bullyxtreme Chapter 297 Towards the Golden Palace (1)
Chapter 297 Towards the Golden Palace (1)
Jing Chen sneered: "I'm not so low as to hold a grudge over such a trivial matter. If I'm outmatched and you kill me, I'll accept it! However, I have two questions about being killed by you."
"You said."
"First, Wang Jianchun was going to kill you that day—I'm pretty sure of that. But his first shot missed. Your goal was for him to kill me. Why didn't you dodge when he fired the first shot? It seems like you guessed he would miss."
Yan Zhen said calmly, "I modified the gun. I tampered with the first bullet to ensure that his first shot would be inaccurate."
Jing Chen frowned: "Are the other two bullets okay?"
"Correct."
"What if I hadn't shielded you from the bullet, or what if Wang Jianchun had been quick enough to fire a second shot before I could pounce on him? Wouldn't you be the one who died?"
Yan Zhen was silent for a few seconds, then said, "I'm betting."
"What are you gambling?"
"I would rather Song Yi die than let Lin Xun get hurt."
Now the silent one has become Jingchen.
An eerie atmosphere fermented and spread between the two. The cockatiel perched on Yan Zhen's shoulder stared wide-eyed at Yan Zhen, remaining motionless, disguising itself as a wooden ornament.
After a long silence, Jing Chen suddenly laughed: "You won the bet, but not because you are more skilled, but because you are ruthless."
Yan Zhen did not respond.
Jing Chen stepped closer to her: "The person who took the bullet for you wasn't Song Yi, it was me! The person I'm willing to take the bullet for isn't Lin Xun, it's you."
Yan Zhen's face stiffened: "You waited here specifically just to tell me this?"
"Why, can't it?"
"...What are your demands? Do you want an apology, or compensation?"
Jing Chen scoffed, "I don't want any of them."
"then you……"
Jing Chen smiled maliciously: "I just wanted to annoy you."
Yan Zhen: "..."
Jing Chen uttered those words, gave a light snort, turned around, opened the door of the Quick Transmigration Division, and left without looking back.
Yan Zhen stood still, clenching and unclenching her fists, taking several deep breaths before entering the Quick Transmigration Division.
It was rare for Yan Zhen to be in the Quick Transmigration Division at the same time as Jing Chen. She thought that Jing Chen would take the opportunity to make things difficult for her, and she figured that no matter how difficult he made things for her, she should endure it and not fight with him.
Ideally, he should be able to vent all his frustrations at once, and then the two of them should go their separate ways, with no further obligations to each other.
However, during her three-day rest at the Quick Transmigration Division, Jing Chen neither went out nor appeared in front of her, nor did he cause her any trouble at work.
Yan Zhen and the others were starting to question the meaning of life.
That day, he clearly looked resentful, saying he was just trying to upset himself, but the way he looked at her was as if he wanted to pin her to the ground and stomp on her...
Yan Zhen sat cross-legged on the office sofa, her posture completely awful. After thinking for a while, she kicked Xiao Qi, who was squatting in front of the computer playing a card game: "You dead bird, go find out for me whether Jing Chen is going to make things difficult for me."
Xiao Qi didn't even turn her head: "The fact that they're not coming to you proves that the Lord God doesn't care at all. Why are you still going out of your way to ask for a beating?"
“I’ll have this problem stuck in my head until it’s resolved,” Yan Zhen said. “It’s like I owe someone money; I’ll always be thinking about it.”
"Why don't you go talk to the Supreme God and clear things up?"
"What should I say?"
He didn't want compensation or an apology, but he wanted to "simply annoy her" to prove that he wasn't indifferent, but rather extremely concerned.
Not only did he care deeply, he also pretended not to care.
Dealing with such conflicted people is the most annoying thing.
Xiao Qi paused the game and jumped in front of Yan Zhen: "I was playing cards with Xiao Lan a few days ago and asked about the Lord God."
Yan Zhen glanced at it sideways: "Hmm."
"Previously, the Supreme God used Lord Zhou Yanqing's identity as a substitute for the deceased to chase after the small world. Xiao Lan worked with him for a period of time. It said that the Supreme God liked you very much."
Yan Zhen's lips twitched: "Hmm?"
Xiao Qi rubbed her wings like claws, making feathers fly everywhere: "How about... how about you go to the God's office and give him a kiss?"
Yan Zhen: "Huh???"
"If the Supreme God likes you, a kiss from you is a reward. He'll be happy and might not hold it against you. If he doesn't like you, he might slap you. You get hit, he gets his revenge, and you're even. Either way, you're in a good position..."
