An Author and Protagonist Got a Happy Ending [Transmigration] - Chapter 2

“…”

The ups and downs of life were truly nothing more than this.

Xiao Muyu’s breath hitched in her throat, nearly causing her to suffocate. Even though this body was already on the verge of collapsing, the sudden emotional turbulence left her gasping. Her vision blurred again, and her consciousness began to drift back into chaos.

Is this dream finally ending? she wondered.

She coughed a few times—a lung-splitting pain—but the sound that came out was weak and tiny. She looked so pitiful that the palace attendants standing hesitantly nearby couldn’t help but cast looks of sympathy and mercy.

The Noble Consort’s grip on the whip loosened slightly, caught off guard by the sudden turn of events.

Only the Princess, who had issued the order, remained stone-hearted. Under the bewildered gazes of the crowd, she cast a cold glance: “Are you all deaf?”

The Noble Consort reacted first, barely suppressing a smile. She tossed the whip to a nearby maid and adopted a theater-going posture, fueling the fire with a sneer.

“The Princess has spoken! What are you standing there for? Drag her out already! Don’t let her filth stain this ground.”

The attendants snapped out of it, finally realizing the Princess wasn’t joking, and hurriedly moved forward to obey.

“Princess!”

In desperation, Pei Qiuyue stepped forward quickly, shielding Xiao Muyu and blocking the attendants.

“The Saintess has committed no great crime; she is merely young and ignorant. If she has displeased the Noble Consort, a few words of reprimand or a light punishment should suffice. It would also help Her Highness maintain a reputation for kindness—”

Pei Qiuyue argued her case passionately. If there were no outsiders present, she would have wanted to grab the Princess by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. She had brought the Princess here to earn a favor, not to proactively take the fall for the Noble Consort’s cruelty!

She had no idea how the Saintess had offended the Princess; they hadn’t even met in recent days. Perhaps the Saintess had simply caught the Princess at the wrong moment and became a convenient target for her foul mood.

Pei Qiuyue’s heart was full of questions, and she couldn’t help but look back. The Saintess was still kneeling, coughing while bowing her head to suppress the sound. She sounded like a wounded cub whimpering, a sound that naturally stirred compassion.

If one ignored her status and temper, a girl with such a look should be pampered at home.

“Saintess, you…”

Pei Qiuyue wanted the Saintess to lower her head and apologize, hoping a compromise could smooth things over. However, before she could finish, she felt a weight on her skirt. Looking down, she saw the Saintess lose her balance and slump toward her.

Her skirt was caught by the falling woman’s instinctive grab. Pei Qiuyue couldn’t move forward or backward. Unable to watch her fall face-first into the snow, she reached down to support her.

The Saintess’s eyes were tightly shut, her fingertips trembling, and her lips were murmuring something.

Pei Qiuyue thought she was afraid and leaned in to listen.

“…You are such a good person.”

“Thank you…”

“…” Pei Qiuyue almost thought she had misheard. Who says something so bizarre when they’re about to die? This girl’s heart was either too big or she was completely delusional!

A maid nearby cried out first: “The Saintess has fainted!”

The others looked at the Princess, their eyes asking: What now?

The Noble Consort didn’t buy it, wishing she could step up and kick her twice. “She must be faking. Who is she showing this fragile act to? How unlucky. Hurry up and drag her away!”

“Noble Consort, please appease your anger.”

A resonant voice approached from outside the palace. As the words fell, a man appeared. He looked like a middle-aged man, but his temples were streaked with white. He wore a long beard and flowing Taoist robes—the very image of an ethereal, transcendent master.

The attendants bowed one after another, calling him “Lord National Preceptor.”

The Princess’s expression darkened.

This was the old National Preceptor of the Xuefu Kingdom. His age was unknown, but he was a man of great ability. In his earlier years, he had contributed greatly to the kingdom’s strategies. Though he had been semi-retired for years, he was still highly revered.

However, the Princess’s relationship with him was not good. To call it “not good” was an understatement—it was catastrophic. Whenever they crossed paths, the Princess’s retinue was bound to have a headache.

This time, however, Pei Qiuyue breathed a sigh of relief. Precisely because the relationship was poor, they usually didn’t visit each other. The National Preceptor was close friends with the Great Elder of the Temple; he was almost certainly here for the Saintess.

Pei Qiuyue couldn’t wait for the Saintess to be taken away. Even if the relationship was bad, everyone still maintained a surface-level peace. The Princess wouldn’t openly break ties right now. Getting rid of this hidden trouble was for the best.

“My old friend said the Saintess caused trouble due to his lack of proper guidance. But the Saintess was carefully raised by the Temple, after all. I hope the Consort and the Princess will, for the sake of this old man and the Temple, spare her this once. The Elder will surely discipline her strictly upon her return and will come to apologize in person another day.”

As soon as the National Preceptor spoke, it was exactly as expected.

