C59 — Chaos

The king was a man with a small moustache and a little belly, probably in his thirties.

 

From his appearance, he should have been a handsome man when he was a teenager, and even now he wasn’t ugly; it was just that his body management wasn’t very good, and when his belly grew, a worldly immortal man turned into a greasy uncle.

 

He was looking at his new clothes in front of a wide-eyed young maid, observing himself with the reflection in the maid’s pupils.

 

 

The new clothes did cover up the belly quite well, making it look slimmer, but no matter how much they covered up the belly, the double chin was still there; how could it look good?

 

When he saw Mu Sichen, he immediately showed his new clothes and asked joyfully, “Queen, how is my outfit? Does it have 80% of the elegance of my youth?”

 

Mu Sichen recalled what the queen had done and thought that she was probably a serious person who liked to control people, so she coldly said, “Compared to appearance, the king should be more concerned about state affairs.”

 

The king’s expression fell, and he said unhappily, “As long as I deal with state affairs, I must have meetings with ministers, I must go on army patrols, and how am I going to meet people without good-looking clothes? The queen got rid of all the mirrors in the palace; I can’t even see myself; who knows if I will be compared to those handsome soldiers? I won’t go!”

 

Mu Sichen also felt that the queen’s approach was a bit overcorrected, and it was better to be lenient than to block it. There was no such thing as not giving a trace of affection, and destroying all the mirrors was a trick that a donor had thought of before.

 

 

So Mu Sichen said, “There is an octopus on the shore of Daming Lake.”

 

He watched the king’s expression.

 

“What kind of lake is Daming Lake? Is the Queen allowing me to go to the lake and look in the mirror?” The king’s eyes lit up.

 

Looking at him like this, Mu Sichen knew that the king wasn’t He Fei.

 

There was no telling where this kid had actually run off to.

 

Mu Sichen said with a cold face, “I mean, I cast a spell on the lake in the back garden, and now the lake can’t reflect any image. But if you are willing to handle the affairs of the state properly, I will let you look into the lake once.”

 

“Really? I’ll go and do something!” The king immediately ran out.

 

Mu Sichen looked at the wide-eyed maid who was used as a mirror by the king, and his eyes swept over her exaggeratedly large eyes, not seeing anything suspicious.

 

At this time, the queen’s middle-aged maid said in a deadpan voice, “Queen, you shouldn’t have allowed the king to use the lake as a mirror.”

 

“If he’s doing his job properly, why shouldn’t he look into the lake?” Mu Sichen looked at the middle-aged maid suspiciously.

 

This maid knew an exceptional amount of things, somewhat in line with the ability of the big eye to know what he saw, and Mu Sichen suspected that she might have a relationship with the simple pupil dependent.

 

 

The maid sighed wordlessly, ”Queen, as soon as the king looks in the mirror, he will definitely be dissatisfied with his clothes and will definitely make new clothes again. Making new clothes and looking in the mirror again, caught in an infinite cycle, it’ll be impossible for him to deal with matters of state.”

 

 

Mu Sichen: “……”

 

 

The king was just too much of a beauty lover.

 

After this scene of meeting with the king, Mu Sichen only blinked his eyes before the story turned the page.

 

He reappeared in front of the door of the king’s room, and the middle-aged maid behind him said to him, “Queen, I have spied that the king is really not satisfied with his new clothes, and he has found three new tailors to make new clothes, and now these three new tailors are taking the king’s measurements.”

 

Finally starting to go with the plot, Mu Sichen’s spirit was lifted.

 

Although the two swindlers in the original book had become three tailors and the number of people had changed, the overall change should not be significant.

 

 

As soon as he entered, he saw a fit tailor saying to the king, “King, the problem now is not whether there are any good-looking clothes; it’s that you should lose weight and get fit! We have set up a strict fitness program for you, and when you reach your goal, you will look good in whatever you wear.”

 

Mu Sichen, who was stepping on a small high heel, nearly fell to the ground.

 

Where was the liar? How did it turn into a fitness trainer? What exactly had this plot been changed to?

 

It was probably a donor that entered the book and turned into one of the two con artists tailors, and in order to change the plot to not be a con artist, they changed their career to become a fitness trainer.

 

“But this plan of yours is too strict; I’ll get hungry if I only eat that much food in a day.” The king said it in a very no-nonsense manner.

 

“King, you love your handsome looks so much; can’t you work a little harder for them?” The fit tailor endeavored to persuade.