Before it could finish speaking, Yan Zhen grabbed Xiao Qi, opened the door, and threw it out with a "squeak".
She's really being ridiculous to discuss these things with a bird whose brain isn't even big enough to be considered a melon seed.
After dealing with Xiao Qi, Yan Zhen decided to end the internal strife and head to the next world.
As for that supreme god, whatever.
-
Upon waking in her new body, Yan Zhen felt dizzy and nauseous, with a tightness in her chest that made her want to vomit.
She opened her eyes and found herself lying in a stationary carriage.
Feeling that his symptoms resembled a fever, Yan Zhen touched his forehead.
As she noticed her forehead burning hot, she also saw her hands.
Those were hands bearing the marks of hard work, with black mud stuck in the nail crevices, and ugly cracks on the palms like old tree bark. The knuckles were large, and at first glance, it looked like an old rural man.
Yan Zhen propped himself up on his arms, leaned against the car wall, and glanced down at his new body.
You wouldn't believe it until you see it; once you do, you can't help but frown.
The original owner was wearing a coarse linen shirt, probably from years of working in the fields. Her skin was tanned dark, dry, and rough. Her tall figure, combined with the muscles she had developed from working, made her look like a tough woman.
Even without seeing her face, Yan Zhen could picture her current appearance, which was similar to the fierce and burly "rough old woman" in period dramas.
She closed her eyes to calm the dizziness and started browsing the strategy guide.
The original owner's name was Luo Yun, also known as Yunniang, an ordinary peasant woman living in Luo Family Village.
Yunniang was taciturn, hardworking and honest. When she was fifteen, her parents arranged for her to marry Xie Zhao, an "outsider" from Luojia Village.
Xie Zhao was a year older than her. Unlike the farmers in Luojia Village who toiled in the fields, he was handsome and refined, and also a scholar.
But Xie Zhao was very poor.
Without a father, and with a mother who was unable to carry anything, and Xie Zhao who spent all his time studying and couldn't work, the family only had two dilapidated mud houses. When Junniang married into the family, they were almost starving.
It's obvious to everyone that Xie Zhao married Yunniang because he wanted to add a breadwinner to his family.
Indeed, after Yunniang married into the family, she worked hard, cultivating the fields and growing vegetables when she was busy, and collecting herbs to earn money when she was free. In order to help Xie Zhao, who was studying, improve his health, she also learned to hunt, and she could always bring back one or two pheasants or wild birds every time she went up the mountain.
She used her own hands to raise her pampered mother-in-law and Xie Zhao, who never lifted a finger, to be fair-skinned and clean-cut, but she herself looked increasingly weathered and old because of her hard work.
The year after marrying Xie Zhao, Yunniang gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl.
Xie Zhao named his children Xie Zhaolin and Xie Wanfang.
He said the two names came from the line in "Spring River Flower Moon Night": "The river flows windingly around the fragrant fields, and the moon shines on the flower forest like scattered snowflakes."
Yunniang was illiterate, but Xie Zhao said the two names sounded nice, so she thought they sounded nice too.
With Yunniang's support, Xie Zhao successfully passed the provincial examination, the imperial examination, and the palace examination in the capital. At the age of twenty-three, he passed the imperial examination with top honors and became the top scholar.
When the news reached Luo Family Village, everyone said that Yunniang had finally made it through, single-handedly supporting Luo Family Village's first top scholar.
Soon after, Xie Zhao sent a letter saying that he would be taking up his post immediately and would have no time to return home. He asked Yunniang to take good care of his mother and children, and that he would bring them to the capital to enjoy a comfortable life once he had prepared a house for them.
Yunniang began to wait with great anticipation.
This wait lasted two years.
Xie Zhao often sent letters back home, but while her mother-in-law and two children were literate, Yunniang was illiterate and had no idea what the letters said.
Two years later, Xie Zhao sent a carriage and guards to pick up Yunniang and her family, claiming that they were going to the capital to live a life of leisure as the wife of a high-ranking official.
After leaving Luo Family Village, Junniang, who was prone to motion sickness, developed a high fever and remained in a daze all day.
As the carriage passed through a mountain forest, Yunniang got out of the carriage to get some fresh air. She was then slit in the throat by a guard sent by Xie Zhao and pushed off a cliff.
As she fell off the cliff, Yunniang saw her two children, whom she had raised, and her mother-in-law, who used to boss her around and treat her like a maid, standing on the edge of the cliff, their eyes filled with schadenfreude.