Royal Palace, Wangxiu:-

In a very ordinary-looking room, a girl was sitting.

Everything in the room had some amount of damage or dust on it, making the room seem like it belonged to a lower-middle-class peasant.

This was the state that Ximing and her mother had been reduced to.

When her brother was alive things had been better.

Even though they weren’t living like royalty as they should have, Ximing still had her brother for comfort.

And Queen Meng had stolen not only her brother but also many more of her precious things from her.

She knew that it was Queen Meng only who had killed her brother.

She had tried her best to hide it and succeeded at doing it quite nicely.

But all of her acts fell short in front of Ximing’s eyes.

She didn’t have her prodigious intelligence only for show.

Ximing had thought of telling it to others but had realised one fact even before she started.

That no one will listen to a useless cultivator like her.

All that everyone wanted was to become strong and then become immortal.

That’s it.

If Ximing were there on Earth, her IQ levels would have been in the late hundreds at the very least.

And this was if she had her current level of education only.

She hadn’t received much education due to her lack of talent in cultivation.

Most schools and teachers only began teaching kids after a certain age, after their cultivation roots had appeared and they could begin their journey on the path to immortality.

This happened at the age of seven.

However, due to her high level of intelligence, Ximing’s father had hired a teacher for her at the age of six who had taught her things up to the things that ten-year-olds would learn at school.

After that came her seventh birthday, after which all the love and affection she received from most people had dropped.

Her teacher quit, her father stopped visiting her and even her friends quickly stopped meeting her.

Only her mother and her brother were the ones who had stuck with her.

And even with her brother long gone, she and her mother had continued supporting each other.

Her mother was the only reason that Ximing was holding on to her life.

Ximing was always bullied a lot by everyone after her seventh birthday.

Everyone had either kept high expectations of her or was jealous of her.

And after the big reveal on that day, no one even pretended to show any sympathy towards her.

People started bullying her and hitting her out in the open.

And everyone nearby just ignored her suffering completely.

But she still somewhat had her title as a royal, albeit nominally.

That’s why no one could outright kill her in the open.

And, therefore, she had barely survived many killing attempts made at night.

Some of them had come so close to ending her life that surviving those felt like a blessing from the heavens.

At least the heavens seemed to be with her.

Though they had only barely managed to keep her alive so far.

That was still a huge help when there seemed to be so many attempts at her life.

Just as Ximing was thinking about everything that had happened so far, she felt someone come at the door.

It was her mother!

She had just come back after buying groceries.

Normally, royalty wouldn’t need to step out of their beds to get even some of the important tasks done.

But with their status, there was no one to even buy groceries for Ximing and her mother.

“Ah, little Ming-Ming! Won’t you help mom a little?”, said Zhong Kaxiao as she entered the room with a few bags in her hands.

Ximing’s (and Harry’s) mother was quite a stunning woman.

If she could take proper care of herself, she would have the looks to compete with Queen Meng, a woman who was famous for her beauty throughout Wangxiu.

And her looks had been one of the reasons that she came after Kaxiao.

How could she allow someone else with her level of beauty to keep living nicely?

Even Ximing knew that if her mother had been allowed to live properly, her looks and personality would have easily allowed her to become queen.

Queen Meng used to take several elixirs and other medicines to maintain her looks while Ximing’s mother was naturally that beautiful.

Even with her poor living conditions and poor diet, she still managed to look good.

“Hey, mom, was there some sale or something going on?” asked Ximing on seeing more than the usual amount of things being brought by her mother.

“Ah, right, actually I have become good friends with some of the shopkeepers in the market. So, they give me some extra things once in a while… Hehe…”, said Kaxiao with a smile on her face.

Ximing knew that she wasn’t telling the truth.

Recently, their living conditions had been deteriorating.

They were forced to shift to a smaller room due to some sketchy sounding reasons given by Queen Meng.

They were also forced to do a lot more daily tasks without any help.

Even her mother had been looking worse than before.

That’s why it was common for shopkeepers to give her extra items when they saw her, a royal concubine, in such a pitiable condition.

Ximing had seen even some of the most cunning and money-minded merchants being kinder to her mother than her father ever was.

‘Poor mom…

If we could, I wouldn’t have hesitated even for a moment before running away with her.

But my father rules the entire Wangxiu region. So, where would we go after running?

That b*st*rd will just put a charge of royal treason or something on mom and have the entire army hunt her down…

And since we don’t have any money for boats, the only place we have left is that demon forest in the South.

But going there is just plain suicide.

At least we’re alive while we remain here.’

Ximing had wanted to die many times in her life.

But she knew that if she died, her mother would be completely broken. She had already lost her son due to that wicked queen and if her only remaining child committed suicide, whatever hope to live she had left in her would also vanish.

And Ximing couldn’t allow her mother to be reduced to such a state.

It would mean that the queen had succeeded in her plans.

And if there was one thing that Ximing would never allow, it was letting Queen Meng win.

Ximing had been preparing evidence in secret.

She had done a lot of effort for this.

It would have been easier if she had better cultivation, but since she didn’t, she had to put in triple the amount of effort to collect any usable evidence.

