Hua Manman sat up and pressed her temples.

She had indeed been drunk just now, completely muddled. She answered whatever Prince Zhao asked.

It was only when Prince Zhao asked about the system that she suddenly heard its warning: she was not to reveal any information about the system or the original story, or she would suffer a punishment as painful as her heart being twisted by a knife.

That’s when Hua Manman snapped back to her senses.

She was stunned for a moment, her mind a complete blank. Unsure how to smooth things over, she could only resort to feigning tears to get by.

Hua Manman asked the system.

"Prince Zhao must be suspicious now, right?"

The system retorted coldly, "What do you think?"

Hua Manman couldn’t figure it out. "Why did he ask me those questions? When did he start suspecting me?"

The system couldn’t answer either.

The person and the system both fell silent.

Hua Manman flopped back onto the bed, pulled the covers over her head, and said in self-deception,

"If I can’t figure it out, so be it. I’ll just let nature take its course."

The system was clearly displeased with her passive sabotage and asked,

"Aren’t you even going to think of a way to deal with this?"

Hua Manman replied, "I’m too stupid. I can’t think of anything."

She put on the air of a salted fish that had given up on life.

Even though the system was just a program, it couldn’t help but feel a spark of anger.

"Aren’t you afraid that once Prince Zhao learns your secret, he’ll capture you and squeeze you for all you’re worth?"

Hua Manman said, "I don’t care. My life isn’t great right now anyway. I’m constantly being threatened by you with the punishment of heart-wrenching pain. How much worse could it get?"

The system was actually speechless.

Hua Manman closed her eyes, ready to fall asleep.

Suddenly, the system spoke.

"You’re doing this on purpose."

Hua Manman pretended not to hear and didn’t respond.

The system continued on its own,

"You know full well that Prince Zhao is already suspicious of you, yet you’re still unwilling to find a way to resolve it.

You *are* doing this on purpose. You’re intentionally going easy on Prince Zhao."

Hua Manman still ignored it.

The system said anxiously, "Doing this is no different from courting your own destruction.

Once Prince Zhao finds out you’re a transmigrator, he definitely won’t let you go. No one will be able to save you then!"

This time, Hua Manman finally responded.

She replied with a single, sarcastic word.

"Oh."

The system couldn’t understand. "Aren’t you scared at all?"

Hua Manman said coolly,

"I’m more afraid of you than I am of Prince Zhao.

At least Prince Zhao has never hurt me, while you’ve done nothing but threaten me."

The system was instantly silenced.

Hua Manman said, "People have hearts. I’m good to those who are good to me, and vice versa."

With that, she closed her eyes and began to fall asleep. No matter what the system said, she wouldn’t respond again.

’She wasn’t afraid of being punished by the system. After all, Prince Zhao had noticed something was off on his own; she hadn’t deliberately leaked any information. She hadn’t broken any rules. The system couldn’t do anything to her.’

And that was indeed the case.

Li Ji had noticed the clues through his own abilities. It had nothing to do with Hua Manman, so the system couldn’t blame her, nor could it punish her for the matter.

By the time Li Ji returned to the room, Hua Manman was already asleep.

This time, she was truly asleep, her breathing steady and even.

When Li Ji lay down beside her, she sensed his familiar presence. Though still asleep, her body instinctively leaned toward him.

Li Ji took the opportunity to pull her close, his gaze lowered to her as a thousand thoughts raced through his mind.

’In fact, while I was taking my bath, I’d already realized that Hua Manman must have detected my probing and deliberately feigned tears to muddle through. It was a very simple and clumsy trick. But my judgment was clouded by concern, so I failed to notice Manman’s intentions at the time.’

Li Ji lowered his head and kissed her on the forehead.

’Oh well, I’ll let her off the hook for tonight. There’s still plenty of time. I’ll slowly find a way to unravel all these mysteries later.’

At that moment, the system was afraid of being discovered and didn’t dare make a peep.

’I’m extremely frustrated. I clearly issued tasks to my host according to my set programming, so why is the plot straying further and further off course? Even Prince Zhao has become aware of my existence. Where exactly did things go wrong?’

...

When she woke up the next morning, Hua Manman rubbed her head and whined in a delicate voice,

"My head hurts so much."

Li Ji had someone bring a hangover soup and fed it to her.

"You drank too much last night."

After drinking the hangover soup, Hua Manman felt much better.

She muttered under her breath, "I only had a few cups last night. That’s not a lot, is it?"

Li Ji chuckled. "With your low tolerance, a few cups is more than enough to do you in."

’I remember having a pretty high tolerance for alcohol; a few cups like that would have been nothing to me. Then I thought about it carefully and remembered: my high tolerance was from before I transmigrated. This body I’ve transmigrated into rarely drinks, so its tolerance is naturally low.’

Li Ji heard her thoughts and memorized another new word—

Transmigration.

’I wonder what this word means?’

The two of them had a tacit understanding not to bring up what happened when she was drunk last night.

Now that Li Ji was free of his duties, he had plenty of time to spend with Hua Manman.

The two of them planned to visit their country estate for a few days.

Hua Manman specifically sent a verbal message to Feihua Zhenren, asking if he wanted to join them at the estate for some fun.

Since she wanted to win him over, she naturally had to do everything she could to show her goodwill.

After returning to Seven Stars Temple, Feihua Zhenren spent all three meals a day dreaming of the food at the Prince Zhao Mansion.

It wasn’t that the food at Seven Stars Temple was bad, but it was a far cry from what the Prince Zhao Mansion served.

Even if the Princess Consort hadn’t sent someone to invite him, he had already been planning to go to the Prince Zhao Mansion on his own for a couple of days to freeload a few meals.

Now that the Princess Consort had taken the initiative to invite him, he of course agreed without a moment’s hesitation.

Feihua Zhenren quickly packed a couple of changes of clothes and eagerly ran off to join Prince Zhao and his wife.

The group traveled to the country estate by carriage.

The steward at the estate had already received word and prepared the rooms in advance.

They could move in as soon as they arrived.

「Meanwhile.」

The men Li Ying had sent to investigate had returned.

According to their investigation, someone from the Zhong’an Bo Mansion had indeed gone missing eleven years ago.

But it was unclear who it was.

Li Ying pressed, "The government should have a record. Didn’t you check?"

Liang Yong answered truthfully.

"We had someone sneak into the government office to check. The case file was destroyed long ago. Someone must be intentionally covering this up."

Li Ying frowned. "What about the Zhong’an Bo Mansion? Did you check there too?"

Liang Yong nodded. "We checked everywhere. But because it happened so long ago, not many people in the Zhong’an Bo Mansion even know about it.

The few who do are all very tight-lipped.

We were afraid of alerting our target, so we didn’t dare use any forceful methods.

As a result, we couldn’t dig up any useful information."

He paused, then cautiously added,

"Based on this servant’s speculation, the person who went missing was likely either Hua Qingqing or Hua Manman."