.6 – He had been a giant plug-in in the last life, so this lifetime he was really unlucky

Zhenguo General’s Manor was a very mysterious place. The Zhan family did not have many members, and when it came to Zhan Shaoxi’s generation, he was the only one left.

Zhan Shaoxi was a young hero and liked to stay in the barracks, seldom returning to stay at home. Even after reaching adulthood, he took no concubines or mistresses because he had no parents to arrange these things for him. After Wenren Hong married into the family, she could be considered to be the only wife in the back court, so the manor was still very empty.

Right now, everyone in the entire General’s Manor knew that there was disharmony between the General and his wife...

It could not be regarded as disharmony, but on the night of the wedding, the General annoyed his wife, and so he had been continuously rejected and left outside the door.

After the trip back to visit the Emperor, news once again came from the back court. The Lady had saved a young and immature teenager. He was bright and cute, but did not like to talk, and after he had woken up, he was full of hostility towards everything around him. It was only when the Lady approached that his temperament would become more gentle.

This made the General extremely angry. He walked around with an icy expression all day long, and the sour smell of vinegar filled the entire General’s Manor.

The servants really enjoyed watching the funny interactions between the couple. Most of them had watched the General grow up, and always felt somewhat hopeless about their General’s difficult and cold-tempered personality. They were surprised to find that the newly married Lady could make the General think of something other than running off to the barracks all day, and were even more shocked to discover that she could make the General suffer a setback.

They were quite delighted to be spectators.

Xue Ling did not care what the people in the Manor thought of him. It was only that occasionally when he passed by, they would look at him with gazes filled with worship, which he found to be quite strange. Then, he promptly tossed those gazes to the back of his head.

No matter how the plot changed, the personalities of the male protagonists would not change much. The child Xue Ling picked up was based off the trends from the year that it was written, and the damned child was very adorable when he was being domineering. Xue Ling guessed that the popularity of this loyal puppy should have been very high, and this fellow was one hundred percent a worshipper of beauty. After opening his eyes, the most beautiful person he saw was Xue Ling, so he liked to pester him. When his wounds had not yet recovered, he wanted Xue Ling to comfort and accompany him, and after his wounds were healed, he liked to follow behind Xue Ling.

He would act like a spoiled child, pretend to be obedient, staring at others with his pair of large and innocent eyes. Even Xue Ling, who felt that he had very strong willpower, would sometimes find himself turning soft-hearted under that gaze.

Often, when this happened, the General who was suffering terribly but still insisted on maintaining his dignity could only bite his handkerchief in the distance and mentally imagine stabbing the young man named Xia Yang half to death with a knife.

Xue Ling thought it was fun to tease this little loyal dog, and he could even bully Zhan Shaoxi at the same time. With that in mind, he felt that he might as well play a bigger game this time around.

Since the charm of the heroine was so great, then he would use his charm as well, and they could compete. The main plot of this book revolved around the heroine reeling in the seven men, and as long as he took them away in advance, the female protagonist would not get their hearts even if she managed to get their bodies.

In any case, he was already the "Royal Princess". It would be boring if he didn’t properly make use of this "female" status.

System: “...” The host’s ideas were becoming more and more dangerous. Why would he purposely make it more difficult for himself? “Does the great host remember that he is a married woman...”

As soon as the system mentioned this, Xue Ling’s eyes turned to the General who stood outside the pavilion pretending to practice martial arts, but in actually had kept his gaze fixed on Xue Ling as he lounged within the pavilion the whole time.

“You can’t seduce other men if you’ve already become a married woman?"

System: “...”

Xue Ling sneered. “Did I say I was planning to cheat?”

System: “...”

“Do you know what silent attraction is? Do you know what a white moonlight is? Being the unattainable perfection in someone’s heart?" He lips curved up as he smiled lazily, the smile so brilliant that Zhan Shaoxi felt his eyes hurt. It was clear that the other side was laughing, but why did he feel his heart getting colder and colder? “Do you know what the expression ’the things you can see but cannot touch are the best’ means?"

System: “...”

Its host could always be very reasonable, and make it so that it was unable to come up with a way to respond.