She had gone and stolen half-burnt letters from queen Meng’s room’s fireplace.

Those letters had reports of the many crimes she had done.

They were only some of the letter that had been written to her to inform her of the progress of whatever secret tasks she had given to assassins or other similar people.

Normally, those letters had small arrays made on them that served as both identification and also as self-destruction method.

But Ximing had been lucky that some of the arrays had been faulty and Queen Meng had decided to burn the letters herself.

That’s why Ximing had been able to collect a few of those faulty letters.

It had burnt her hands sometimes, but she still didn’t reduce her efforts.

Ximing knew that if she can’t gather enough evidence, Queen Meng would be able to do whatever she wanted to do and Ximing and her mother would be able to do nothing but suffer.

But if she had evidence, she could throw it at that useless father of hers and maybe be able to retaliate against Queen Meng.

She knew that no one will be able to do a thing if the evidence was strong enough.

And, according to the royal laws made by their ancestors, if there was an attempt to destroy or damage any evidence after it had been given to the king, the person responsible would be killed on the spot and a very thorough investigation would also be conducted in regards to the evidence that had been damaged or destroyed.

So, if Ximing gathered strong enough evidence and presented it in the royal court, not even the king would be able to stop Queen Meng from being executed for her crimes!

Of course, Ximing had to put up with all the bullying from Queen Meng as well while collecting evidence.

She knew that the lady saw her as nothing but her plaything.

And she was going to use the queen’s this attitude to her advantage.

That being said, Ximing had to quicken her pace.

She had recently heard Queen Meng talking about her new plans to get rid of other concubines.

And recently only, there had been an “attack” on Queen Meng while she was with the king.

Naturally, she had survived and the assailant had been killed by Ximing’s father.

After some investigation by Ximing, she found that the so-called “assassin” was just a small merchant who had suffered huge losses and had tried to commit suicide.

Queen Meng had found him and promised a somewhat large sum of 100 gold coins for his family in exchange for his life.

After finding this, Ximing knew that the queen had started her next round of attacks.

The attack on herself was just for show and would only be used to prove her innocence in the future.

After this, she would conduct several attacks on other concubines to take them out for good.

Since Ximing and her mother weren’t exactly warriors or even good cultivators, they would be able to give the least amount of resistance against such attacks.

This is why she had stayed up some nights to plan out her escape.

If they ran away, they would still be able to live a little longer.

She had considered her options.

If they managed to get on a boat, whether by paying or by sneaking in, they would be able to get to some other country, maybe the beastkin’s country or the dwarves’.

But then again, they didn’t have much to spare after accounting for their minimum needs.

Also, the ports would be heavily guarded with constant inspections if her father found out that they tried to run. And if they were caught, only execution awaited.

Hiding in the country would be impossible anyway. The only difference would be that the chances of them being found out would be higher.

The only viable places for them to go to would be the country of the beastkin or the country of the dwarves.

There was the country of the demons too, but that place was one of the most dangerous places on the planet. They would probably survive hiding out in Wangxiu for longer than if they tried to hide in the demons’ country.

And even if the country of those mythical elves exists in real life, the chances of getting shelter there would also be negligible if the elves were anything like the ones in storybooks.

‘Ah wait! There is that one last place...’

Ximing suddenly remembered as she was going over her options.

‘There is the Great Demon Law Forest in the South as well.

Let’s see…

No one guards that area to stop anyone from going in…

Most people don’t visit that forest anyways…

There would be some cave or something for us to stay in as well…

Since it’s a forest, there would be quite an abundance of resources and food there…

Damn! Considering all this, that hellhole almost seems to be the perfect place for us to escape to!’

Ximing thought to herself.

‘But then again, there’s that “almost” sitting there.

I mean there’s a reason why there aren’t any guards and why people don’t ever like to visit there.

Because that place is a literal Hell on planet Etheldor!

Who in their right mind would go to that place!?’

But with all other options closed, that was the only place left for her to run to.

‘If we can survive that place and go further, there’s the Wastelands as well!

That place doesn’t sound too nice from what I hear, but at least no one would be trying to kill us right?

Both me and mom are cultivators.

Though not very good ones, we still are cultivators.

I don’t think that surviving in a land with only non-cultivating mortals would be that difficult...’

Ximing started feeling like there was some hope of living still left in their lives.

‘Now that I think about it, with the investigation that’s going on right now, it’ll take some time before Queen Meng can actually begin her attacks on others.

She might manage to kill maybe one concubine, but if she tried to kill multiple people, she’ll be caught instantly!

And with the current speed of investigation, it’ll take at least 3-4 years before everything is finished.

And even then, the earliest that she can start is about six months after that.

Plus, considering that I’m supposed to be her little toy, she’ll come after us the last.

Woah! It seems like we do have the heavens on our side!’

What Ximing didn’t know was that her “dead” brother was very much alive and also in a much better condition than anyone could guess.

And by the time she even started her escape plan, he would probably come to rescue her himself.

Because, by that time, he would have become the king of the most advanced kingdom that this world had ever seen!