“No need to go to all that trouble,” Wu Yao said flatly, tightening the vine a bit more. “I'll give you five minutes to spill everything you need to.”
Darian let out a muffled groan from the squeeze, but the smile on her face vanished for only a split second before returning.
Tilting her head, she said in a wheedling tone, “Your Excellency, could you loosen this just a tiny bit? This thing has squeezed my arms completely numb. It's even hard to talk...”
Her shoulders shifted slightly within the vines, as if trying to show just how miserably tight they were.
Wu Yao curled her right index finger slightly, and the vine suddenly constricted.
The rough bark of the vine bit into the fabric of her short gray robe, making a faint creaking sound.
Darian's cheeks flushed red at a visible speed, and her glass-bead-like eyes squinted from the pressure.
“I'll talk! I'll talk—” Her voice was squeezed into halting fragments, her bound hands flailing in the air.
Wu Yao loosened it by half an inch.
Darian gasped heavily, her chest heaving violently a few times, not daring to try any more tricks.
“My name is Darian. The family I was born into fell into ruin long ago, and we didn't have many heirs. My aunt was the head of the house. She felt that raising a girl to inherit the family business wouldn't work in this world, so she raised me as a boy. Later, she pulled a few strings and sent me to the mage academy.”
As she reached this point, her tone still held a hint of playfulness, as if she were telling an amusing childhood story about someone else.
But her speaking speed slowed down noticeably for the next part.
“My talent wasn't bad. In my second year, I was noticed by a Sage and taken in as an apprentice. So many people were green with envy that I could study under him. I was foolish back then, thinking that having good talent meant everything was set. I practically lived in the library every day. Runic structures that took others three days to digest, I could replicate in half a day.”
The corner of her mouth twitched, but there was no pride in that smile, only a deeply chewed sense of irony. “When you learn too fast, someone is bound to get restless.”
“Once, I was granted permission to enter the Sacred Fire Library to consult materials in the restricted section. Ordinary apprentices couldn't even find the door to that place, but I was able to enter because the Sage had personally signed a permit. I stayed inside for half a day and copied three pages of notes. When I came out, I was stopped. Someone had reported me for smuggling restricted books out of the library. They searched my person, they searched my bags, and they found absolutely nothing. But the accuser insisted that I had hidden something.”
“I thought my innocence would speak for itself, but the Sage personally ordered me to be detained. He said that regardless of whether I had stolen anything, an accusation had to be investigated, and during the investigation, I had to wear Mana-Suppressing Shackles as a punishment.”
“Do you know what Mana-Suppressing Shackles are? Once you put them on, all elements will ignore your existence, making it impossible to perform any spellcasting actions. If you wear them for too long, they will even burn your wrist bones. He was my mentor; he knew better than anyone whether I had stolen anything, yet he still put them on me.”
Hearing this, Wu Yao tapped her fingers lightly on the vine, making an impatient clicking sound.
“Your story is getting a bit long. If you can't wrap it up in three sentences, I'll kill you.”
All the grievances that had yet to leave Darian's mouth, the carefully orchestrated narrative arcs, and the detailed descriptions meant to elicit sympathy all got stuck in her throat.
She decisively swallowed all the setup and cleanly delivered a plot summary.
“I was locked up with the Mana-Suppressing Shackles for half a month. After getting out, I spent two years regaining the Sage's trust by organizing his dossiers, copying runes for him, and shielding him from a few hidden arrows from other Sages. To get revenge, I picked his private lockbox, took the treasure he cherished, and have been pursued ever since, hiding out here.”
Having finished, she tilted her face up with a sincere expression. “Done in two sentences.”
Wu Yao didn't speak. She looked down at Darian, the corners of her mouth curling into a slight arc.
“You still left something out.”
Darian blinked, her expression perfectly innocent. “Your Excellency, I've spilled everything. I even told you about the Sage's lockbox—”
“Darian Ken.”
Wu Yao called out her name unhurriedly.
Players just didn't like using their brains; they weren't stupid.
With a Ken Territory and her surname being Ken, even a fool would know the connection.
Darian's smile froze.
Her eyes, which had been darting around constantly, finally went still. She stared fixedly at Wu Yao, the candle flame flickering twice in the depths of her eyes.
Wu Yao watched her with complete composure.
This kind of silence was more suffocating than any interrogation.
Darian remained silent longer than she ever had before. Then, as if suddenly deflating, she leaned back against the bedpost, a bitter smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
“Fine. The Ken Family is indeed my family of origin, and Ken Territory is where I grew up.” Her tone changed. It was no longer the calculated design from when she was storytelling, nor was it the sweet, syrupy voice she used when begging for mercy. She explained her background without much emotion.
“My mother was a maid of the Ken Family, and my cheap excuse of a father was the eldest son of a branch family. He took her body, gave her some money, and sent her away. Once he found out that my mother had given birth to me, he sent people to bring me back and raise me. Because my aunt had no children of her own, he wanted me to become the backup heir.”
She suddenly laughed at this point.
“I was pretty good at reincarnating, wasn't I? Reincarnating as a noble bastard, and luckily climbing up to become the heir so I wouldn't starve like the commoners. But being a backup heir means you're just a shadow. If they need me to be a boy, I'm a boy. If they need me to enter the mage academy, I enter the mage academy. I don't have an ounce of freedom...”
Although Wu Yao seemed to still be there, her gaze even resting on Darian's face, she had actually been zoning out for a while.
“...Your Excellency, I didn't have a choice either. I was a shadow in my family, a pawn in the mage academy. I finally managed to scrape together a bit of capital to carve out a way to survive for myself, only to be hunted all the way here. Do you know how much hardship I've endured, how many beatings I've taken on this road just to trade for this single sliver of survival? Please, let me off the hook.”
Her voice grew as soft as dough that had been repeatedly kneaded, and her eyes turned red, as if she were desperately holding back tears. “We're both women, why make things hard for me?”
Wu Yao tuned back in just in time for her grand finale, watching her eyes turn red, her lips tremble, and her nose sniffle at just the right moment.
This girl was actually quite interesting. Once exposed, she didn't even try to argue, immediately switching her strategy instead.
If the hard approach didn't work, she tried the soft one. If reasoning failed, she played the emotional card.
Every expression and every shift in tone was meticulously designed, with the pacing managed to perfection.
Wu Yao relaxed her fingers, and the vine suddenly receded, dissolving into a few wisps of emerald-green thread that dissipated into the air.
Darian rubbed her wrists, but before she could even stand up, she heard a question from above.
“Do you know any spells? Can you use mana?”
Rate on N.U.
