The people of Dahuang Ze were dumbfounded.

The Da Yan pursuers were stunned.

Everyone looked up at the moon together—the sky hung like a curtain, starlight and moonlight flickering calmly, the night quiet as water. The whistling crash from earlier—perhaps it was a dream?

But no matter how bizarre a dream, it couldn’t create such a pit, and this kind of styled pair of legs.

They were good legs.

Slender and straight, shapely and firm, the stockings were a layer of strange black silk that gleamed with pearl-like luster, bright and dark in the night, particularly alluring.

A woman?

In this upside-down pose, was she dead?

Oh no, those toes were still twitching.

The Da Yan pursuers wanted to go forward and investigate, but their master seemed severely injured, so they had to retreat quickly to find a physician. Only the Dahuang Ze people remained in the field.

The men’s eyes shone brighter than the emeralds glittering on the ground.

“Hey, do you think… that scene just now…”

“Wasn’t it exactly ‘lightning strikes from heaven, the earth collapses into great pits, gems scattered everywhere, flying discs hover in the air, and there is one woman, born from the place where heaven collapses and earth splits’?”

“Oh my, then what are we waiting for? Hurry up and dig!”

“Dig!”

The men searched for shovels and spades, preparing to start work.

“SLAP!” Suddenly an arm struggled out of the dirt pile and slammed heavily on the soil surface.

The Dahuang Ze people jumped in fright.

“A corpse coming back to life?”

“SLAP!” Another arm stretched out and slapped the ground on the other side. Then the loose dirt shifted and rustled, and a long-haired head slowly emerged from the ground…

Cold moon, mournful wind, corpse, green light, crater, a black-haired head…

“Ghost—” The Dahuang Ze people scattered and fled.

“Ghost!” The one emerging from the dirt had an even shriller voice, screaming while spitting out dirt from her mouth. “Ptui ptui, ghost—ptui ptui—don’t pull me—ptui ptui—what kind of pose is this—ptui ptui—where are my high heels?”

The Dahuang Ze people who had fled thirty zhang away quickly stopped, looked at each other, and turned back.

In the dirt pit, a graceful figure slowly climbed up, shivering as she kicked away something under her feet, hurriedly shaking her clothes and patting her chest. “Good good, not flattened, not flattened…”

She turned her face, and in the moonlight, it was a face covered in mud but obviously full of living vitality.

The Dahuang Ze people had an epiphany and quickly gathered around, craning their necks to look.

“Hey! She landed in the position of the holy altar!”

“There are pieces of a broken chair underneath—she was sitting on the chair when she fell!”

“That young man was just cushioning her fall—she crushed him to death!”

“Ah! The Queen has been found!”

Jing Hengbo had been flicking at her stockings—there had been a corpse under her earlier, and her stockings were stained with a lot of blood. She frowned, staying far from the corpse, extending her pinky finger delicately, flicking off the bloodied dirt bit by bit. Hearing this sentence, she was so startled her finger trembled, and with a ripping sound, her stockings tore.

“Queen?” She whirled around.

“Your Majesty the Queen!” The men fell to their knees with thumping sounds, tears in their eyes. “Following the sacred instructions of our State Preceptor, we have traveled thousands of li without avoiding hardship, and finally found your reincarnated self! Our Dahuang Ze is blessed by the heavenly gods! Blessed by our State Preceptor!”

“Reincarnation?” Jing Hengbo’s eyes rolled around.

In an instant, she accessed her memory storage, quickly going through all the classic transmigration novels she had studied for over ten years in her mind, feeling that maybe, probably, possibly, or perhaps… she had stumbled into incredible luck.

Heaven has eyes!

Sister always said, after such an earth-shattering transmigration, how could they make her cannon fodder? That wouldn’t be logical.

Queen… mm, not bad. She just wondered how many beautiful royal husbands would be allocated to her? Three palaces, six courts, and seventy-two consorts—seventy-two was a bit much, but thirty-six would be acceptable.

Jing Hengbo looked down and saw half a broken chair surface on the ground, with faint traces of brocade cushions—this must be the throne they had just mentioned, right?

“Your Majesty the Queen, you…” The Dahuang Ze people were thinking about how to explain the whole story to the woman before them. They didn’t know if this miraculous heaven-sent Queen could understand and accept their “reincarnation” theory. Would there be any resistance? Did they need to use force first? Should they immediately tell her about the various rules and restrictions for queens, and what attitude should they take toward her next? Although the State Preceptor agreed to search for the reincarnated Queen, he wasn’t actually willing to find her. Now that they had really found her, what would the State Preceptor think and do? So what should be done with this woman…

Lost in thought, torn between left and right, hesitating, they looked up.

Huh?

In the moonlight, in the dirt pit, on the “throne” that was broken down to just a chair surface, the black-stockinged woman had already turned around and sat down gracefully, crossed her legs, propped up her chin, curved her pinky finger, and coquettishly, smugly, smiling, familiarly, without any resistance… beckoned with her finger.

