DDT - Chapter 46
Chapter 46: General × Little Emperor (1)
Chi Junluo woke up in the middle of the night. When she opened her eyes, she was met with pitch darkness. She still hadn't recovered from the pain of falling from the building in the last world, and her mind was still a bit numb.
Chi Junluo propped herself up, feeling a tightness in her chest. She reached out to touch it, but her hand met with nothing.
Chi Junluo: ??? Where did my chest go???
She slipped her hand inside her undergarments and, unexpectedly, felt thick gauze bandages. What was this situation?
The room was pitch-black. She didn't call for the Heavenly Dao right away; that would make her seem too weak. She wasn't afraid of the dark!
Getting out of bed, she fumbled around for a moment and found a pair of cloth shoes. With a head full of questions, she put them on and, wearing only her undergarments, shuffled toward the doorway, which was faintly illuminated by a reddish firelight. Along the way, she bumped into what felt like a low table and a small stool. When she finally reached the entrance, Chi Junluo reached out and, sure enough, felt a heavy cloth curtain. This largely confirmed her suspicions.
She pushed aside the curtain, and a vast, starry sky and an ancient military encampment, dotted with the light of campfires, unfolded before her eyes.
Weapons were neatly arranged on racks throughout the camp, ready to be grabbed in an emergency. Soldiers patrolled in twos and threes. Their camp seemed to be situated on a slope, which provided Chi Junluo with an excellent view.
A squad of soldiers on patrol came over. Seeing the general standing at the entrance of the tent in only her undergarments, they were visibly stunned for a moment. The soldiers knelt and saluted, "Greetings, General."
Chi Junluo froze for a second, but she didn't let it show on her face. She hadn't received the original owner's memories yet, but she wasn't panicking in the slightest. "Mm."
Chi Junluo instinctively grunted in a deep, cold voice before turning and returning to her tent.
The soldiers were used to it. They scrambled up from the ground only after General Chi had gone back inside. The general was never one for conversation; it had always been this way. As a result, the soldiers didn't notice at all that their general was no longer the original one. It had to be said, there was some truth to the principle that saying less leads to fewer mistakes.
"Chi Chi, hurry up and get on the bed. Prepare to receive the information."
The Heavenly Dao's clamorous voice exploded in her sea of consciousness. Chi Junluo habitually used the mental power in her sea of consciousness to douse the Heavenly Dao from head to toe, then swiftly retraced her steps back to the bed. The night was long, and she had no desire to lie on the dirt floor all night.
After settling down on the bed, Chi Junluo closed her eyes. A familiar headache washed over her, and just a second later, she spectacularly passed out.
About an hour later, Chi Junluo slowly came to. She raised her hands and began to rub her poor head, complaining to the Heavenly Dao in her sea of consciousness, "Heavenly Dao, can't you be a little gentler when you transfer information? Do you have to knock me out every single time before you're satisfied! Can't you transfer it bit by bit? What if one day you stuff me with so much information that I become an idiot? Who do you think will help you collect the Power of the Heavenly Dao and the fragments then?!"
The Heavenly Dao petulantly blocked its ears with its forelimbs, pretending it couldn't hear a thing.
To this, Chi Junluo could only scoff. We're communicating with our minds. Who are you trying to fool by plugging your decorative ears?
Ignoring the Heavenly Dao, who was playing dumb, Chi Junluo lowered her head and began to sort through the information it had transmitted to her about this world.
This appeared to be a fictional ancient world, as Chi Junluo had no recollection of a "Great Chang Dynasty" in the annals of history. Then again, she thought, this was another world, so it was natural for it to be different from her own. Having experienced two worlds, Chi Junluo could now fully accept worlds with settings completely different from her modern one.
This world was a little different. The original owner's name was Chi Luo. Chi Junluo immediately understood why—this was an ancient era, after all. How could one's name contain the character "Jun," which meant monarch?
She quickly moved past the name. A name wasn't important; the memories were.
Chi Luo grew up in a general's manor. To secure her position, the general's wife had reported her firstborn daughter, Chi Luo, as a son. This was how she maintained her standing. Because Chi Luo was the "eldest son" of the Chi family, she was rigorously trained by Old General Chi from a young age and could be considered skilled in both literature and martial arts. Thanks to the Chi family's excellent genes, by the age of fifteen, Chi Luo was already seven chi tall, strong and powerful.
Chi Junluo was shocked. Seven chi was about 1.8 meters in modern terms! No wonder her field of vision had felt so wide earlier—she had gotten taller!
A 1.8-meter-tall woman, with her chest bound…
The Heavenly Dao's description of the original owner was "strong and powerful." She hoped she didn't look as wild as Zhang Fei! Chi Junluo nervously touched her cheeks. Mm, good, no ridiculous beard. Perfect!
Chi Junluo continued to review the information. Three years ago, Old General Chi was transferred to the southwest border, and Chi Luo took over his mission, stationing herself at the frontier. In just three short years, Chi Luo had achieved countless merits, repelling numerous invasions from the Northern Kingdom, securing peace for the borderlands, and bringing glory to her family. The emperor of the Great Chang Kingdom had enfeoffed her as the Zhenbei General.
In short, Chi Luo was a woman disguised as a man, sworn to serve the Great Chang imperial family with her life. In the original timeline, at the young age of twenty, Chi Luo died heroically during a border defense battle.
Upon closer inspection of the timeline for the border defense battle, she saw it was set to happen in the next few days.
Chi Junluo: "……"
Chi Junluo swallowed the curse on the tip of her tongue, set her own problems aside for a moment, and turned to the information about the heroine.