The Noble Consort didn’t dare offend him lightly. Knowing this matter was effectively over, she let out a frustrated huff. “He’d better remember that.”

But she didn’t persist further.

Pei Qiuyue desperately signaled the Princess with her eyes. The Princess stared at her for a moment, then looked away and said flatly, “Please, proceed.”

After a few polite exchanges, the National Preceptor took the woman away.

The Princess tossed the fragments of a crushed jade stone from her hand, wiped her palms, and turned to leave. Throughout the entire process, she never looked at the unconscious Saintess again.

“Is the Princess not going back to rest?”

“I suddenly remembered there are matters I haven’t finished dealing with.”

Xiao Muyu didn’t expect to wake up again.

When she opened her eyes and saw the light purple gauze canopy above her, she thought she had transmigrated a second time. That was until a maid called her “Saintess.”

The cold and pain spreading through her limbs returned with a vengeance. Xiao Muyu bit her lip to swallow a groan. It felt just like being in the snow; except for her neck and head, she could barely move, yet her body wouldn’t stop shivering.

It seemed her pain wasn’t just from the cold. The stiffness of her body had simply given her that illusion. Even a series of dreams wouldn’t have such a vivid perception of pain—could it be she really transmigrated?

Xiao Muyu tilted her head to survey the unfamiliar room. It was vast and desolate, with decor that wasn’t luxurious—simplistic, even. There was no warmth of life here. The only maid was very quiet; seeing her wake up, she bowed and left to report. Her voice through the door saying “The Saintess is awake” was also soft.

Before long, the middle-aged man with the long beard and Taoist robes pushed the door open and entered. He looked like a kind elder, but Xiao Muyu instinctively disliked him.

She lay paralyzed on the bed like a wooden doll, faking a corpse. The man seemed used to this and didn’t require a reaction.

“You did well,” the man murmured to himself as he paced the room. “That little girl Hua Feixue can certainly endure. Her cultivation isn’t deep yet, but I fear she will become a great trouble in the future…”

Hua Feixue. That was the protagonist’s name—the Princess.

According to the laws of fiction, someone who fears the protagonist this much is either cannon fodder or a villain.

As her mind cleared, fragments of deep memory clicked into place. Xiao Muyu finally matched the man to a name: The Old National Preceptor. One of the biggest villains in the entire book.

On the surface, he was a sage-like patriot; in reality, he was a hypocrite who craved power and fame. Due to some past conflict with the late Empress, he constantly targeted the Princess, using her gender as a weapon and even plotting several assassinations. Later in the story, after the Princess officially ascended, he orchestrated a coup to overthrow her.

The original Saintess’s miserable state was also directly linked to him.

The National Preceptor claimed to be friends with the Temple Elder, but he had secretly controlled the Temple long ago. The Saintess was just a pawn he had brought back. She was essentially a wooden block with no emotions or desires, her every word and action dictated by the National Preceptor—a literal string puppet.

This incident of offending the Consort and the Princess was just a test by the National Preceptor to see where their bottom lines were. Fortunately, he had a tiny bit of “Schrödinger’s conscience”—he knew enough to recycle the Saintess at the last moment. Or perhaps it was because she was a convenient tool for testing drugs, and it would be a waste to lose her.

What did I do to deserve this?

Xiao Muyu once again mourned the non-existent “campus slice-of-life” novel she never wrote.

She looked back at her current situation and breathed a sigh of relief. She had some memory of the early plot; originally, the National Preceptor hadn’t interfered when the Saintess was thrown into the dungeon. He was usually too cautious to expose himself. Now that the plot had deviated and he had stepped in to save her, even the Noble Consort would have to show some respect.

Xiao Muyu was a survivor; she wouldn’t go looking for death. If nothing went wrong, she might actually live a bit longer.

Just as she was planning her escape to the mountains once her wounds healed, the National Preceptor suddenly stopped pacing and walked toward her. He forced a small porcelain vial into her hand and whispered an order.

“In three days, when your wounds are stable, go to the palace to apologize to the Princess. Find a way to make her drink this poison.”

Xiao Muyu was horrified and wanted to hurl the vial away, but she couldn’t move. She could only maintain a rigid grip on the bottle, feeling the chill on her spine intensify.

The National Preceptor seemed to sense the protest in her eyes. He stroked his beard and sneered, pulling a pill from his sleeve.

“If you are obedient, I will give you the antidote for the ‘Cold Toxin’ I gave you a few days ago. Of course, if you don’t want to go, that’s fine too. I’ll just tell the world the Saintess was physically weak and died from the cold.”

Blatant blackmail. A choice between two deaths.

If she really poisoned the Princess, would she have any way out? It was just the difference between dying sooner or later.

The spark of hope that had just ignited was instantly doused by a bucket of ice water. At this moment, Xiao Muyu felt the profound truth of a certain quote from before the apocalypse:

Life is just a series of ups and downs… and downs, and downs, and downs…