An Author and Protagonist Got a Happy Ending [Transmigration] - Chapter 21.1

The guards had long since heard the commotion and had been waiting outside for quite a while. Upon receiving the order, they hurried in immediately.

However, after hearing the request, they all hesitated on the spot. They exchanged glances and lowered their heads, only daring to stay by the doorway, not daring to cast even a second glance at the Noble Consort.

“That is Her Highness the Noble Consort. Without His Majesty’s command, we do not dare…”

While the Princess’s status was also incredibly noble, if it were anyone else—even Pei Qiuyue—as long as the Princess gave the order, they wouldn’t hesitate. But the Noble Consort was the one uniquely delicate exception.

The late Empress’s dying wish wasn’t exactly public knowledge, but anyone with eyes could see why the Consort received such special treatment. Even her title was specifically granted after the Empress passed away, despite the fact that the Emperor usually showed no personal intimacy toward her.

Yet, this didn’t stop the Old Emperor from indulging her. Keeping the Noble Consort around was a way of honoring the late Empress’s memory. As long as she didn’t commit a major crime in the open, the Old Emperor turned a blind eye and never held her to account.

The Princess had previously shared this mindset, which was why they had coexisted in peace until today. But now that the Princess’s command conflicted with the Old Emperor’s usual attitude, the guards didn’t dare act rashly.

Realizing it was useless to make things difficult for the guards, Pei Qiuyue also worried that the Princess might clash with His Majesty because of this.

“Princess…” Pei Qiuyue wanted to ask for her opinion.

When she turned her head, she found the Princess staring blankly at the Saintess.

“Princess—”

“Hmm?” The Princess turned her head, showing no embarrassment at being caught spacing out. “What is it?”

“Regarding the Noble Consort… should we leave it to His Majesty to decide?” Pei Qiuyue asked.

The Princess glanced at the guards’ troubled expressions and quickly realized the situation. “Take her away first. I will speak to Imperial Father myself.”

She was serious; there was no room for negotiation.

The Noble Consort froze, then barked in rage: “You dare!”

The Princess didn’t even look at her. She made a gesture to the guards and turned to leave. After a few steps, she stopped and turned back. But she wasn’t looking at the Consort.

“You, come with me.” The Princess was looking at Xiao Muyu.

Xiao Muyu pointed at herself. The Princess nodded, signaling for her to follow. Thus, she gave the Consort a little smile, waved a hand in farewell, and followed the Princess out.

“How can you treat me like this!” the Consort’s voice roared from behind, sounding like a wounded animal. “Have you forgotten who cared for you and protected you since you were small?! Are you truly this heartless? I should be considered your mother; how can you treat me this way!”

“How could a woman as gentle as your mother have such an ungrateful, cold-blooded daughter like you!”

The Princess could no longer hear the words that followed. Only Xiao Muyu, trailing a step behind, looked back once, her expression tinged with a hint of pity.

Sorry about that. Xiao Muyu offered a silent apology. Of course, no one was there to receive it.

“Stay by my side, don’t wander off.”

The Princess was waiting for her up ahead. Xiao Muyu quickened her pace to walk side-by-side with her. Unlike the last time she went to see the Old Emperor—where she had walked with her head down in constant trepidation—Xiao Muyu’s footsteps this time were practically light.

She seemed utterly unconcerned by the impending argument between the Princess and the Emperor, nor did she worry about being implicated.

The Princess studied the person beside her out of the corner of her eye. To say she didn’t notice the change in Xiao Muyu would be a lie. Yet even this version of Xiao Muyu wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to her.

In dreams from much longer ago, she had encountered a similar, somewhat eccentric shadow—one even more lively than she was now, chattering away with incomprehensible words like “setting,” “plot twist,” and “story.”

