An Author and Protagonist Got a Happy Ending [Transmigration] - Chapter 20

Even Pei Qiuyue was startled by Xiao Muyu’s reaction.

However, she simply assumed that Xiao Muyu had been scared out of her wits, which accounted for such abnormal behavior. Consequently, her gaze immediately shifted toward the Noble Consort, sizing her up with a look of caution.

The Princess, as if sensing nothing amiss, held Xiao Muyu in her arms, effectively blocking the possibility of another attack from the Consort.

The Noble Consort’s face was ghastly. She stood frozen, her hand still gripping the hilt of the dagger. If glares could manifest into physical blades, Xiao Muyu would have been skewered a hundred times over.

After a long stalemate, the Consort finally gritted her teeth and retracted her arm, throwing the knife forcefully to the ground. She knew she had lost.

The sharp clang of the metal hitting the floor snapped the little maid back to her senses. She hurriedly scrambled up and knelt toward the Princess, her body still trembling uncontrollably.

“How did the Princess find this place?” the Consort asked one word at a time, as if it took every ounce of her strength.

She had been so close—just a hair’s breadth away from killing that little vixen. The resentment in her voice was so palpable it made one’s skin crawl.

Pei Qiuyue frowned instinctively. This was her question as well, so she too looked toward the Princess.

When she first discovered the Saintess was missing, she had assumed it was the work of those troublemaking imperial concubines. While she hadn’t completely ruled out the Noble Consort, she was a much lower suspect relative to the others. From an efficiency standpoint, interrogating those concubines would have been the logical first move.

Yet, even before Pei Qiuyue could send word to the Princess, the latter had returned from outside the palace. After a chance encounter with Pei Qiuyue on the road, the Princess had headed straight for the Noble Consort’s palace.

Looking at the outcome, if the Princess hadn’t headed here without a moment’s hesitation, the Saintess might already be dead.

But therein lay the problem—how did the Princess know it was the Noble Consort pulling the strings?

“Have you… been suspecting me from the very start?”

The Princess remained silent. The Noble Consort gradually lost her strength, her voice trembling with fatigue. This was the only explanation.

“You actually suspected me for the sake of an outsider?” The Consort murmured with a bitter laugh, sliding down against the doorframe until she sat on the floor. “What is so good about her? She must have used some kind of sorcery…”

Unable to accept reality, the Consort continued to mutter incoherently, no longer listening to anyone else.

Pei Qiuyue looked at the Princess. She felt it wasn’t exactly as the Consort guessed. The Princess was supposed to be outside the palace; even if she suspected the Consort, how could she have rushed back at exactly the right moment? If she had an inside informant, they should have discovered the kidnapping much sooner.

The Princess looked down at Xiao Muyu, who was clinging to her. The girl had buried her face in the Princess’s chest, leaving only the back of her head visible, her body shaking slightly as if in terror.

The Princess idly stroked Xiao Muyu’s back. Deep down, she also held a trace of unexpressed confusion.

“The wind told me,” the Princess whispered.

Even she didn’t fully understand those words, yet it was the truth.

She had been outside, her head throbbing from the farce at the Shen Manor. When she turned to look out the window, the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon. The soft light was still piercing; she squinted and felt a gust of wind hit her face.

It felt like someone was whispering in her ear: “Do you want to see me?”

Without thinking, the Princess had subconsciously replied, “Yes.”

Then she had abandoned that boring farce. By the time she realized what she was doing, she was being pushed forward by the wind, which vaguely indicated the direction she needed to go. After meeting Pei Qiuyue on the road, she immediately understood what had happened and rushed over without hesitation.

Such a magical, dream-like turn of events was something the Princess wouldn’t have believed if she hadn’t experienced it herself. To say nothing of Pei Qiuyue, who now had a face full of bewilderment.

Fortunately, Pei Qiuyue remembered the task at hand. Looking down at the still-shaking Xiao Muyu, she suggested calling the guards to take the Saintess back first.

“…And we should have Doctor Shen take a look. I’ve already investigated the people in the courtyard; I have several detained in the back. Your Highness, what are your instructions regarding—”

Pei Qiuyue glanced at the Noble Consort, wanting to know how to handle the situation here.

“Lock the others up first.”

The Princess stood up. Xiao Muyu followed, hiding behind her back. The Princess didn’t seem to mind; she swept her gaze over the Noble Consort, truly appearing to ponder her fate.

“After all, it was Mother’s dying wish… Spare her life, and send her to the Cold Palace.”

Whether it was a specific word that stung the Consort, she suddenly snapped her head up, staring at the Princess with wide eyes. Her fingers gripped the doorframe so hard her nails nearly sank into the wood, the veins on the back of her hand bulging as if she might crush the frame with her bare hands.

“You cannot marry her!” the Consort said, each word deliberate, as if she had suddenly found her resolve. “How can you face your mother if you marry her?! The Empress went through so much pain to give birth to you and raise you; it wasn’t so you could dally with a vixen!”

