🔥An ancient-style Mr. and Mrs. Smith: mutual suspicion and deception, until they join forces as equals🔥
🔥With only two saves, there's no chance of making the rankings. I'll finish drafting the whole story before updating regularly. Rolling around and begging for saves >ᴗoಣ🔥
Pei Yuanxing, the head of a shadow-puppet troupe from the northern frontier, has a "Shadow Puppets Come to Life" System. By day, she performs plays; by night, she investigates mysteries. She makes a thriving business out of gathering intelligence.
But one day, she slips up and is discovered by Wu He'an, Commander of the Imperial City Bureau. He captures her and uses her shadow puppets to investigate cases.
Before starting work, Pei Yuanxing hands him a scroll outlining the precautions for shadow-puppet reconnaissance: "They fear water, fire, and cockroaches; mice, moths, and mold terrify them. Poisonous gas damages their skins, so they can't go near it. Remember, they're precious and mustn't be overworked. Each appearance costs three hundred taels."
Someone breaks out in a cold sweat and blurts, "At that price, we might as well send our own men."
Wu He'an's expression doesn't change. "Granted."
So she steers her shadow puppets into the estates of powerful nobles, dodging cold arrows as she raises her fee. "One hundred taels per arrow!"
She has used her puppets to investigate several times, but he still doesn't rein it in. She groans inwardly: I should've charged more.
He keeps pushing his luck; she keeps asking for more.
As the puppeteer, she's worked to exhaustion, as frail as a willow in the wind, while he's been fattening her up with feasts of meat and fish at every meal.
When her revenge is complete and the territory reclaimed, she's ended up giving herself to him, too. Lying in his arms, she's still grumbling: I should've made him give me an emperor's throne.
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Characters:
Pei Yuanxing: Onstage, she humbly sings through every joy and sorrow. In the shadows, she turns a hundred puppets into blades and is a master of deception upon deception.
Wu He'an: A sinister schemer in court, but a devoted puppy who goes through hell to win her back.
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A little scene from author Zhuo Xi, who barges in:
On the front lines of the siege of Lizhou, a key stronghold in the northern frontier, the soldiers are fired up and grim. The great battle is about to begin.
Yet Commissioner Wu He'an and his subordinate Pei Yuanxing have been discussing things inside a tent for ages and still haven't come out.
War correspondent Zhuo Xi reports: "To prevent spies from stealing military intelligence, this reporter is going into the tent to find out what they're discussing!"
Zhuo Xi hefts her camera, aims it at the tent entrance, and yanks open the flap!
!!!
"Oh no, we can't air this!" She hastily covers the camera, points it at the ground, and closes the tent flap again.
"To find out what happens next, read the main story."
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Reading note:
A serious, dramatic tone
Theme: Light gives rise to shadow, and shadow brings out the human heart.
