She had been on the verge of demanding who had told her Ningning was with child.

“Crown Prince. Crown Princess.” The Prince Consort stepped forward with a smile and performed a proper bow of courtesy.

Xuan Yanyu gave a nod and quietly took the candied hawthorn skewer from Yan Yunning’s hand.

“Still crouching on the ground — do you have any idea how many commoners are going around saying there’s a strikingly handsome couple on the west side, holding each other and crying? It’s an utter disgrace to the im—”

Before Xuanzhao Yang could finish, the Prince Consort’s heart lurched in his chest and he clapped his hand over her mouth. When the Crown Prince was in a good mood, Zhaoyang could get away with a word or two — but when he was not, that was not something to say.

Yan Yunning shot an awkward glance at Xuan Yanyu. How had it reached the Princess Imperial’s ears as both of them holding each other and crying?

It was only she who had cried on and on without stopping, wasn’t it?!

“Can you stand?” The man brushed aside the strands of hair that the wind had blown across her face and asked quietly.

Yan Yunning shifted her feet — they were numb and prickling, soft and powerless.

“My feet have gone numb,” she said softly.

Xuan Yanyu chuckled and repeated it back to her. “Feet have gone numb.”

Yan Yunning: “…”

Xuanzhao Yang’s mouth twitched. She had truly come here for nothing.

Going by the commoners’ description, she had had a vague feeling it was this insufferable boy — and sure enough it was, behaving as though utterly senseless, not the slightest awareness that crouching in the middle of the main street was an embarrassment. They had dragged the imperial family’s dignity through the mud entirely.

In the past, she would never have dared imagine that the Crown Prince could squat in the middle of a busy street with his Crown Princess.

“Let’s go.” Xuanzhao Yang hooked her fingertip through the Prince Consort’s jade belt and said curtly.

The Prince Consort cleared his throat, took her hand, and followed the huffing Xuanzhao Yang as she walked away.

Xuan Yanyu gathered Yan Yunning into his arms and carried her back to the Crown Prince’s residence as well.

After watching her fall into a peaceful sleep, he left the bedchamber and made his way to Zhaozheng Hall.

Xuan Yanyu had barely gone when Yan Yunning startled awake. The bedchamber held no one but her; the silence was so complete she could hear her own breathing. She drew her knees to her chest and murmured softly:

【Fafa, after I go home — what will become of Xuan Yanyu?】

Fafa: 【Master, you don’t need to worry about him.】

Yan Yunning gave a short laugh. 【How could I not worry about him?】

Fafa suddenly raised its voice: 【He will not remember you. He will continue living his life!! Everything you’re anxious about will not happen!!!】

The word struck Yan Yunning’s mind like a clang. She repeated it: 【He… he won’t remember me?】

Fafa’s tone was absolute. 【He won’t. Not ever.】

【That’s actually good.】 Yan Yunning smiled, and for a moment she felt lighter.

He would carry on as Crown Prince. There would be a new Crown Princess. She smiled — but the tears would not stop falling.

【Fafa, this is clearly the better outcome. So why… why does it feel so… so unbearable?】 Yan Yunning’s brow and eyes were filled with pain.

Fafa opened its mouth to speak, then said nothing at all.

It waited for Yan Yunning to work through her feelings on her own. Only when her crying had quieted did Fafa say:

【Master, Fafa can help you forget him. You may choose to forget him. You only have one chance, so think it through carefully.】

【No.】 Yan Yunning’s voice was so hoarse it had gone raw.

Fafa: 【Master, it’s only one chance. Take your time to consider — don’t rush into a—】

Yan Yunning snarled low: 【No!】

She had been inexplicably transmigrated into a novel. At the very beginning, when she had desperately wanted to go home, Fafa had claimed not to know how. Now that she no longer wanted to leave quite so desperately, it suddenly knew the way home — and on top of that, wanted to help her forget Xuan Yanyu.

She didn’t believe for one moment that Fafa had been completely unaware of her transmigration from the start.

The day before she had crossed into this world, Fafa had inexplicably appeared in her mind. The very next morning she had woken up inside a novel.

Some of what had happened afterward was hazy — she felt as though she had forgotten something — and Fafa had always insisted it didn’t know how to send her back. She had been too tired to dig into it.