The Princess and Pei Qiuyue both stopped and turned their gaze on her.

The Consort’s lips curled into a smile, as if she had finally caught them in a trap. Pei Qiuyue’s brow furrowed in irritation. Using the late Empress to pressure the Princess was truly going too far. Anyone who knew the Princess even slightly knew that her late mother was a knot in her heart that couldn’t be untied; mentioning her now was like driving a knife into her chest.

The Princess’s gaze grew colder and colder, as if covered in frost. Yet she showed no sign of anger—at least, none that she allowed to surface.

“I am not Mother. I am not the ‘Late Empress’ you see in your eyes.”

The Princess’s lips curved into a mocking smile. “And you needn’t use the ‘vixen’ as an excuse. No matter who I marry, or who I take as a wife, your reaction would be the same.”

“You simply cannot stand me having someone I care about, someone I like. You feel that something that should only belong to you has been snatched away. You’re just like an immature child. I truly don’t know how Mother endured you for all those years.”

The Noble Consort’s face grew pale. She shook her head and hissed in anger, “That’s not true—how can you say that! Shut up!”

The Princess tilted her chin, looking down at her coldly. “Oh, I forgot. You don’t dare.”

“You should be grateful Mother was soft-hearted and was still thinking of you on her deathbed, doing everything she could to protect you—otherwise, based on those thoughts you had regarding Qiuyue, it would have been enough to kill you a hundred times over.”

Selfish, narrow-minded, and a bully to the weak. This was her true nature. Did she really kill the Saintess out of some desperate resolve? No, she only did it because the Saintess was of low status and had no one to back her up. She was also certain the Princess wouldn’t truly kill her, protected as she was by the late Empress’s dying wish; even if the Princess were angry, the Old Emperor would protect her.

Furthermore, the Old Emperor was equally dissatisfied with the Saintess.

The Consort also disliked Pei Qiuyue, because Pei Qiuyue had a good relationship with the Princess. When they were young, the Consort had harbored petty schemes, but she never dared to act on them. Pei Qiuyue was the second miss of the General’s Manor and the Empress’s niece; compared to the Consort, who was once a mere maidservant, she was far more precious, so the Consort naturally didn’t dare touch her. But those whose status was inferior to Pei Qiuyue’s? Some had already disappeared without a trace.

At first, the Princess didn’t understand why everyone in the palace feared her. After her mother died, only her father and the Noble Consort would smile at her and protect her. But as she grew older, she began to realize that what was hidden behind a smiling face wasn’t always a sincere heart; it could also be a blade coated in honey.

Her father sometimes saw his late wife’s shadow in her, but for her, his “daughter,” there was still love. But the other person saw only the image of someone else through her.

The Princess had feelings for her mother and was willing to honor her dying wish by not holding a grudge against the Consort; after all, in the end, the Consort was on her side. Thus, she had simply grown distant, and others assumed she was just growing up. For a naturally cold person to become more aloof surprised no one.

—That is, as long as the Noble Consort didn’t use the banner of “it’s for your own good” to shamelessly harm someone she truly cared about.

“Who do you think I am? A toy in your hand?” The Princess scoffed, her coldness and disgust visible for the first time as she directed them at the Consort. “The very land you stand upon will belong to me. Where do you get the confidence to think you can step over my head?”

The Noble Consort felt as if she had been slapped hard across the face. Since following the late Empress into the palace, almost no one had dared to disrespect her. The Princess was the only one who could, and would, tear her dignity away and trample it on the ground.

The Consort slumped back to the floor in a pathetic state. As she looked up, she caught a glimpse of Xiao Muyu standing behind the Princess, smiling at her.

Not just smiling, but clapping.

The clap-clap of her hands was exceptionally loud in the secluded, deserted courtyard. Xiao Muyu’s eyes were bright as she looked at the Princess, appearing as though she worshipped her. While clapping, she praised her extravagantly: “Your Highness is so mighty and domineering!”

She looked like a playful, ignorant child. Her features were soft, looking remarkably well-behaved and innocent.

Yet the Noble Consort suddenly felt a chill down her spine, a sense of dread creeping over her. The person before her was worlds away from the girl who had knelt silently before her to receive punishment not long ago. Even the person she had seen just recently seemed different.

Are they truly the same person? If so, why the sudden change? Was it all an act? What was her goal? If not, how did she replace the original person so undetectably?

“You… exactly who are you?” the Consort murmured under her breath.

Xiao Muyu seemed to hear her. She turned toward her, the smile on her lips not fading a bit. She blinked, and seemed to say something.

「The Saintess has the power to communicate with the gods.」

“I am a god.”

The similar voices overlapped, sounding like a hallucination.

Pei Qiuyue was busy instructing the guards who had entered to call for more people; she hadn’t heard a thing. But the Princess lifted her eyes, sensing something as she looked at the person behind her.

The figure standing in the morning light overlapped with a certain dream.