The Regent Forced Me to Become Emperor and Marry Her [GL Yuri] - Chapter 4

“Pork and Cabbage Stew with Glass Noodles.”

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Xie Yu’s hand began to tremble. The sharp metal glided lightly across Shen Changyin’s pale, slender neck, immediately drawing a thin line of blood that seeped out in a steady stream.

“Continue,” Shen Changyin commanded.

Xie Yu stopped. “You’re insane.”

“I told you to continue,” Shen Changyin insisted firmly.

“You’re a madwoman!” Xie Yu threw the arrowhead to the ground.

Her chest heaved as she gasped for breath. “You’re a pure-bred psychopath. I refuse to become one with you.”

“How disappointing,” Shen Changyin remarked, glancing at the arrowhead on the floor. “So weak. You hardly resemble the House of Xie.”

She waved her hand, and the Rebel Army surged into the room like a tidal wave.

“Take her back to Qinzheng Hall and lock her up. Let the sisters reunite.”

Someone immediately knocked Xie Yu unconscious, plunging her into an endless darkness.

Xie Yu knew she had been knocked unconscious and was dreaming, yet she couldn’t wake up.

Everything in the dream was shrouded in mist. She was bound behind a young woman whose face she couldn’t see, watching as the woman, a scholar who had been gnawing on a salted vegetable bun, entered the gates of the Capital City, walked into the Imperial Examination hall, and rose to become the Third Rank Scholar of the year, riding her horse along the Spring Riverbank.

She heard the woman whisper to her comrades that even for the sake of the old woman who had given her three flatbreads by the roadside, she would become a good official.

She said she had known hunger and wanted to try to ensure no one in the world would starve.

But one night, Imperial Guards dragged her from her rented room, and without explanation, she was transformed into a Medicinal Subject. For over a decade, she was passed between members of the imperial family, living in darkness, her life worse than death, until she finally found a chance to escape.

Under the Capital City’s long-missed sunlight, she inquired about the Third Rank Scholar who had once shaken the world ten years ago. All she heard were the people’s bitter accusations that the scholar was a reincarnated Evil Star who had offered herself to the Emperor’s bed, a woman with the talent to govern the world who had instead chosen to become a favored concubine. They claimed this had distracted the Emperor and Princesses from state affairs, plunging the realm into chaos and injustice.

“She didn’t,” the now-grown woman insisted, extending her hand to reveal hundreds of overlapping scars. “I didn’t. I was merely bled. I didn’t abandon myself. I didn’t harm you.”

“I am the Third Rank Scholar, not a plaything. I want to make sure none of you go hungry.”

Her words were both laughable and ignorant. The scars that crisscrossed her body were horrifying, like countless writhing tentacles. The onlookers were filled with both fear and rage. “This Evil Star has been drained of so much blood, yet she still lives?!”

“Quick, fetch a Daoist Master to slay her!”

“Evil Star, die! Give us back our Enlightened Ruler!”

The crowd seethed like boiling water, clamoring for her death. And so she was killed, dying in the streets, her clothes torn and filthy, worth less than a penny, dying at the hands of the people she had so desperately wanted to save.

Then she was reborn. After ten years of biding her time, she raised an army in rebellion, imprisoning the entire imperial family in the Heavenly Prison. Day and night, she personally tortured them, exhausting every cruel punishment known to man.

Once the Emperor and Princesses were dead, she seized absolute power, ruling the land with an iron fist, imposing crushing taxes, and even taking pleasure in watching her subjects starve.

Before long, her life force dwindled, her body deteriorating rapidly. On the eve of her death, she dispatched all her troops to suppress uprisings. She herself climbed to the highest point of the Moon Gazing Tower in the Capital City, slowly ate three flatbreads and a plate of pickled vegetables, and then leaped to her death.

Xie Yu plummeted with her, watching the ground rush closer, when she suddenly awoke.

Cold sweat beaded on her forehead as she sat up from the hard, cold ground. She realized she had already forgotten most of the dream. She had never known the girl’s name or appearance, and now she couldn’t even recall the surname of the mentally ill Emperor’s family. All she knew for certain was that it was a dark tale of rebirth and revenge.

The biggest question was: was the protagonist of that dream Shen Changyin?

The forced abdication, the cunning schemes, the obsessive cleanliness, and the aloofness all aligned with the reborn protagonist.