Back then, it was a blurry shadow with a muffled voice, but the habit of talking to itself was fully on display. The Princess had heard her own name from that shadow’s mouth. Sometimes the formal name “Hua Feixue,” but more often “A-Xue,” or occasionally a mock-intimate “Xue-Xue” or a teasing “Princess Highness.”

The Hua Feixue of that time was still young. Though she didn’t understand the words, her attention was easily captured. Staring at that shadow made the cold palace seem a bit less uncomfortable.

Then one day, the shadow seemed to realize the young Hua Feixue existed. It stared at her blankly for a long time and then shut its mouth. Since then, Hua Feixue had never seen it again. The next morning, the maids woke her up, calling her “Princess” over and over, and she returned to being the aloof Princess who kept everyone at a distance.

The Princess had once dismissed that shadow as a hallucination born of loneliness. Until she was trapped in the wind and snow. After watching for so long, she roughly understood what those previously incomprehensible terms meant. That other world wasn’t the fairyland or hell she had imagined, but the person felt increasingly familiar.

In the end, she had no concrete evidence that she had truly encountered them. But that no longer mattered; it wouldn’t stop her from reaching out her hand.

“Doesn’t Your Highness get angry? When you’re called cold and heartless?” Xiao Muyu’s voice drifted over. “If you weren’t the Princess, she’d probably use much harsher words.”

“She isn’t an important person.” Therefore, it didn’t matter how she was misunderstood. The Princess added, “Besides, she wasn’t lying.”

Xiao Muyu asked, “Do you truly feel no guilt toward her?”

The Princess countered, “Why should I feel guilty?”

Xiao Muyu said, “She did look after you when you were small, and she’s worked hard to eliminate threats to protect you. Even if much of it was out of selfishness, it should count as a debt of gratitude, right?”

The Princess remained unmoved. “In terms of results, she failed to protect me and instead caused me a great deal of trouble. She only viewed me as a substitute for my mother, arrogantly trying to bestow ‘kindness’ upon me to control me… Whatever I needed to thank her for, I’ve long since repaid. The way she looks at me… sometimes it makes me feel disgusted.”

The Princess stopped there. Xiao Muyu, however, understood perfectly: “Because she loved your mother. No, I should say it was an obsession.”

The Princess’s brow twitched. She clearly disliked this topic.

“Sorry,” Xiao Muyu apologized again.

“Why apologize to me?” the Princess asked.

“Hmm… because of a reason both you and I might know perfectly well?” Xiao Muyu said, a bit uncertainly. “You and I are truly complete opposites.”

One was cold, serious, and decisive in emotions, separating gratitude from affection. Despite an unhappy childhood, she hadn’t become weak; instead, she built high walls and marched toward her goals. Occasionally lost, but always quick to recalibrate. In contrast, Xiao Muyu wasn’t serious at all; she was a “take it as it comes” kind of person with a “soft-hearted fool” personality.

—At least, under normal circumstances.

“Is that a bad thing?” the Princess replied. “Do you hate me?”

“No, rather, it’s because of that that I like you,” Xiao Muyu said slowly. “Everyone has a shadow they want to chase.”

The Princess suddenly stopped. Xiao Muyu halted just in time to avoid bumping into her and looked up into the Princess’s eyes. There was a hint of bewilderment in those pitch-black depths.

The Princess stared at her for a long time before finally remembering to ask: “Who are you?”

Xiao Muyu smiled, tilted her head, and said with a hint of surprise, “I thought you’d ask me sooner.”

They were very close to the Old Emperor’s palace now. A perimeter wall nearby blocked the sunlight. It was relatively secluded; only the occasional patrol passed by, and they withdrew at a wave of the Princess’s hand.

Xiao Muyu stood in the shadow cast by the wall. She countered with her own question: “Who do you think I am?”

She was a visitor from beyond, a survivor of another world. Perhaps even the creator of this world, who had easily decided everyone’s fate. She was the person the Princess had always watched. Now, she was the Saintess of the Temple. She was…

“You are the person who is going to marry me,” the Princess said.

