“Wow! That violent, huh?” The magic outside kept blasting, the ground was shaking, and even through the carriage you could feel the heat.
The horse-like magical beasts pulling the carriage got spooked, broke free from their reins, and all ran off.
“Master, your horses are gone!” Little Dragon Girl shouted when she saw the beasts run away.
Chen Xing’s forehead veins bulged.
She kept reminding herself to be kind, to be kind.
She took a deep breath.
“Hoo—inhale—life is so beautiful, but I’m so irritable.
This isn’t good, this isn’t good.”
Even though she said that, Chen Xing still raised her hand and slapped Little Dragon Girl flying out of the carriage.
She forced down the urge to rip Little Dragon Girl’s mouth apart, sighing at how hard it was to keep a good attitude.
“Why are they fighting out there?” The battle outside was still going on.
Chen Xing hadn’t been paying attention earlier, so she didn’t know why those people were fighting.
“Fighting so close to the royal city, these people are really gutsy.”
Lidi Xi said from the side.
As a squad leader in the Snow Empire’s guard, she was more than familiar with the country’s rules and knew what would happen if you fought here.
“Yeah, I think the princess’s memories mentioned it.”
Chen Xing pulled up the princess’s memories and checked, and sure enough, she found the relevant rules and knew what was about to happen.
Just as expected, not long after the fight started, a few black shapes appeared in the distant sky.
They got bigger and bigger, and soon they were right above Chen Xing and the others.
A group of people in armor, riding wyverns.
According to the princess’s memories, Chen Xing recognized them as the kingdom’s royal guards.
They were soldiers dedicated to protecting the royal city, each one powerful.
The wyverns slowly descended from the sky.
The people fighting below didn’t seem to care about them at all, still chanting spells and casting magic.
The lead knight didn’t bother with any nonsense.
He leapt off his wyvern and in a flash was in front of a mage, pressing his blade to the mage’s neck.
“You have violated the country’s one hundred and thirty-third law.
Drop your weapon and surrender.
You have ten seconds to decide.
If you resist, you’ll be executed on the spot.”
A cold voice came from under the helmet.
Feeling the chill on his neck, the mage was terrified and quickly stopped chanting.
“Don’t, don’t be rash, we’re just messing around.”
Seeing the strength of the royal guards, the crowd finally didn’t dare act up anymore.
One by one, they stopped resisting.
But when the soldiers started putting chains on them to take them away, someone suddenly shouted, “We’re the Noraya delegation! You can’t treat us like this! Our master is already at the marriage selection event, we’re guests! If you arrest me, this is a diplomatic incident!”
One of the soldiers hesitated when he heard that.
He turned and walked over to the captain, asking quietly, “Captain, what should we do?”
“Handle it according to the law.” The cold voice came again.
Standing next to the captain, the chill coming off her was no less than the surrounding wind and snow.
He knew that would be the answer.
Ever since the captain was chosen for the baptism, she’d completely changed.
The once dashing, heroic big sister had become a cold, unfeeling person who only followed the rules and carried out orders.
“Hmm… did it already work?” Watching all this, Chen Xing frowned, because she’d read some key information from the princess’s memories.
In history, only the queen had frozen her heart.
But one cold, administrative machine wasn’t enough.
Her subordinates were still human, and as humans, they had feelings, so they couldn’t perfectly carry out the queen’s absolute orders.
Not long ago, the princess got word that the queen, in order to better control the country, had started transforming the citizens.
The first people to undergo the experiment couldn’t handle the magic and all turned into idiots.
The princess guessed what her sister was up to when the queen started the experiments.
She wanted everyone in the country to be like her—emotionless, running like machines according to a set program.
That way, the country would be strong and orderly, with no brawls, crime, discrimination… none of that.
And in the future, when facing the revival of the witches, citizens without emotions could resist the corruption of darkness.
It sounded great, but the princess absolutely couldn’t let it happen.
She thought that if a person lost their emotions, they became a machine and couldn’t be called human anymore.
Even if it meant being corrupted by darkness and becoming a slave to it, that was still better than turning into a soulless machine.
That’s why the princess dared to take such a huge risk and work with the cultists.
She wanted to turn her sister back and stop this from happening.
Even if the price was that the country might be conquered by the dark witch in the future.
Unfortunately, the princess failed in the end, and it seemed the queen’s magic had made a breakthrough.
The group of captains she picked had successfully accepted her magic and turned into people just like the queen.
“I could use her for an experiment, huh?” Chen Xing used her magic eye to see into that soldier’s heart, and sure enough, all she saw was coldness—no other warmth at all.
But inside that ice, it seemed something was sealed away.
The magic on the soldier was definitely not as strong as the queen’s, but Chen Xing could use her to get familiar with it and prepare for corrupting the queen in the future.
“Captain, there’s a carriage over there.
Looks like some noble resting here.
Should we check it out?”
“No need.
That person wasn’t involved in the incident.
We don’t need to question her.”
The captain glanced at Chen Xing’s carriage in the distance and locked eyes with Chen Xing through the window.
She was absolutely by-the-book, never bothering innocent people.
She had her men tie up the troublemakers and then left with them.
Watching the captain fly off, Chen Xing sighed.
“What a beautiful girl, but she’s turned into an ice block.
As the kind person I am, I guess I have to save this poor suffering girl~ Boohoo, I’m about to cry from my own kindness.”
According to the princess’s guess from her memories, before the queen used her magic on the commoners, she had to control all the military first.
That way, when the transformation started, she could keep the civilians stable, and if anyone resisted, the army would suppress them.
Normal people couldn’t handle that kind of freezing magic, but as the queen experimented, she seemed to find a balance point and created a weakened version of the heart-freezing spell.
The queen’s guards were absolutely loyal to her, so they were probably already affected.
Next would be the imperial capital’s royal guards…
“No wonder the princess risked a death sentence to work with the cult.
If she’d just been a good girl, she’d probably be just like her sister by now.”
Thinking about it, if the princess hadn’t caused all that trouble, she probably would’ve been a victim too.
