eurekapd Chapter 144 The Useless Prince's Power Seizure (22)
Chapter 144 The Useless Prince's Power Seizure (22)
Three months passed in the blink of an eye. On the day Jingli's confinement was lifted, Yu An also gained the qualification to enter the palace to serve.
To be honest, this qualification wasn't easy to obtain.
Since Jingli was placed under house arrest, the palace staff's attitude towards Yu An has changed again, led by the boys who had bullied him before.
In this palace, Jingli is the master, but he is still young.
Before Jingli had its own palace, the most powerful master was still Langyue.
Yu An was nothing more than a little trinket made from the servants. The young master's novelty only lasted a few days. After that, Yu An would fall from the branch and become the most insignificant existence among the palace servants.
Jingli was confined to her quarters for standing up for Yu An, which is undoubtedly another signal—Lady Langyue does not approve of Jingli's actions in standing up for Yu An.
Therefore, the boys behaved themselves for a while, and once they confirmed the time when Jingjing came to take care of Yu An, they became arrogant again.
One night, while Yu An was asleep, a few people sneaked into his house with a sack, intending to repeat their previous trick and put him in the sack and hang him on an old tree for the whole night.
To everyone's surprise, the next morning the steward found several bruised and battered men tied up in a row, sitting under an old tree, with a burlap sack over their heads.
The bruises on his face weren't from being beaten up; they were from insect bites.
The manager disgustedly ripped the smelly rags out of their mouths and asked them what was going on. The men stammered and none of them could explain what had happened.
Only one person mentioned Yu An.
The steward called Yu An over, and saw that the little guy had an innocent look on his face.
"I slept like a log last night and didn't hear a thing."
Although he was thin, he still had a bit of baby fat on his face. Recently, with Jing Li's occasional care, he had gained a little weight and even looked somewhat cute when he looked up at people.
Yu An deliberately cracked his throat and frowned slightly: "Besides, sir, how can someone as small as me tie up so many people? Any two of them could hang me from a tree."
After speaking, Yu An glanced at the two boys who had hung up on him earlier.
The boys all stared at Yu An as if they had seen a ghost.
One of them trembled, his legs shaking, and said, "He...he knows sorcery!"
"nonsense!"
Before Yu An could speak, Guan interrupted him.
This is the residence of Lady Langyue's palace servants. If rumors of demons and ghosts were to spread, who knows how people would gossip about them.
Once they understood the crux of the matter, they dared not say anything more.
They had just opened Yu An's door yesterday when, one by one, they were bound by their ankles and hung upside down from the rafters.
The group of people, who had never seen such a trap before, unanimously believed that they had encountered an evil spirit.
The next moment, Yu An, who should have been fast asleep, appeared below them like a ghost and very quickly stuffed a smelly rag into each of their mouths.
The disgusting state of the rag and Yu An's skill in using it were even more alarming to the group.
This guy probably didn't anticipate that they would come today!
Then, Yu An used a rope that was hidden somewhere to tie the group up.
The ropes seemed to be under a spell, binding them tighter the more they struggled.
Unable to break free, the group finally behaved themselves until—Yu An pulled out several snakes.
The snakes were exceptionally docile in Yu An's hands, hissing and flicking their tongues at the group—he could even control beasts! He truly possessed demonic magic!
With rags stuffed in their mouths, the men couldn't shout and just writhed around, making "ah ah" sounds to beg for mercy.
Without saying a word, Yu An moved slightly, and the group fell to the ground. Unfortunately, their feet were bound, and they were all in a panic, so they couldn't muster any strength and naturally couldn't escape.
Yu An opened the door, gently pulled the end of the rope, and led the group to the old tree to tie them up.
Before returning to the house, Yu An released the snakes.
And so, the group spent the night feeding insects under the old tree, while also keeping a close watch on the snakes, never daring to close their eyes.
Yu An certainly didn't know any sorcery.
The trap was Jingli's idea, the method of binding people was also taught by Jingli, and even the scary little snake was a toy that Jingli brought over.
But Yu An would never tell anyone else about these things.
The steward walked around the bound men and then told Yu An to come over and untie the ropes.
Yu An stepped forward, hesitantly saying, "Then, I'll give it a try."
He tugged at it from the left and from the right, then shook his head with a sigh.
"No, I don't know how to untie this knot. It's amazing how it gets tighter the more I try to untie it!"
"Fine." The steward waved his hand, as if he had finally found an excuse to vent his anger on Yu An. "You can't even do this little thing right. You can go fetch water from the river today."
The task of fetching water was not really for a nobody like Yu An, but the manager wanted to separate him from those rascals, so Yu An naturally complied.
