An Author and Protagonist Got a Happy Ending [Transmigration] - Chapter 21.2

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.

When Xiao Muyu came to again, she was unsteady on her feet. As she lifted her head, she moved with too much force, and her skull met the wall with a loud thud.

Xiao Muyu clutched the back of her head, but her senses returned quickly. She looked around; they were no longer in the broken shack from her gap in memory. But she vaguely knew she had done something.

Xiao Muyu looked down and saw the striking rope burns on her wrists, feeling a bit complicated. Sometimes she couldn’t stop herself from doing things that weren’t quite “good.”

One of the side effects of staying in the apocalypse too long: many times, the body’s instinctive reaction before conscious thought acts as an invisible life-saving charm. After all, humans are creatures that can do anything if the emotions are right. To put it politely, it’s a “burst of potential.”

To avoid losing reason and causing bad consequences, Xiao Muyu was usually very patient and good at self-regulation, trying her best not to clash with others. This was how ten years of apocalyptic hell failed to drive her to true despair.

But there were always a few moments of life and death. Xiao Muyu usually remembered what she did when she lost control, but this time was a bit different. It was as if a second before she was about to explode, someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over her head and hit her with a club, snuffing out the sparks.

She hadn’t completely lost consciousness; it was more like she had suddenly misfired, falling into a strange, restricted state. It couldn’t be a case of not being acclimated to the climate, could it?

“Time to go.” The Princess’s voice came from the side.

Xiao Muyu leaned against the wall and looked up, squinting slightly to avoid the glare, and finally saw the Princess nearby. Perhaps it was the angle of her slightly tilted chin that gave the woman standing in the shadows a hint of coldness. The Princess merely blinked, and that unintentional air of disdain vanished.

“Your Highness.” Xiao Muyu tried to stand up straight, but wasn’t very successful, so she just stuck herself to the wall. “I might have just accidentally bumped my head and gotten amnesia.”

The Princess watched her silently.

Xiao Muyu rubbed her nose, continuing her nonsense with a straight face. “Fortunately, I only lost a small part of it. Can I ask if I did anything irreversible before? Is Her Highness the Noble Consort… alright?”

For instance, accidentally snapping the Consort’s neck in a moment of carelessness. One of the side effects of the apocalypse: in a “kill or be killed” scenario, since she was alive, it likely meant the other person… That would be one of the worst possible endings. If she killed the Consort, she could forget about leaving here alive.

Man, there sure are a lot of post-apocalyptic side effects.

The Princess replied, “She’s alive and well.”

Xiao Muyu breathed a sigh of relief. If that was the case, things couldn’t get much worse. Then, she couldn’t help but ask: “Then… I didn’t do anything bad to you on the way, did I?”

“It doesn’t count as ‘bad’.” The Princess walked toward her. “But you did tell me many things.”

“What things?” Xiao Muyu asked instinctively.

The Princess stopped in front of her, sized her up for a moment, and then gave a light smile that, from Xiao Muyu’s perspective, carried an inexplicable chill.

“You said you wanted to marry me sooner. And…” The Princess paused and leaned toward Xiao Muyu. A slightly cool kiss landed gently on the corner of her mouth, followed by a whisper: “This… I’m giving it back to you.”