Yi Han, the emperor of the Great Chang Kingdom. Whether at court or in his daily life, he was a man of few words. His uncles, several princes, coveted his throne. When the Northern Kingdom invaded the border, the princes joined forces to usurp him.
Yi Han was ambitious and wanted to make the Great Chang Kingdom better. He was a diligent ruler, but Great Chang was already in decline, rife with treacherous officials, and strong on the outside but weak on the inside. In the original timeline, Emperor Yi Han was forced from his throne by his uncles at the age of sixteen. He was hunted down, and ultimately died a miserable death deep in the mountains, his body left in the wilderness, never to be found whole.
Chi Junluo: "……"
The emperor was a good emperor, and the general was a good general. So why were they both so unlucky?
She calculated the days. The Northern Kingdom's invasion would happen in the next few days. She couldn't break character, or the Heavenly Dao of this world would discover her and kick her out.
Chi: My life is so hard…
Chi Junluo roared internally: The timeline in this world is too short! How am I supposed to collect the Power of the Heavenly Dao? I'm going to croak before I even meet the little emperor! And! This emperor is a man! Did the heroine get reincarnated into the wrong body this time? Heavenly Dao, Heavenly Dao, why did the heroine become a man???
The Heavenly Dao looked just as baffled. "Ahem, perhaps something went wrong during the spatial transfer???"
The Heavenly Dao sat down primly on a chair manifested from mental energy, propping its forehead on its forelimbs as it began to ponder with a troubled expression.
While the Heavenly Dao was thinking, Chi Junluo followed her new memories to find a fire starter in the darkness and lit the candles on the low table, instantly illuminating the general's tent.
Chi Junluo's eyes swept over the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone on the table. Just as she was about to look away, the Heavenly Dao's voice suddenly rang out in her mind.
"Chi Chi! Chi Chi! This Deity has thought of an excellent plan!" The Heavenly Dao's cheerful voice made Chi Junluo's hands itch to hit someone.
"Spit it out. Don't dawdle."
"Ying ying ying, don't be so fierce." The Heavenly Dao once again deployed its whimpering technique, causing three black lines to slide down Chi Junluo's forehead in her sea of consciousness. "Although these worlds already have well-developed world lines, and all things live by following their development, there are always exceptions. Things are not immutable. Occasional deviations from the world line are permitted. Once something deviates from its original track, it will naturally form a new one. The key is how to deviate from the predetermined track reasonably, and without arousing the suspicion of this world's Heavenly Dao."
"And how do we do that?" Chi Junluo heard the Heavenly Dao pause and instantly understood that it wanted to show off. Eager for the answer, she could only play along, deliberately feigning curiosity.
Chi: Dealing with a Heavenly Dao like this is exhausting…
"Naturally, we forge evidence of the track's deviation!" the Heavenly Dao's triumphant voice came through. "We just need to forge a distress letter from the little emperor and let a third party, besides us, see it. That way, this world's Heavenly Dao will know the reason for the deviation. You can then logically escape the track where you must go to the battlefield and be sacrificed in the Northern Kingdom's invasion. You can go rescue the pitiful little emperor who's being usurped by his brothers. Two birds with one stone! No, many birds with one stone!!! Isn't it beautiful!"
The Heavenly Dao danced with joy in her sea of consciousness, but Chi Junluo sensed something was wrong.
"Forge a distress letter? But we don't have the emperor's Imperial Jade Seal. Won't it be exposed at a glance?" Chi Junluo was slightly anxious. A sense of foreboding crept into her heart. She had to deviate the course of events immediately.
"Oh, my foolish Chi Chi! Have you forgotten the Power of the Heavenly Dao that This Deity has temporarily stored in you?" the Heavenly Dao's profound voice came through. "You can use the Power of the Heavenly Dao to forge a seal identical to the Imperial Jade Seal. Wait while This Deity goes to the world line and transmits the image of the bottom of the seal to you."
A moment later, an image of a high-quality jade seal appeared in Chi Junluo's mind. "Memorize its appearance. Guide the Power of the Heavenly Dao just like last time, and the seal can be created," the Heavenly Dao coaxed.
Chi Junluo used her mental power to guide the Power of the Heavenly Dao hidden in her body. The golden power surged toward the jade seal in her sea of consciousness, enveloping it completely. Soon, the Power of the Heavenly Dao solidified and emerged from her body.
Chi Junluo watched this scene, feeling it was quite magical.
She quickly imitated the young emperor's handwriting to write a distress letter and stamped it firmly with the forged Imperial Jade Seal. With all preparations complete, she seemed to think of something and crumpled the letter slightly to make it look more authentic, more like a desperate plea rushed to the border. Chi Junluo stood up, put on her armor, and left the tent. She summoned her vice general, her confidant, Wei Long. Just as she handed him the distress letter for safekeeping, a soldier burst into the general's tent, shouting that the Northern Kingdom was attacking!
The sky was still a hazy gray, showing no signs of brightening. Chi Junluo immediately gave Vice General Wei Long a few orders, telling them to defend the border with their lives. She then turned and ran toward the stables. She hadn't expected the Northern Kingdom's invasion to come so quickly. The sound of horns was already echoing through the camp.
The Northern Kingdom's attack meant the usurpation was also about to begin. She had to hurry back to the Imperial City! To rescue the little emperor!
And to the vice general, all of this looked as if his general had received a secret decree from His Majesty the Emperor to save him, and was now rushing back to save the most noble person in the entire Great Chang Kingdom.
Everything fell into place perfectly. The fate tracks of the two had shifted within the permissible range of the Heavenly Dao.
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