The water drawn from the river was mostly used for washing clothes for the Empress, the Prince, and noble ladies of some status like Jingjing.
Most of the palace maids who did laundry were women. The reason they stayed here and couldn't show their faces in front of the nobles was because they were either ugly or timid. Because of these characteristics, these palace maids were often bullied by those troublemakers.
Taking advantage of the boys' fear of her newborn self, Yu An successfully struck up a conversation with several palace maids.
After that, Yu An would occasionally help these palace maids take the washed clothes to dry.
He was diligent and had a sweet tongue, calling the palace maids "sister" one after another. In less than a month, he managed to get a job delivering the clothes that had been hung out to dry to the palace.
This time, he wasn't delivering clothes for the Empress and His Highness; he went through the palace servants' side door, so he shouldn't have run into Jingli.
But there are 6058 in the scenery.
Jingli didn't go forward, but just glanced at Yu An from afar.
Seeing that the other person had no injuries, had gained some weight, and had grown taller, Jingli breathed a slight sigh of relief.
Just as Jingli turned to leave, she suddenly heard a notification from the counterfeit system.
[Congratulations, host! Mission target's favorability +1.]
[Affection Level: 56/100, First Stage Goal: 100 (Note: Affection level cap will increase as the mission progresses)]
Jingli was startled and subconsciously turned her head, only to see Yu An looking at her.
They were quite far apart, but Yu An still leaned forward slightly and gave a subtle bow.
Jingli saw his lips move slightly, as if he were saying, "Your Highness."
Beneath his expression lay a sense of restraint, as if he had a thousand words to say.
If it weren't for the fact that his favorability rating only increased by 1 point, Jingli would have thought he had been thinking about her a lot these days.
Jingli felt a pang of sadness in her heart for no apparent reason.
He nodded to Yu An, then fled in a panic.
Yu An has now entered the palace; it took him less than two months to take this step.
Jingli is pleased with Yu An's growth, but inevitably feels a sense of loss.
The closer Yu An gets to him, the less genuine his feelings will be.
For Yu An, Jing Li was just a perfectly positioned pawn, or perhaps a temporary companion.
Even though she knew this all along, Jingli was still sad.
After all, they had never interacted in this way in the previous two worlds.
Since arriving in this world, Jingli has felt extremely repressed, and this repression seems to be breaking through after meeting Yu An today.
[6058: This world is truly treacherous.]
6058 sighed silently, thinking that Jingli was just being too concerned.
In the previous world, Jingli had just come to understand what love was, and in this world, the two of them began their relationship in this way.
Another point is that Yu An in this world is still young and doesn't understand what love is at all.
The two are not even friends yet, and Jingli's feelings, expectations, and grievances are beyond words.
6058 felt frustrated for Jingli.
But this is not Yu An's fault after all.
Thus, Jingli avoided seeing Yu An under the pretext of confinement, while Yu An would occasionally send clothes over. Whether Lang Yue saw it or not, on the day Jingli's confinement was lifted, Yu An officially became a member of Jingli Palace.
Of course, he wasn't serving as a personal servant yet. His job was simply to stand guard outside the palace gates at night, sitting on the cold stone steps, waiting for dawn.
The two were separated by only a door, yet they were worlds apart.
Yu An found it difficult to feel resentment or jealousy towards Jing Li.
This little prince is like a kitten pretending to be a tiger; he looks fierce and wild, but he has a rare sincerity.
Perhaps it's because he has a mother like Langyue.
Unlike him, who, at such a young age, is nothing but hypocrisy and cunning.
As night deepened, Yu An exhaled a breath of stale air.
He has always hated the night.
As soon as night falls, the unpleasant feeling of being watched surrounds him, and the impenetrable darkness makes him feel like he can't breathe.
But I don't know if it was just my imagination, but the feeling of standing outside the palace in Jingli seemed to have faded a lot.
He shrank closer to the door of Jingli's bedroom, as if doing so would allow him to get closer to Jingli and feel more comfortable.
Yu An lowered his head, his heart heavy.
Jingli was perhaps the kindest person to him in the world, besides the blind old woman.
But what about him? He shamelessly took advantage of this unfounded affection.
So Yu An, it's your own fault if you can't have all the good things in this world.
·
Jingli had a feeling that since Yu An came to his side, their relationship had become more distant than before.
Serving the master is naturally different from serving in his living quarters; there are more people around and more rules to follow.
Jingli intended to teach him reading and martial arts in the afternoons, and Yu An would obediently learn, but there was an inexplicable strangeness between the two.
Just like what Yu An said.
"Your Highness, etiquette must not be disregarded."
Yu An obeyed, seemingly only because Jing Li was the master and he was the servant.