But the timeline didn’t match. The girl in the dream was already twenty-eight when she was reborn and launched her rebellion, while Shen Changyin was only in her early twenties.

Their personalities also differed. After her rebirth and descent into darkness, the protagonist’s psyche had completely shattered. Even with absolute power in her grasp, she found no joy, her soul consumed solely by destruction and vengeance.

While Shen Changyin’s mental state was far from healthy, she was nowhere near the protagonist’s state of living death, so obvious to anyone who looked at her.

Besides, Shen Changyin wore expensive clothes, lived in luxurious surroundings, burned incense, and even ate beef!

“Third Sister, what are you doing?” A voice suddenly broke through Xie Yu’s thoughts. A woman in red leaned over her. “You’re finally awake.”

Xie Yu rummaged through the remnants of her memories. Though she couldn’t recall this striking face with its arched brows and vibrant features, she deduced from the woman’s words and habit of wearing red that this was the Second Princess of the Xie Clan, her second elder sister.

She glanced around the spacious, high-ceilinged Qinzheng Hall and saw it was filled with captured royalty and nobility, with a large group of Daoists huddled in a corner.

The Rebel Army had indeed followed Shen Changyin’s orders and dumped her here.

“It’s nothing,” she said, shaking her head and glancing at the other princesses around her.

Was the Xie Clan truly the twisted royal family from her dream, the ones who turned protagonists into Medicinal Subjects? And was she really the third eldest among these monsters?

Before she could reach a conclusion, the doors of Qinzheng Hall were flung open. The prisoners, long accustomed to the dimness, instinctively raised their hands to shield their eyes from the blinding sunlight.

Only then did Xie Yu realize it was already the next day.

“Time to eat!”

The Rebel Army squad leader banged a gong repeatedly with an iron ladle, making Xie Yu feel like she was being fed like a pig.

The squad leader approached the princesses, giving Xie Yu several pointed looks before pressing a bowl into her hands and ladling in a scoop of rice and a scoop of vegetables.

The warm, savory aroma awakened Xie Yu’s stomach. She glanced down and saw pork and glass noodles stewed with napa cabbage!

From last night until now, she had finally understood: Shen Changyin’s Rebel Army truly treated their prisoners well!

Looking at this, Shen Changyin seemed even less like the protagonist of Xie Yu’s dream. In an era without the Geneva Convention, she was actually adhering to its principles.

The Squad Leader continued distributing food to the other princesses, while Xie Yu ate and observed.

The Eldest Princess, dressed in a lake-blue royal robe, glanced at the dish and waved her hand, refusing the coarse pottery bowl. “I’m vegetarian,” she said politely.

The Squad Leader didn’t press the issue and turned to offer food to the Second Princess.

The Second Princess grinned mischievously. “My elder sister is only vegetarian for health reasons. I think she’s wrong. The ancients said, ‘The sight of beauty delights the heart.’ Good moods naturally lead to good health. So, without beautiful attendants, I won’t eat.”

The Third Princess was Xie Yu herself.

The Fourth Princess, already prepared, declared stiffly, “I eat meat.”

“There’s meat in this,” the Squad Leader pointed out.

“But there’s also cabbage,” the Fourth Princess retorted. “If you know vegetarians only eat vegetables, why discriminate against us meat-eaters? I only eat pure meat.”
“The tiger is the king of beasts, and tigers only eat pure meat. I strive for strength, so I only eat meat.”

Xie Yu slowly set down her chopsticks.

True to form, the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Princesses didn’t disappoint her.

“Yesterday, you confiscated three bottles of elixirs from us, all meant to be taken with meals. Please return them.”

The Squad Leader had never seen anything like this. “Can’t you just eat some pickles with your rice?”

“Elixirs aren’t for eating with meals,” the Third Princess explained. “They’re taken before meals to neutralize any residual toxins in the food. Everyone knows that medicine is three parts poison, but few realize that everything in the world contains toxins. We need elixirs to purge them from our bodies.”

I get it now, the Squad Leader thought. This is the Malicious Chemistry Style.

This family had it all: vegetarian health nuts, beauty-obsessed health nuts, pure carnivore health nuts, and now, chemical health nuts.

They might not be full-blown psychopaths yet, but they were already far removed from normal people.

The Squad Leader began to doubt himself. He sniffed the fragrant dishes and muttered, “These are pigs I raised myself. Have my skills deteriorated?”

Fortunately, the other people in the hall weren’t as fussy as the Emperor’s family. From royalty and nobility to Daoists, everyone else ate their meals in peace.

