, though his eyes were clear, they seemed to be veiled by an inescapable shadow.

The two of them stood and lay in silence, staring at each other without a word for a long while.

However, only Wei Tingchun was overwhelmed with emotions, for she alone knew of their brief encounter in the past.

And to Xue Ying, who was she?

She had once been a lackey who helped his mother abuse him, and now she was a cruel servant aiding his brothers in tormenting him.

According to the plot, she had to act against him to avoid breaking character.

Wei Tingchun closed her eyes for a moment, stepped forward, and pressed her foot down on Xue Ying’s ankle.

Xue Ying showed no reaction. Wei Tingchun recited her lines: “You were born a scourge—hated by your own mother, despised by your father. It’s no wonder you live worse than a dog, even as a prince!”

“Do you still remember this old servant? I dare not forget for even a moment!” Wei Tingchun spoke vicious words while her heart was drenched in rain.

Poor child.

She increased the pressure on Xue Ying’s ankle and spat out her final line with feigned hatred: “If it weren’t for your damned mother hanging herself, how could I have been dragged down to this wretched place?”

“You’d better suffer it well!”

Wei Tingchun gave Xue Ying one last kick. He had remained unresponsive the entire time, but this time, the pain made him frown slightly.

Wei Tingchun couldn’t bear to look at his expression any longer and fled as if escaping.

As she ran, her heart felt like it was drowning in an ocean.

She didn’t want to do this, but altering the plot or breaking character could be fatal.

Wei Tingchun rushed back to her courtyard, shut the door behind her, and claimed she had a headache before lying down in bed, shutting herself away.

She lay there from dawn till dusk, then from dusk till midnight. After washing up, she lay down again, but by the time it was past one in the morning, she still hadn’t fallen asleep.

Buried under the covers, she gnawed at her nails until they were nearly gone.

This world’s difficulty level was too high.

Mainly because she couldn’t bring herself to hurt the “little kitten.”

Wei Tingchun decided that starting tomorrow, she’d let Cuiyun and the others handle it. She’d rush through the plot and then die her way back to the System Space!

But she didn’t make it till morning. Checking the system time, it was already 3:30 a.m., and her eyes were still wide open like lightbulbs.

She felt as if she were being roasted over flames, unable to rest peacefully.

Putting on her shoes, she walked to the window and saw that snow had begun falling at some point.

Thick, heavy snowflakes were tumbling down madly, blanketing the world in pure white.

Uncontrollably, Wei Tingchun thought of Xue Ying in the Chan Wu Courtyard—where there wasn’t even a roof. If the snow kept falling all night, wouldn’t he be buried alive?

Though she had witnessed many wonders in the Small Worlds—people surviving inexplicable injuries, even those that defied science, like pierced hearts—she couldn’t help but wonder: Could Xue Ying really survive this kind of ordeal?

The plot stated that he was eventually found and taken back, spending half a year bedridden before showing any signs of recovery.

Half a year—just a fleeting sentence in the plot. But how severe must his injuries have been to require six months of recuperation before he could even get up?

He was only fifteen…

Still just a child.

By the time Wei Tingchun snapped out of her thoughts, she had already dug out a tattered cotton cloak from somewhere and stepped into the blizzard.

The warning for breaking character was drowned out by the soft sound of falling snow, and Wei Tingchun didn’t even hear it.