Jingli was utterly helpless.
Just like 6058 said, this world is too treacherous.
The two are from different backgrounds and neither has much influence yet; it's uncertain how long it will take for them to grow up.
The passage of time, the planning of the two, and the influence of the environment.
If all three had been combined, and Jingli hadn't experienced the first two worlds, she might have truly become a stranger to Yu An.
Jingli would break out in a cold sweat whenever she thought of this.
But there's very little he can do right now.
I explored every accessible corner and scene in the palace, and even scanned the inaccessible areas with the system and energy, but the gains were minimal.
At 6058's suggestion, Jingli exchanged an acceleration card in the counterfeit system shop.
The acceleration card can speed up time within a certain range. People in this world will not feel that time is faster, but compared with the time of the Zero Boundary, the flow rate of this world is about 5 times faster.
In the previous world, they were completely unprepared and did not realize that there was a delay in the teleportation time. If they continue to wait in this world, they will waste even more time.
The longer they delay, the more things the people behind the scenes, led by Sefosi, can do.
They will find themselves in an even more passive situation.
The observer system in 6058 also has acceleration cards. The reason for exchanging them from the counterfeit system shop is to avoid the monitoring of the pseudo-world consciousness to a certain extent.
After all, this system originated from them and should have been connected to the "transmigrator." As long as the pseudo-world consciousness hadn't reached the point of having supernatural powers, the people behind it wouldn't be able to discover that this counterfeit system had changed its mission taker.
Based on the analysis of the 6058 counterfeit system, the other party is not yet able to monitor the small world in very detailed way.
As for major changes like increased flow rate—these are items that transmigrators redeem from the system shop, and using them in a small world is perfectly reasonable.
Time passed from summer to winter.
It gets dark early, and once the sun sets, it can get so cold outside that people lose consciousness.
Langyue, understanding the palace servants who kept watch at night, changed the shift system, and children like Yu An were directly exempted from the night watch and replaced with shoveling snow during the day.
One night, Jingli once again blew the bamboo whistle outside the small house where Yu'an lived.
It was snowing outside. Jingli was wearing a snow-white fox fur coat. When the door was opened, the candlelight inside shone on Jingli's little face, which was red from the cold, making him look like a snowball.
In contrast, Yu An showed signs of growth in the second half of the year, perhaps due to improved nutrition.
Now he is no longer like a little black monkey; he has grown as tall as Jingli and is gradually showing some handsome features.
"Your Highness."
Jingli, holding the food box, was lost in thought. It turned out that the age Yu An had mentioned earlier was a lie.
Seeing that the other party did not react, Yu An wanted to kneel down, but was stopped by a warm little hand.
"It's just the two of us; I came out secretly."
Yu An concealed his expression and welcomed Jing Li into the house.
Since Yu An went to the palace, Jing Li rarely sneaked over to Yu An's residence to look for him anymore.
The cottage has changed quite a bit since my last visit.
All the previous clutter had been cleared away, and a wooden table had been erected, with an open book on it—a gift from Jingli. Next to it was a wooden shelf, on which all the things Jingli had given him were neatly arranged, including the kite that had never been flown.
In Yu'an's space, traces of the scenery can be found everywhere.
Even the lit candle seemed to have absorbed a trace of the scene's energy.
Jingli gave a satisfied "humph" and placed the food box in her hand on the wooden table.
"Your Highness, there is no need for such formality. My humble abode is truly shabby and would be an injustice to Your Highness's noble bearing."
Over time, Jingli had grown accustomed to Yu An's estrangement and ignored it.
“I can come whenever I want,” Jingli said, pretending to be disgusted as she sat down on Yu An’s bed, frowning as she adjusted the hand warmer in her arms. “Why is your room so cold?”
Yu An remained respectful: "Our rooms are all like this. Your Highness has given us small cotton quilts, which are enough to keep us warm."
Jingli shook her head and gestured with her chin toward the table: "Open it and take a look."
Since Yu Anming wanted to act as Jingli's servant, he naturally wouldn't refuse Jingli's orders.
He first performed a proper bow, washed his hands, and then gently opened the food box.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Jingli carefully hid the hand warmer in her arms next to Yu An's pillow.
Just as I hid it, the counterfeit system sounded its long-awaited notification sound.
[Congratulations, host! Mission target's favorability +5.]
[Affection Level: 60/100, First Stage Goal: 100 (Note: Affection level cap will increase as the mission progresses)]
·
【small theater】
Yu Yuanyuan (ideal version): I must be ruthless, and everything must be at my disposal! I am a heartless killer!
Yu Yuanyuan (real-life version): Waaaaaah, no, he gives me too much (love)! (crying cat emoji)