 

The king’s eyes were lifeless as he said, “Can’t there be clothes that make me look 30 pounds thinner when I put them on?”

 

 

One of the three tailors couldn’t stand this king and rolled his eyes and turned his head sideways, just in time to see the dignified Queen Mu Sichen.

 

The tailor looked at Mu Sichen and revealed a hesitant look, then looked at Mu Sichen again and “pfft” laughed a little.

 

Mu Sichen also felt that this tailor looked familiar and spoke, “What? Is this Queen very funny?”

 

“Of course not, Queen; you are very beautiful, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” The tailor emphasized the word ‘woman’ and said, “There is a lake called Daming Lake near the village I live in, and you, Queen, are as beautiful as the… mermaid in the Daming Lake legend.”

 

Once he said this, Mu Sichen knew that he was He Fei.

 

So Mu Sichen coldly said, “Mermaid? I did hear a legend when I was a kid that after catching a mermaid, you have to ‘hang him on the city wall for ten days’, otherwise he will jump into the sea and turn into foam.”

 

Hanging on the city wall for ten days was the code word agreed upon by the two, and Tailor He Fei blinked at Mu Sichen, signaling that he had received the code word.

 

“Beautiful Queen, may I make clothes for you?” He Fei asked.

 

“Daring!” The middle-aged maid stood out and chided, “The Queen’s clothes are tailored by the palace’s royal tailors; where is it the turn of you folk tailors?”

 

He Fei wasn’t angry but said, “We are very famous tailors with a great reputation, and the king trusts us, doesn’t he?”

 

The king nodded and said, “Queen, they are the best folk tailors I’ve hired, so just let me make a set, and you’ll make one by the way.”

 

The middle-aged maid was about to say something when Mu Sichen grabbed the lead and said, “Then you will be the one to design the clothes for me.”

 

The king and queen had spoken, so the middle-aged maid couldn’t say anything else and could only lower her head, a trace of unwillingness flashing in her eyes.

 

 

Mu Sichen said to the king, “Is it alright if I ask this tailor to make the clothes?”

 

“It’s rare that you, Queen, also want to make beautiful clothes, so of course I’ll agree.” The king waved his hand and said, “I have two tailors here, and that’s enough.”

 

Mu Sichen immediately took He Fei back to the room, chased away the follower middle-aged maid, and sat down on a chair to let out a long breath.

 

He Fei, on the other hand, held his stomach and laughed: “Hahahahahahaha, you’re actually a queen, and you even have a sense of being a cold beauty, hahahahaha!”

 

Mu Sichen coldly said, “Didn’t you also become a king’s concubine? Don’t laugh. What did you do, and what things did you encounter after you entered the game?”

 

He Fei laughed a bit more before getting down to business: “I’m not actually a tailor; I’m a prince. As soon as I entered the book, the prince’s mother told me to come to your country to marry the princess. But having heard that the Queen is a beautiful and vicious witch, my mother told me to be careful and brought me a dagger, a shield, and a bottle of antidote.”

 

He unzipped his backpack and took out these items to show Mu Sichen.

 

He Fei’s shield was smooth like a mirror, able to reflect a human face. Mu Sichen said, “Wrap the shield, don’t let it reflect, and even more importantly, it can’t be seen by the king, or else he’ll have to look in the mirror again to buy new clothes.”

 

“It’s been hidden for a long time,” He Fei said. “I’ve heard since I came to this country that the vicious queen lost her heart and destroyed all the mirrors in the country, and also used sorcery so that the water would not show the reflection of a person, and I’ve been advised to put the shield away.”

 

Mu Sichen frowned.

 

 

He had been turning pages and had no idea how many days had passed. But he always felt that it seemed like only a day or two had passed since the water’s reflection didn’t appear; hadn’t the news traveled a bit fast?

 

 

He continued, “I’ve been looking for you and couldn’t find you. It just so happens that the king was looking for a tailor, and I figured the king is the central figure in this story, so it’s always good to be by his side. It just so happened that two tailors who aspired to be fitness instructors were going to enter the palace, so I gave them a little money and mixed them into a trio of tailors to enter the palace.”

 

So far, the story was trying hard to move closer to The Emperor’s New Clothes, even though it was getting messy.

 

The queen, the captain of the guards, the maids of honor, the tailors—all of these people had presumably been possessed by donors, and everyone changed the ending of the story in various ways.

 

In the future, there might also be outspoken ministers and children who didn’t speak, all of whom had the potential to change the ending of the story.