This answer exceeded Xiao Muyu’s expectations, but it made her laugh in spite of herself. “I really do like you.” Xiao Muyu winked at her. “‘I’ was supposed to be the person who likes you most in this world.”

“Supposed to be?”

“Because I forgot.”

“…”

The Princess took a small step back, sizing up Xiao Muyu from a distance. Appearance, clothing—everything was as it had been. Even a body-double couldn’t be this identical.

“Relax, I’m not a fake,” Xiao Muyu said, as if reading her mind. “Trust your intuition more.”

“Then you—”

“I’ll probably recover very soon,” Xiao Muyu curved her lips and lowered her voice. “Before that, let me tell you a little secret.”

“What?” the Princess looked at her, oblivious.

Xiao Muyu beckoned with a finger. “Come closer.”

The Princess took a few steps and leaned her ear in. Before she could hear the “secret,” she felt a warm sensation on her cheek. Xiao Muyu dropped a light kiss—a brief touch that was over before the Princess could even reach up to touch her face.

A trace of warmth seemed to linger on her fingertips. The Princess turned her head in a daze, meeting Xiao Muyu’s smiling face.

“Just as I imagined… it’s soft.” Xiao Muyu leaned against the wall, looking up at the horizon. She said sighing, “The way you struggle just to stay alive… it’s quite pathetic, isn’t it?”

The Princess wasn’t sure if she was talking to her; that didn’t sound like a “secret.” She pinched her own cheek but replied anyway: “No, it isn’t.”

“Is that meant to be a comfort?”

The Princess thought for a moment. “It can count as one.”

Xiao Muyu smiled. She could clearly feel her vision blurring. This was merely a fragment of consciousness remaining in this body, like a thin mist that would scatter at a breath of wind.

The Saintess has the power to communicate with the gods.

The creator is the god of this world.

Coincidence was a result of necessary causes. If she wished, the entire world was within her gaze. A god is omniscient and omnipotent. However, the Xiao Muyu who had truly transmigrated into this world had not yet been fully accepted by it, and the version of her that preferred to be a “salted fish” had no desire to explore the world.

As for the one awake right now—she was also Xiao Muyu, but merely a trace of consciousness left behind from when she had unintentionally explored this world in the past. She was the Xiao Muyu from before the apocalypse, whose biggest worry was the upcoming final exams.

In her own story, she easily controlled life, death, and the world’s direction, still as free as the wind, casually adding stroke after stroke. She was truly like the gods in countless stories: high above and indifferent. Because she didn’t feel any of it was real.

Later, having faced natural and man-made disasters, her youthful spirit had been hidden deep away. The price of survival was abandoning past naive fantasies. Xiao Muyu had adapted well. And thus, she had become “cowardly.”

The young Xiao Muyu couldn’t easily switch her thinking; a subconscious thought of “not cool enough” would still pop up. But the current version of herself had abilities the past her could only dream of—enough to walk the line between life and death and save others.

—In the end, she still couldn’t fix the habit of being a “soft-hearted fool.” The “ruthless powerhouse” character could only remain in her dreams. But for any version of herself, satisfying the baseline of “being alive” was enough.

Xiao Muyu curled her lip helplessly and gave the Princess one last look. “Do you feel disappointed?” A god who should be far from the secular world, yet was no different from a mortal.

But the Princess answered her: “You are also the shadow I am chasing.”

“I’ll take that as a comfort then.” Xiao Muyu’s expression softened. She leaned against the wall, her footsteps unsteady, her words like a murmur to herself. “Actually, I’m not entirely a good person. Being truly placed in my heart… isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

“…Hmm?”

“The secret I wanted to tell you.”

“…”

“So, about the marriage… think about it again.”

That was the last thing Xiao Muyu said. The Princess’s expression was unreadable as she stood silently, watching her eyes slowly close.

A halo of light like fire flashed and vanished. A strong wind blew head-on.