I've Decided To Be This Tyrant's Dark Moonlight - Chapter 82

Yunshao’s body trembled, and she whispered softly:

“Teacher…”

The woman smiled gently. Leaning on the stone table, she stood up and reached out her hand toward the girl.

Yunshao froze, staring at that slender, pale hand, too afraid to take it. Her teacher’s hand was as white as jade, the fingers long and delicate, nails faintly pink and curved like round, glossy moons.

Her teacher smiled. “You’re always like this, never willing to hold my hand. Shao’er, are you afraid of me?”

Yunshao shook her head lightly. Gathering her courage, she clasped the woman’s hand and followed her along the edge of the pond.

“This year’s grapes should ripen well. They might be sweeter than ever before. When you enter the palace, remember to have someone pick some for you. Still, by then you’ll be Crown Prince, the whole world will be yours. You won’t care for just a few old grapevines.”

In a small voice, Yunshao replied, “I like them.”

The woman raised her brows in mild surprise, then smiled. “You like them? That’s good.”

Sunlight drifted across her features, gilding her elegant brows in pale gold. Her eyes shone like a pool of autumn water.

Meeting those eyes, Yunshao stopped, nervously pushing back a stray lock of hair. She tidied her appearance, then halted to say, “Teacher, I…I…”

The woman tilted her head. “What does Shao’er want to say?”

Yunshao stammered for a long time, fingers twisting together. At last she raised her eyes and whispered.

But even at this close distance, the woman did not catch it clearly. She asked softly: “Hm?”

This time Yunshao spoke louder, each word trembling:

“I don’t want to be emperor!”

She looked at the woman anxiously. “It was never supposed to be me. Why should I recognize some man who suddenly appeared as my father? They all hate us—they want us dead. Let’s run away together! We can go anywhere, live however we want, so long as we can leave Shengjing. Say it—say that the one who died in the fire wasn’t me. I’m a girl. If someone finds out…”

The woman rubbed her head gently and smiled. “Don’t worry, no one will ever discover your true identity. Inside the palace you have Fushou and Qinghui to help you. Outside, you are the late emperor’s only heir. Even if you’re a girl, still—”

She suddenly broke off, covering her mouth as a fit of coughing wracked her. Her hand clutched the table, veins standing out on the pale skin. Quickly she drew her hand back into her sleeve, hiding all traces, and met Yunshao’s worried eyes with a smile.

“Just a chill. Come, let’s continue. Sit, I’ll pour you some tea.”

“I once met the Prince of Luling. He has neither talent nor virtue—timid, useless, a straw bag. Worse, he’s close to the outer clans. If you don’t ascend the throne, the palace faction will surely push him into power. The court and the people have long suffered under the palace faction. As long as you conceal your identity and deliver evidence against them, everyone will help protect your secret.”

She spoke at length, but never once answered Yunshao’s plea to abandon the throne.

Realizing this, Yunshao’s tears fell in large drops. Stubbornly, she insisted:

“But I don’t want to be emperor! Teacher, let’s leave Shengjing together, just the two of us. What good is being emperor? I don’t want it!”

The woman fell silent for a moment, then asked softly:

“Shao’er, don’t you want revenge?”

Yunshao shook her head. “They’ve always bullied me. Dead or alive, I don’t care. I don’t like them. I…I just want to be with you.”

“But…what if I were going to die?”

Yunshao’s head jerked up, eyes wide with shock. Her lips parted, but no sound came out.

Across from her, the woman still smiled tenderly—but a line of scarlet slowly slipped from her lips, pale as paper.

Her hand slid from Yunshao’s grasp, falling limp—only for Yunshao to seize it desperately again.

The girl dropped to her knees before her, looking up. That drop of blood landed directly between her brows.

“Te–Teacher, what’s wrong?” She wiped at her forehead, then stared at the crimson on her palm. Bringing it to her nose, she gasped in disbelief. “You said it was just a chill!”

“Shao’er, won’t you avenge me?” The woman’s voice was still gentle, her head tilted, her smile so soft.

Kneeling on the ground, Yunshao’s face twisted in despair. She watched as that hand slipped further and further from her grasp—her one and only moment of courage to hold her teacher’s hand, the only time in her life…

Her tears fell like rain.

Wei Ying stood before the painted scroll, her heart just as conflicted.

Her gaze was drawn to the kneeling, silently weeping girl. She hardly noticed what her past self had been babbling in the scene. Honestly—still managing to talk so much while coughing blood. She almost had to admire herself.

So the emperor had been a crybaby since childhood.

She stared at the girl’s trembling shoulders, dazed. She couldn’t step six years into the past, shake that little crybaby’s shoulders, and say:

“Don’t cry. I’ll come back from the dead, you know. I’m the old envoy of yin and yang—I can fake my death better than anyone.”

