The knocking outside the door once again resounded, breaking some of the lingering intimacy within the room.
Qin Jiujiu gently tried to push Xie Jing away, only to find that the wounds on his chest and shoulders were now scabbed over with blood.
"Your injuries..."
Xie Jing had already gotten up, his icy gaze fixed on the door. "Wait!" he said, directing these words at the person outside.
Then, he quickly shifted to a tender expression. "You should sleep in more, your Highness has had a strenuous night..."
The blush on Qin Jiujiu's face had not faded. Now, his brazen gaze was fixed on her, and her body beneath the covers was completely bare.
"Shut up!" She hid herself under the quilt, not wanting him to see.
Xie Jing chuckled. "Alright, whatever my Princess says goes."
His smile lingered, and Qin Jiujiu remained hidden beneath the quilt for a long time. Only when the room grew quiet did she cautiously push the covers aside.
She revealed only her eyes, which darted around curiously. Seeing that Xie Jing was nowhere in sight, she pulled the quilt back and sat up.
"System..."
"Host, is something wrong?"
Qin Jiujiu found it difficult to articulate. She stammered, "Um... did you see anything last night?"
After she blurted it out, the silence that followed as she waited for the system's response felt excruciatingly long, and her face burned.
"Host, rest assured, we automatically filter out such content..."
Qin Jiujiu relaxed, only to hear the system's next words, "Host, there's good news. The villain's favorability has reached eighty percent..."
"And the remaining twenty percent?"
She could clearly feel Xie Jing's genuine affection for her, so why was it only eighty percent?
"Because he hasn't regained his memories as Xie Jing yet!"
This explanation resolved Qin Jiujiu's confusion, but her brows furrowed. The Xie Jing with his drastically changed personality now was neither the Yue Bei Yang who had regained his memories, nor the Xie Jing who had his memories!
"Will he remember this dream-like memory after he regains his memories in the future?" Qin Jiujiu asked cautiously, a growing unease spreading through her.
"Of course! All four of you will carry this memory, and it will even affect the future plot!"
Qin Jiujiu felt slightly reassured, but her heart suddenly sank again. "Is the story nearing its end..."
The final part of the story took place in the Imperial City. The Imperial City was in turmoil, and Xi Liu City was captured by the Man Luo Kingdom, leaving Liu Jin as an orphan. After the dream sequence, Xie Jing had turned black-hearted and forcibly kidnapped Bai Qianluo, even injuring Xie Yun in the process...
The Xie family and Xi Liu City experienced immense upheaval simultaneously. The Liu family was also annihilated, and the second female lead, along with Xie Yun, journeyed to the Imperial City...
The system transmitted the subsequent plot to Qin Jiujiu in one go. She was overcome with a splitting headache.
After a long while, Qin Jiujiu regained her senses and asked the system, "With Xie Yun's current strength, he shouldn't be able to defeat Xie Jing, nor should he be able to prevent the chaos in the Imperial City!"
The system responded with a sigh of helplessness. This was a bug in the author's writing. They had created such a mysterious and powerful villain in Xie Jing but failed to provide the protagonist with opportunities to level up. In the end, it was merely stated that Xie Yun found the Xie family's heirloom and his cultivation suddenly improved significantly.
Furthermore, he ultimately defeated Xie Jing alongside Bai Qianluo.
Xie Jing died with a sword through his heart, wielded by Bai Qianluo!
"Host, plot transmission complete!"
After reading the entire plot, Qin Jiujiu recalled how Xie Jing in the original story had obsessively wanted to keep Bai Qianluo by his side. In his desire to obtain her, he had learned to marry like an ordinary man, only to be stabbed to death by Bai Qianluo during the wedding ceremony.
Her eyes welled up with sadness, and tears involuntarily streamed down her face. Although she knew it was the Xie Jing of the original plot, her heart still felt an uncontrollable suffocating sensation.
When the mission was completed, she would have to leave...
Or, if she failed the mission, she would be left in this foreign world, wandering as a remnant soul.
Either ending caused her pain, but at least, if she could change Xie Jing's fate, he would still have his brother, Xie Yun, and would not die tragically by Bai Qianluo's sword!
The system, of course, could hear Qin Jiujiu's thoughts. It silently mused, "Host, returning is impossible..."
However, Qin Jiujiu could not hear its thoughts.
"Xiao Ru'er, why have you seemed so dejected lately?"
Yue Nan Sang saw Qin Jiujiu's furrowed brow and knew she was in low spirits, but couldn't pinpoint the reason.
"It's nothing..." To make Yue Nan Sang believe her, Qin Jiujiu offered a smile.
Yue Nan Sang's expression did not ease much. "Do you want me to get that mirror for you? Look how fake your smile is!"
Qin Jiujiu stopped pretending. Time had been passing faster and faster. Outside An Zhou, snow had already covered the ground, turning everything white. The faster time passed, the closer the story was to its end.
Because of her involvement, this story had undergone some changes.
Now, to outsiders, Yue Bei Yang and Xing Ru appeared to be deeply in love. Xing Zhan had not yet rebelled as in the original plot, and they were merely waiting for Xing Ru to give birth to secure greater power legitimately.
This greatest change meant that An Zhou had not fallen into chaos, Xing Ru had not died because of Yue Bei Yang, and Yue Bei Yang had not overthrown Xing Zhan under the pretext of rebellion and then executed him!
In the original plot, Xie Jing was the first to regain his memories.
But now, he clearly had not.
In this situation, Qin Jiujiu naturally worried that she, single-handedly, might not be able to break this illusion. If the illusion could not be broken, then all of them would be trapped within it...
Looking at Yue Nan Sang before her, Qin Jiujiu hesitated, the words catching in her throat. She suspected Yue Nan Sang would simply think she had gone mad to have such outlandish thoughts.
After all, for Yue Nan Sang, she had grown up here, and people naturally accepted memories they were born with more readily.
"Sang Sang, I'm really fine. I'm just feeling a bit stuffy staying in the palace..."
Hearing this, Yue Nan Sang suggested, "Why don't we go outside and build snowmen?"
Snowmen?
So snowmen also existed in this An Zhou illusion?
It wasn't until Yue Nan Sang pulled her out of the door, the cold wind biting at her, that the warmth from being near the fire on her face gradually dissipated. Her consciousness became clearer.
"Xiao Ru'er!"
Yue Nan Sang grabbed a handful of snow from the ground, rolled it into a small ball, and threw it at Xing Ru.
Xing Ru didn't have time to react and was hit squarely on the shoulder by the snowball. Snow landed on her face, and she felt a sudden chill. She shivered.
"Why didn't you dodge? We used to love playing this when we were kids..."
Seeing this, Qin Jiujiu quickly grabbed a handful of snow from the ground and aimed for Yue Nan Sang's shoulder, throwing it.
In an instant, snowflakes flew everywhere.
Laughter and joy echoed from the courtyard of the Second Prince's Palace as the two of them played.