“But it will be difficult to attract certain people with the host’s current identity as the Royal Princess... For example, male number two... He’s a modest gentleman, and would absolutely not be interested in a married woman.”

There is some truth to this. Xue Ling touched his chin and said, “Then I’ll approach him as a man. Making someone bent is also really fun."

System: “...” In the future, a whole forest of green will appear on the General’s head.

xiin: Forest of green - reference to the green hat, which is a metaphor for someone who is being cuckolded.

“Princess?” Xue Ling was still deep in thought when Xia Yang returned with a bunch of flowers. He stuffed the potted flowers into Xue Ling’s chest and laughed brilliantly as he said, “Here you are, beautiful flowers for a beautiful rainbow.”

xiin: Xue Ling’s name in this world is Wenren Hong. ’Hong’ means rainbow.

The tip of Zhan Shaoxi’s sword overshot; he had made a mistake. He returned his sword back into its scabbard, turned his head, and stared at Xia Yang with cold eyes.

This person was deeply hidden. He was clearly black-hearted to the bone, but pretended to be a little white flower in front of Xue Ling, acting like an innocent child, and performing some childish acts in order to please him.

This kind of thing made Zhan Shaoxi very unhappy. That’s his wife! Normally, no man other than himself should be able to get so close to her, but now that teenager’s head was so close!

The more he looked, the more he wanted to cut off the other person’s head.

The system settled itself on Xue Ling’s shoulder and silently reported, “Your man’s blackening value has maxed out."

Xue Ling nodded. “Then let him blacken. I can’t wait for him to rush over and lock me into a small black room day and night." Having spoken, he squinted, and what was clearly a lazy appearance suddenly became more seductive, making Xia Yang who was looking on from the side also narrow his eyes. “Say, if he really tries to force me and strips off my clothing to discover that my gender is not what he expected, what would his expression be like?"

System: “...” Host, you are getting more and more wicked. What kind of play was this? The relationship between husband and wife was really puzzling. “Then what about the young man who is also coveting your ** next to you..."

“If he really has the ability, he should go back and grab the throne to send troops to Xi Country. Kill Zhan Shaoxi on the battlefield, and then ask the Emperor to send over this Princess in order to make peace.”

System: “...” What the *! What kind of ideas wandered through its host’s mind?

“If we’re going to play, we should make it a grand game~" Xue Ling accepted the flowers that Xia Yang held in his hands, and tucked a flower behind his ear as he praised: "Yangyang is beautiful too.”

Xia Yang face was immediately full of smiles, looking incredibly young and fresh. That smiling face was so cute, it was impossible to tell that it was all black inside.

Xia Yang was a Royal Prince from neighbouring Xia Country, and the Emperor’s favorite at that. He had been surrounded by various trickery and methods since childhood, and even a white piece of paper would have been dyed to the point where no white could be seen in that kind of environment. He only knew that he needed to firmly grasp onto the things he wanted, and right now, there was a person that he wanted very much, to the point where he really wanted to kill off her nominal husband and take her away.

But he couldn’t. He had nothing now, and could not return home. He hadn’t even recoevered from his injury yet.

Looking at the person who was sitting there reading, Xia Yang clenched his fist tightly.

Xue Ling seemed to be oblivious to the two men’s gazes. After reading through the afternoon, he asked people to pack up his things and went back to his room, leaving the space to the two of them.

“Although I cannot determine your identity, I won’t let you stay in the Manor forever." Zhan Shaoxi investigated for several days, but the identity of this person remained elusive. The longer it went on, the more he felt that it was dangerous. As long as Xia Yang was there, he would not even go to the barracks, instead following Xue Ling around all day in order to ensure his safety.

“As long as the Royal Princess lets me stay." Xia Yang’s previous facial expression disappeared. He never showed this ’Royal Princess’ husband’ any goodwill. Because Xue Ling seemed to ignore him, he liked to agitate him when he was idle, reminding him that even though he was the nominal husband, he could not even casually enter Xue Ling’s room.