Don’t cry. There are worse things than this.

It was only a false illusion anyway. Later, you’ll fall for someone else. You’ll live a brand new life. You’ll have a harem of beauties, six palaces filled with powdered concubines, ruling from the heights, turning clouds and rain. Why cling to this fleeting meeting of youth?

Don’t cry. You’re making my heart…too soft.

When she woke, Wei Ying sat in the darkness for a long time.

Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined—after cursing the emperor as a bastard so many times—that the most shameless bastard of all was actually herself.

She couldn’t help but ask:

“Was I poisoned by the Empress Dowager and her lot? No—that can’t be right. I clearly followed the white moonlight script in the end. So why did my mission fail?”

It didn’t make sense!

Hadn’t she acted moonlight enough? Hadn’t she died beautifully enough?

She ticked off her fingers, counting the classic white-moonlight tropes: “Look—I paved the way for her future. I gave her the hand-holding kill, the head-pat kill, the smile kill, the coughing-blood kill, the memory kill! Count them—was that not moonlight enough? And still the mission failed?”

Palace-Fight Chick: “Yeah, I can see it. You’re super professional. But I don’t know why it failed either.”

Wei Ying sat on her bed, angrily yanking at the blanket. “When I get back, I’m filing a complaint!”

She had thought her failure was due to some mistake on her part. But clearly, she had worked hard, been utterly dedicated. So what went wrong? A bug?

After a long silence, Palace-Fight Chick suddenly asked:

“Host, don’t you want revenge?”

Wei Ying gave a small “ah,” then slowly shook her head. She didn’t care how she died.

“Anyway, even if the emperor didn’t want the throne at first, the plot still corrected itself after I died. She became emperor obediently. Wait—” Wei Ying slapped her forehead, realization dawning. “Could it be because I poisoned myself early to push her into line?”

That was the kind of move she could have made back then—as a proper missioner, she’d do whatever it took to fix the script.

Palace-Fight Chick: “I don’t think that’s it.”

Wei Ying: “Huh?”

Palace-Fight Chick: “Host…I’ve actually been in this world for six years.”

Wei Ying tilted her head, brows knitting lightly.

The little chick’s words were too serious—so serious she almost couldn’t connect them with its silly image.

It continued: “After you died, I was dispatched here. At first, I tried to save your body. But that poison was too vicious. At the time your body wasn’t yet ruined, but your five organs had already rotted away.”

“I found records of that poison in this world. It’s called Xiang Jian Huan—‘Joy of Reunion.’”

Wei Ying propped her chin in her hand. “Sounds like a pretty name.”

The chick went on: “Once taken, it doesn’t kill instantly. The five organs slowly rot. The pain is unbearable—most victims can’t stand it, they kill themselves first. You’ve always feared pain. Even as a child, you’d cry for ages after a small fall. You’d never willingly take such a cruel poison.”

Wei Ying blinked. “That actually makes sense. But—how do you know I was afraid of pain as a child?”

Silence.

“And you’ve been here six years? Really? My life was worth that much?”

After a pause, the chick answered seriously: “Yes. It was.”

Wei Ying pouted. “Then tell me—how do you know about my childhood?”

A long silence followed. Finally, the chick said:

“Host, I can’t tell you. Even if you ask, I can’t. The program won’t let me.”

Wei Ying didn’t press further. Instead, she sighed, her voice faint with disappointment. “I see. You’re a system with secrets.” After a pause, she smiled softly. “It’s true—I was terribly afraid of pain as a child. Once I scraped my knee. It didn’t even hurt much, just a little skin broken. But I sat on the ground bawling like mad.”

A faint chuckle escaped her. “I was such a spoiled brat. My dad had bought me a little robot. It was frantic, circling around, trying to help me up and treat the wound. But I refused to move. Refused to get up.”

“My parents were both missioners. Always away. So they bought me this new-model robot. Its AI was advanced, its outer shell made of some material that looked and felt almost human. It looked like a pretty little girl, and it followed me everywhere.”

The chick said, “But you didn’t like it.”

Wei Ying nodded, then shook her head. “Not exactly dislike. But it was just a machine. I didn’t want a machine as my companion. That time I fell, the blood kept running, it tried to help, but I wouldn’t let it. When my parents came home from their mission, I told them the robot just stood there watching me cry, and never reached out to help.”

Her head lowered, guilt flickering in her eyes for the childish cruelty. “I slandered it. It couldn’t defend itself—it was just a machine. My father got angry, said he’d return it, have it scrapped as defective. A whole team of repairmen came to haul it away. They said faulty robots would be dismantled immediately. I…stopped them, and kept it.”

The chick asked: “Why keep it if you disliked it so much?”

Wei Ying sighed softly. “How could I hate a machine? I only thought, if the little robot was gone, maybe…my parents would come home more often to be with me.”

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