“Beloved subjects, rise. Quickly bring Us a bowl of papaya, snow clam, and ginseng stew.”

…

At the same moment.

In the depths of Dahuang Ze.

Jade towers and golden palaces, layers of curtains. Behind the deep curtains, luminous pearls glowed dimly, illuminating a pair of steady hands.

The hands were like carved jade, fingertips pristine white, nails like shells with bright lustrous surfaces, yet bloodless.

The fingers deftly turned a pair of ancient turtle shells, the blue-black carapaces making those palm hearts appear delicate as snow.

“Snap.” The turtle shells turned, revealing a divination pattern.

The hands stopped, fingertips lightly resting on the shell armor, the backs of the hands slightly arched like a crane about to take flight.

“…Found?”

The tone contained slight surprise.

This voice was extremely light and clear, extremely flat and cold. Like crystallized ice from the depths of a cold ice swamp, ringing musically when blown by passing wind.

Pleasant to hear, yet making one feel chilled from the heart. It made one want to sink into such beautiful, pure tones, yet instinctively understand—such beauty was distant and cold, like snow on high mountains, radiating cold light that could wound upon contact.

He stood up gently, his cloud-like robe hem moving slightly, like a great expanse of snow spreading to the steps below.

Countless bright pearls lit up one by one, igniting the silence of night. The servants kneeling outside the curtains bent their bodies even lower.

Pale golden curtains hung down, illuminated by palace lanterns above to a dreamlike luster, also concealing his face. Everyone could only see the snow-colored long robe covering all his skin, with a high collar bound all the way to his chin, fastened with a pale golden pearl button.

Sight stopped there—no one dared to look higher.

He stood quietly. Slender and upright, his clothing loose yet tightly bound at neck and waist, the lines compact yet bold, so that within his overall clean, graceful nobility, there emerged a somewhat proper, stern, ascetic aura—such contradictory temperament and elegance only made people inexplicably unable to breathe.

“The reincarnated Queen has been found,” he said.

Still that unhurried, emotionless tone, but everyone trembled and drew their shoulders tighter.

The palace hall was silent, as if a faint killing intent was dispersing.

“This seat has decided to personally go and welcome her.”

…

Of course, she didn’t get to eat the papaya, snow clam, and ginseng stew.

The Dahuang Ze people were too busy gaping with their mouths hanging open.

Queen reincarnation was a Dahuang Ze tradition for finding another queen when the female emperor left no heir. Generally presided over by a State Preceptor skilled in divination arts who controlled national power, only after verifying various harsh conditions could they find a queen.

Many of the previously reincarnated queens were infants or children. Taking them away often required explaining things clearly to their tribes, clans, and parents, which was quite a lengthy process.

This current one was different—she arrived most bizarrely, looked most out of place, yet accepted the “Queen” identity most quickly and naturally. Look at that little expression—she seemed quite pleased?

The Dahuang Ze people exchanged glances and decided that since Her Majesty the Queen accepted things happily, there was no need to explain too clearly to her.

For instance, that queens in Dahuang Ze were actually puppets, symbols of purity and loyalty.

For instance, that becoming queen meant never seeing any relatives again for life.

For instance, that queens maintained lifelong chastity unless the State Preceptor took a fancy to them.

For instance, that queens who were unchaste or didn’t follow rules would suffer terrible misfortune.

For instance, that Dahuang Ze had numerous tribes and many small kingdoms with fierce customs, and warfare between tribes occurred frequently. Queens would, when necessary, be offered as “divine sacrifice” to the supreme god to appease disasters and chaos. This necessary time could be due to a rebellion, or possibly just because of an ominous dream by the State Preceptor.

For instance, that queens would be bound by extremely strict palace rules, where every word, action, and movement must follow countless rigid regulations. Those dogmas would bind their entire lives like ropes, and this oppressive, stifling life meant many queens not only couldn’t enjoy youth, but even died early from sorrow.

For instance, due to the above reasons and many more unspeakable ones, being Queen of Dahuang Ze was never a good position. In the few hundred years since the nation’s founding, there had been over a hundred queen changes, with each queen averaging less than six years in power, most dying young.

Therefore, when any family’s daughter was designated as reincarnated, the family was often grief-stricken.

Also for this reason, starting a hundred years ago, people began raising objections to the queen reincarnation system. Of the current two State Preceptors, the Left State Preceptor followed tradition, while the Right State Preceptor believed the queen system could well be abolished.

Under these circumstances, the Right State Preceptor listed harsh conditions for finding the reincarnated queen, even searching outside Dahuang Ze territory for the first time. Everyone thought this was the Right State Preceptor’s brilliant arrangement—this time there really wouldn’t be another queen, and the Right State Preceptor, who had always held power, commanded armies, and maintained good relations with several powerful tribes and small kingdoms, would naturally ascend the throne, becoming the first male emperor in Dahuang Ze history.

Everyone looked forward to this as well.

Who knew that a queen would really fall from the sky.

“Hey.” Jing Hengbo looked left and right, always feeling these people’s expressions were rather strange. “Are you hiding something from me?”