Now it was saying it knew the way home after all. Clearly Fafa had never been as ignorant as it pretended.

A sudden flash of memory: Fafa had told her, “Ten years from now, Xuan Yanyu will be out of danger, and so will Xuanzhao. Master, let’s go home.”

Could it be that she had come here to help Xuan Yanyu through the calamity that awaited him ten years hence?

Fafa had used provocation to reverse-maneuver her into helping Xuan Yanyu. It had told her over and over that Xuan Yanyu would eventually kill her, so she would never sit passively and wait to be killed.

Her identity was that of the Prime Minister’s daughter. To survive, if she had fled the manor — with no silver and no martial skill — she certainly would never have risked living in hiding.

That left only two choices: to survive, she could pursue Qi Qingchen, and in doing so she would have gone to every length to ensure he would never marry her elder sister or become entangled with her. That would prevent the events of the novel — Qi Qingchen and her sister joining forces to bring down Xuanzhao.

Or, to survive, she could pursue Xuan Yanyu, and once Xuan Yanyu fell in love with her, she likewise would never permit him to marry her sister — and so the fates of Xuan Yanyu and Xuanzhao in the novel would also be averted.

There was a third option: to marry someone else. Marrying would place her outside the Prime Minister’s household, yet it still could not guarantee that Xuan Yanyu would leave her alone afterward. She would not have chosen that first.

Fafa had kept urging her to simply enjoy life, while in the background it was arranging everything. It had always appeared to have no real presence, yet in truth it had been in control of the situation all along.

After all, once she had learned of her fate, she could never have sat idle in order to find a way home. She would have had to act.

What appeared on the surface to be her fighting for her life was, in fact, a step-by-step rewriting of Xuan Yanyu’s destiny.

It was as though she had completed a mission — and that was why it was now telling her she could go home.

Perhaps Qi Qingchen and Yan Shiyao had never been the male and female leads at all.

Xuan Yanyu was the true male lead. It was only that, for the sake of how the plot unfolded, he was fated to be killed by Qi Qingchen and Yan Shiyao — and so she had been inexplicably transmigrated here.

Why had she come to this conclusion? She had noticed long ago that compared with Qi Qingchen — in mind, in martial strength, and in the standing that Xuanzhao held — Xuan Yanyu far surpassed him by a wide measure.

Xuan Yanyu was smarter than Qi Qingchen. In direct combat, Qi Qingchen could not withstand a single move from Xuan Yanyu.

Xuan Yanyu was Xuanzhao’s one and only Imperial Prince, cherished above all else. Qi Qingchen was merely Qilan’s third prince — the affection the Qilan Emperor showed him was nothing compared to the singular, unrivaled love the Prince of Xuan had for his son.

Qi Qingchen had not a single shred of the male lead’s aura. Every encounter with Xuan Yanyu left him humiliated. He had tried to provoke Xuan Yanyu and had always ended up wounded in return. If Qi Qingchen was supposed to be the male lead, wasn’t that a bit too absurd?

When she laid it all out this way, who was the author’s true male lead was obvious. The way the author doted on Xuan Yanyu — it wasn’t favoritism for a pet character — what else could it be?

She had been deceived all along!

The more she pieced it together, the more it looked like this: the second male lead, Qi Qingchen, and the second female lead, Yan Shiyao, had awakened to their power and then eliminated the true male lead, Xuan Yanyu!

A sharp electronic chime rang out in her ear. Yan Yunning shook her dizzy head.

Fafa: 【Master, you are far too clever — but you can’t know this just yet. It is indeed true that Xuan Yanyu is the male lead of the novel — however, the second male lead, Qi Qingchen, and the second female lead, Yan Shiyao, awakened — and then eliminated the male lead, Xuan Yanyu!! Close, but not quite right!】

Back when she had first arrived in this world, she had been just as quick to guess, and had come very close to the truth. Fafa had simply been unable to deceive her.

If she were to change Xuan Yanyu’s fate in the novel, and she refused outright, there was nothing else to do — the only option had been to make her forget a few things and guide her in the opposite direction.

So that in fighting to survive and return home, she would stumble and fumble her way into changing Xuan Yanyu’s fate in the novel regardless.

This time was the same. Until she had actually gone home, she could not be allowed to know the full truth.