Zhan Shaoxi was quiet when Xue Ling was present, but when Xue Ling was gone, he also would not be courteous towards Xia Yang. “This is the General’s Manor. Even if the Princess becomes even less fond of me, I am the Princess’ legal husband, and we have already received the blessings of the people of the Capital."

On this point, Xia Yang truly did not have an advantage.

“You’re a child whose hair hasn’t even fully grown yet. It would be better for you not to get mixed up in adult matters." Seeing that his expression had turned ugly, Zhan Shaoxi attacked him again.

Xia Yang turned away with a cold snort.

After he left, Xue Ling came back. Zhan Shaoxi quickly cleared his expression and changed it to a gentle look. “Wife, are you not going back to rest?”

Xue Ling looked at the man with interest. In the past, the man had always been upfront about his jealousy, domineering to the point where he wanted to kill him in bed. Perhaps because he had scared him at the beginning in this world, he now did not even dare to let him know he was jealous.

Such a man really amused Xue Ling, and even inspired him to consider whether or not to string him along like this all the time. He laughed, but it was unclear whether it was a good or bad thing. “Threatening people behind my back?”

Zhan Shaoxi frowned, disapprovingly saying, “Wife, that person’s identity is a mystery. It’s not appropriate to keep him around.”

“Oh? There are people that the General can’t investigate in the Capital?" This sentence was somewhat sarcastic, and Zhao Shaoxi frowned unhappily.

"Wife, it hurts your husband when you say it like that."

It was the first time Xue Ling had seen him act in such a spoiled manner. That tone of voice made Xue Ling unable to maintain the expression on his face, and he reluctantly showed a smile.

Seeing him smile, Zhan Shaoxi beat the snake with his stick, taking advantage of the favourable situation to say, “Wife, we are newlyweds. Look, those people are laughing at me secretly because you picked up an unknown stranger and brought him home."

“Are the people of the General’s Manor so undisciplined? Daring to talk about their master?"

Knowing that he was not angry, and only distorting the meaning of his words out of habit, Zhan Shaoxi laughed. “It’s not a lack of discipline, they just find my situation of being unable to obtain my wife very funny."

“I think it’s funny too.” Xue Ling fiddled with his hair, then turned to say, “If the General is free tonight, come join me for dinner, and I’ll tell the kitchen to make something the General likes. I want to discuss something with the General."

This was Xue Ling’s first invitation to have dinner with him. The first few times they had dinner together had all been Zhan Shaoxi shamelessly intruding, and he had not been able to eat much while Xue Ling on the other hand, had eaten his fill. Even so, Zhan Shaoxi enjoyed listening to him speak, and even if it was all words of rebuke, he was happy as long as Xue Ling was talking.

As long as Xue Ling spoke a few more words to him, he would have a little smile on his face the next morning. Many of his acquaintances were laughing at the General and his wife’s newlywed antics.

But the Heavens knew that he was rejected trying to enter his wife’s room, let alone climbing into bed.

Xue Ling was not just impulsively teasing the man; he wanted to do some business and needed the man’s contacts and people. The heroine had gotten the Crown Prince’s attention by doing business and earning him a lot of money, which brought them closer and closer together. What Xue Ling wanted to do was rob her business, rob her of her money, and rob the Prince. When the Prince lost money, he would no longer appreciate the female protagonist.

The money that the heroine lost was the money he needed in order to stir up a rebellion. This reason alone would be enough for the Prince to lose interest in her.

Plus, he couldn’t just stay in the Manor all day. He could get nothing done like this, and always needed an excuse to go out. However, all of this needed the approval of the General, who was the head of the Manor. So, Xue Ling had people prepare a table of good wine and delicious dishes, and prepared to use a honey-trap in order to make the man agree with his ideas.

System: “...” The only thing it could do was light candles for General Zhan. His wife’s brain was always full of schemes to use on him, it was really a ’TRAGEDY’ in capital letters!

Sure enough, people couldn’t always be winners in life. He had been a giant plug-in in the last life, so this lifetime he was really unlucky~

With this in mind, the system actually felt a little happy.

Oh, no. It must have been infected by its host’s wickedness.

alamerysl: System blackening increased by 1%!

BlueBug: Why is there blackening, but no whitening?