A soft, cool kiss landed on her lips, and Yun Feiwan could even detect a faint scent of cedarwood, a fragrance that stood in stark contrast to his rugged appearance.
This was her first kiss!!!
"Smack!"
Yun Feiwan’s hand flew up instinctively, striking the man across the cheek.
The force wasn't great, but the insult was profound.
Xuan Junheng sat there, clutching one side of his face, looking at her with a mix of shock and grievance, much like a wronged young bride.
Her brain short-circuited again, and she scrambled to climb out of his arms in a panic.
"Ouch! Miss, you... take it easy..."
Xuan Junheng gasped in pain. In her haste to get up, Yun Feiwan had nervously pressed down on his freshly bandaged wound.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."
She squirmed in a fluster, her fair, delicate face flushing as red as a ripe tomato, looking adorable enough to bite.
Yun Feiwan felt utterly defeated. Even though she was a modern woman with progressive ideas, that had been her first kiss!
As she thought this, the words slipped right out of her mouth!
"Boohoo, that was my first kiss! My first kiss... and just like that, it’s gone in a daze? Although he is very handsome, I suppose I didn’t lose out, and his lips smelled so good, but..."
A pleasant, low chuckle reached her ears, and only then did Yun Feiwan remember that the Truth System she was bound to had forced her to speak her true thoughts aloud.
Her already crimson cheeks burned even brighter.
Just as she clapped her hands over her mouth in mortification, a jade pendant was pressed into her palm.
The cool touch provided some relief to her hand, which was burning from embarrassment.
She lowered her gaze to see a round, cyan jade pendant of superior quality, with the character "Heng" engraved on the surface in seal script.
"My thanks, Miss... *cough, cough*... for saving my life today. This is my pendant. Should you have any need in the future, you may present it at Prince Ying's Estate to seek assistance."
At some point, Xuan Junheng had stood up, his face pale, and he gently helped Yun Feiwan to her feet with gentlemanly grace.
Despite the roguish grin still lingering on his lips, his entire demeanor had shifted entirely from his previous playful air.
He bowed slightly and offered a formal salute with cupped hands before straightening up, his beautiful eyes filled with sincerity.
"As for that 'repayment in kind'... Miss, there will be plenty of time for that later. I have noted it in my heart. Until we meet again~"
Leaving those words behind, Xuan Junheng vaulted out the window and vanished into the vast moonlight.
In ancient times, could everyone use light-foot skills?
Besides, he was a man who had been critically injured only minutes ago!
Just like that... he flew away?
After a brief moment of stunned silence, Yun Feiwan gritted her teeth and ran to the window. The cool night breeze brushed past her temples, dispersing the heat on her cheeks, and she couldn't help but grumble to herself:
So much for thinking he was a decent person; he had to tease her one last time before leaving!
He really was a playboy!
With a dissatisfied huff, Yun Feiwan slammed the window shut. After a quick wash, she collapsed onto the bed.
Having just transmigrated into a hellish scenario, she hadn't had a moment's rest all night. Now, she finally had the time to properly organize her current situation.
First, she had to figure out what this system in her head actually was, and then map out the plot that followed.
In the original story, the female lead was forced to marry in place of her elder sister, Gu Ruoxi. Almost all of her tragic experiences stemmed from this sister’s cutthroat competition.
If she remembered correctly, Gu Ruoxi was a transmigrator who served as a supporting character, using her modern memories as a cheat code to rival the female lead and as a major tool for tormenting her in the early stages of the book.
After all, this was a "death-march" novel; naturally, the earlier chapters were designed to make the heroine suffer as much as possible.Thinking of how she would eventually be bled, have her eyes gouged out, and be thrown into an enemy army camp as a military prostitute to be played with and abused, Yun Feiwan could not stop a chill from running through her body.
"System! System, system!"
She tried calling out to the system in her mind, figuring that since it was a system—even if it was a bit of a scam—it still counted as a cheat, right?
"Beep, beep, beep... Host, this little darling is here! You can call me Darling!"
After a moment, a milky, childish voice echoed in her mind: "How may I help you, Host? Truth Darling is at your service the whole way through!"
Yun Feiwan touched her head curiously and asked in her mind: "Um... Darling, what do you actually do?"
The system proudly hummed twice, and even without seeing its form, one could still imagine it wiggling its little bottom.
"This little darling is an extremely powerful system! By binding with me, the Host can not only force others to tell the truth, but also ward off danger and know the plot inside out!
"Of course, correspondingly, the Host can only speak the truth yourself, and you need to earn points by speaking your true thoughts.
"Points will only increase when the other person experiences strong emotional fluctuations due to the Host's honest words. Once you reach one million points, the Host can return to the real world!
"Not only that, if the Host can successfully navigate the plot and fulfill the heroine's wish, you can even make a wish to the Main God!"
At the mention of the real world, Yun Feiwan's curious eyes suddenly dimmed.
She had grown up in an orphanage; the only person who could tug at her heartstrings was the director who had raised her, her sole source of warmth.
Yet even that only relative had fallen ill with cancer last year.
Yun Feiwan had learned numerous skills just to earn an extra coin for her grandmother's medical treatment.
At the same time, she had diligently studied medicine, hoping to conquer cancer as quickly as possible. That had been her only reason for living up until now.
"A wish... can I make any wish?"
"Any wish at all, including bringing the dead back to life."
The system's words ignited a spark of hope in Yun Feiwan's eyes. She had thought she would never be able to leave this man-eating ancient world!
"What is the original owner's wish?"
"Not to be the heroine of a tear-jerking tragedy, and to change the ending of being abused to death.
Besides speaking the truth, the Host needs to maintain your character persona while fulfilling the original owner's wish."
The system's remarkably human, childish voice was simply too adorable, finally easing the tension that had gripped Yun Feiwan's heart all night.
Having grown up amid hardship and filth, she had spent over twenty years of her past life surviving just like this.
Changing the plot and staging a comeback—doesn't that sound rather interesting?
Most importantly, she wanted to save her grandmother!
Ending her conversation with the system, Yun Feiwan quickly reviewed the upcoming plot in her mind.
Although the opening had been disrupted, the plot hadn't deviated too much yet. Next came the day when the male lead would take his wife back to her maiden home.
Even though she had been thrown into a brothel now, protocol could not be broken; tomorrow, Xuantian Ze would surely come to the brothel to fetch her back to the Minister's Estate!
At that time, her legitimate half-sister Gu Ruoxi would seize the opportunity to cry to the male lead, not only slandering the heroine for stealing her position as the imperial prince's consort, but also framing her for intentionally scalping her with boiling tea.
This was the second major plot point of the novel, one that would ruin the heroine's reputation entirely, branding her as a jealous older sister and a wicked concubine-born daughter, leaving her to suffer endless humiliation from then on.
At this thought, Yun Feiwan, lying on the bed, curved her lips into a smile.
Faced with this framing, let the storm rage even harder...