After the meal, the doors of Qinzheng Hall were closed again, and the Second Princess of the Xie Clan moved closer to Xie Yu.

“Where did you go last night? I heard the Empress Regnant sent people everywhere to look for you.”

“I tried to escape the palace,” Xie Yu replied, “but the Rebel Army captured me.”

She glossed over the details of what had happened, claiming she had only acted in self-defense and inadvertently offended the Rebel Leader.

“What did you do to her?!” The Second Princess looked utterly panicked. “Do you even know what she’s done?”

“Let me tell you, she’s been building her power in the Northwest for three years now. The border people call her a Fiend. You think that’s just a joke?”

“Governor Guo of Hexi Region crossed paths with her. She slaughtered his entire family, over a hundred people, young and old, leaving no one alive. Their deaths were unspeakably gruesome. Afterward, she hung their corpses from a hundred willow trees as a warning.”

Xie Yu, who had been calm while savoring the strength the pork stew with vermicelli noodles gave her, couldn’t help but pale at the Second Princess’s exaggerated account. “But I cut her neck yesterday, and she didn’t kill me on the spot.”

“Could it all be just rumors?”

The Second Princess sneered. “Killing you would be too merciful. I want you to suffer a fate worse than death. Consider yourself lucky to receive even poisoned wine. Just pray she doesn’t tear you apart like Governor Guo.”

Xie Yu shifted uneasily.

Soon, another group of rebels arrived, led by the Eagle-Eyed Vixen who had captured her the previous day. She strode in and demanded, “Which of you is the Emperor’s favorite?”

The Second Princess immediately shoved Xie Yu forward. “My third sister.”

The Eagle-Eyed Vixen gave Xie Yu a mocking glance, then turned to the Second Princess. Drawing her saber, she grabbed a County Princess from the Imperial Clan, dragged her to the center of the hall, and slit her throat.

“Second Princess,” she growled, “we’ve been more than courteous to you. Don’t try to deceive us. I know the Third Princess is the least favored.”

Xie Yu realized the rebels knew far more about the Third Princess than she did herself.

The Second Princess abandoned her charade and truthfully pointed out the Fifth Princess. The Fifth Princess’s maternal family was the Chancellor, and she had been raised in luxury since birth. Skilled in both scholarship and archery, she possessed a captivating beauty that made her the Emperor’s favorite.

When the rebels dragged her to her feet, she offered no resistance, silently following them out.

The palace hall remained silent for over an hour.

“Shen Changyin is going to negotiate with the Empress Regnant,” the Second Princess suddenly whispered, nudging the Eldest Princess’s arm.

The Eldest Princess closed her eyes briefly, acknowledging the statement.

The Second Princess turned to Xie Yu. “You know, given the current situation, even if she demanded your death as a show of anger to the Empress Regnant, the Empress Regnant would agree, right?”

Xie Yu remained silent, already sensing the Second Princess was deliberately trying to intimidate her.

“I’m serious,” the red-robed woman said gravely. “The Empress Regnant would agree. If Shen Changyin killed us, she would naturally be condemned by the world, and all the feudal lords could rally under banners to punish her. She wouldn’t end well. But that would only happen after we’re dead. No amount of condemnation can bring the Empress Regnant or us back to life.”

“A person only has one life, even the Empress Regnant.”

“Though I don’t know why, everyone knows she hates our House of Xie. Even if she negotiates with the Empress Regnant because she wants power more, that hatred still needs an outlet. You’re that outlet.”

The Second Princess patted Xie Yu’s shoulder. “Sacrifice one to save the lives of the entire family. How virtuous.”

Xie Yu grabbed her sleeve, executed an over-the-shoulder throw, and began a rear-naked choke.

“Is this fun?” she asked calmly.

Is threatening me fun?

The Second Princess’s beautiful eyes rolled back, her face gradually flushing crimson, then turning a liverish purple. Her hands beat frantically against the floor, desperate to beg for mercy but unable to utter a sound.

The Eldest Princess tried to intervene, but Xie Yu looked up. “One more move, and you’re next.”

The Eldest Princess froze.

The palace doors suddenly swung open. A eunuch, formerly the Emperor’s personal attendant, announced in a drawn-out voice, “Imperial Edict!”
Beside her, Shen Changyin stood in moon-white robes, her long black hair cascading like a waterfall, watching with detached amusement.

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