 

But to Mu Sichen, the most important thing wasn’t the story ending, but whether or not Simple Pupil Dependent was here.

 

And if a simple pupil dependent stayed in a book, its purpose must be to hide from Shen Jiyue’s pursuit, as well as secretly accumulate power for the pillar and take advantage of Shen Jiyue’s relative weakness to drive away Shen Jiyue’s power and re-support the pillar.

For this reason, the simple pupil dependent must repel elements related to Shen Jiyue, such as the moon and mirrors.

 

From this point of view, the most likely simple pupil dependent was actually the Empress herself, played by Mu Sichen.

 

Mu Sichen was certain that he wasn’t the Simple Pupil Dependent, so the middle-aged maid beside him who constantly urged him to destroy the mirror became the biggest suspect.

 

As Mu Sichen pondered, He Fei said, ”This place isn’t as dangerous as you think. Ah, I’ve traveled all the way here very smoothly. Did you guess wrong? Why don’t we quickly get an ending and leave here?”

 

“No.” Mu Sichen touched his belt.

 

If he hadn’t met the little octopus, he would probably be like He Fei, thinking that this place was just a fairy tale that had been changed many times.

 

But the little octopus was here.

 

The little octopus must have been brought in by one of Qin Zu’s followers, but why was the little octopus left alone in the sea and also lost one of its tentacles before being caught by the fisherman?

 

Did the follower die in the book? Or did the follower change his beliefs in an invisible way and couldn’t continue to carry Qin Zu’s power, and he left the book alone, leaving the little octopus here.

 

Whichever reason it was, it proved that this place was a seemingly uneventful but actually dangerous place.

 

What should be done? Who on earth was the Simple Pupil Dependent? Could it be the middle-aged maid?

 

Mu Sichen subconsciously touched the blue belt around his waist.

 

“Did you hear the news on the way that the octopus that can grant wishes is in the hands of the Queen?” Mu Sichen asked.

 

“No,”  He Fei said.

 

No? Mu Sichen frowned. It was clear that he had borrowed the power of the octopus only after he had obtained it so that the lake had no way to reflect a human being. Why was it rumored that only the Queen could do magic but not the existence of the octopus?

 

The clues were too few; continuing to think in vain would not lead to progress; he needed more information.

 

Mu Sichen made up his mind; he said in a loud voice, “Someone come.”

 

The door to the room opened, and the middle-aged maid walked in with a serious look and glared at He Fei.

 

Mu Sichen simply asked her single-handedly, “This tailor told me that nowadays, they are all saying that the Queen is a witch who can make the water unable to reflect human reflections; I should have only done this to the palace’s lake, so why is the news spreading like this? Have you heard this rumor?”

 

The maid bowed her head and said, “I just heard about it from the other maids.”

 

“You have always been well-informed; even you are not sure who spread the rumor? This matter should have just happened a few days ago, right?” Mu Sichen asked.

 

Servant: “It’s only been three days, and surprisingly, it’s already spread outside the palace. It should have been spread by a certain underling of the head of the guards; I’m going to question them.”

 

It had only been three days, and the news had already reached the ears of Prince He Fei, who was far away in a foreign country; if no one had pushed the matter, how could it have spread so quickly?

 

But what was the purpose of smearing him? It looked a bit like trying to use public opinion to push the Queen to allow people to use the mirror.

 

But the Queen destroyed the mirror; wasn’t it a beneficial thing for the Simple Pupil dependent?

 

On the contrary, it wasn’t beneficial to Shen Jiyue.

 

This story kept turning the pages with all the nighttime scenes all inside the palace, and the only outdoor activity was still during the day when the king showed off his non-existent new outfit to the entire population.

 

The moon never appeared in the entire story, greatly suppressing Shen Jiyue’s power.

 

If the mirror was also destroyed, Shen Jiyue would have absolutely no medium to exert his power here. If Shen Jiyue’s dependents had come to this book, they would try to stop the destruction of the mirror.

 

In this view, the maid who supported the queen to destroy the mirror became extraordinarily reliable.

 

No, it wasn’t necessarily reliable; the maid might be related to the simple pupil dependent.

 

Things became complicated, and Mu Sichen decided to put other things aside for the time being and focus on confirming the maid’s identity. He asked, “The story of the fisherman and the octopus is not even clear to the minister; how do you know it so clearly?”

 

Servant girl: “The story of the fisherman has been spread all over; every maid in the palace knows about it, and I heard about it from them as well.”

 

The maid answered without a hint of hesitation.

 

---