After entering the abusive novel, I became the empress - chapter 3

The room was silent. Qin Yuqing and Qin Qinqin confronted each other without a sound, both smiling, neither revealing a flaw.

At last, a pair of sparrows flew in through the window, perching separately on Qin Yuqing’s and Qin Qinqin’s desks.

“Well, everyone has their little secrets.” Qin Qinqin was the first to break. She leaned over the desk, idly poking the paper with her brush. “Isn’t Fifth Sister more like a proper elder sister than I am? Otherwise, why would you know her secrets?”

Sometimes Qin Yuqing really wanted to roll her eyes. In the original book, the two of them had no right to accuse each other. To one another’s face they were all gentleness, but behind the scenes—petty, vindictive, and never forgetting a grudge.

“Elder sisters have always looked after their younger ones. It’s just that sometimes we younger sisters don’t behave very sensibly.” Qin Yuqing did not answer directly, instead chiding the younger generation’s little shortcomings.

“Enough, enough. If I continue, I’ll only look petty.” Qin Qinqin straightened her posture and began copying the scripture seriously.

Qin Yuqing only shook her head lightly and continued her own copying. She thought the next three days might pass in such peace.

But then Qinqin suddenly asked, “But little sister, you’ve never been to the academy. How did you learn to write?” Her tone was curious, almost playful. “Unless Ah Ruan has been switched with someone else? Otherwise, how did she suddenly become so eloquent?”

Qin Yuqing sighed inwardly. She was beginning to understand why the system hadn’t judged her task complete yet. In the book, the heroine’s early personality was dull and unlikable. Neglected as she was, by the time she should have begun schooling, no one had ever mentioned it.

“Did you forget, sister? My mother, Concubine Chen, was once the most talented lady in the capital.” Qin Yuqing set a completed sheet of scripture on the ground. “Besides, my personal maid Chuntao is literate. If you don’t believe me, you can ask the chief eunuch—he would never lie.”

Qin Qinqin said nothing, only studied Qin Yuqing with suspicious eyes, as if weighing whether she spoke truth or falsehood. After a while she shook her head. “The National Preceptor was right. I should quiet my heart. How could I imagine such nonsense?”

“Who would dare to switch someone inside the palace,” Qinqin scoffed with a shake of her head. “You may be comfortable now, but that doesn’t mean I can overlook the past.”

“No matter. As you yourself said before, I don’t deny what I’ve done. But surely you can judge for yourself—would someone devoted to the Buddha truly act in such ways?”

Qinqin rose and set a jade pendant on Qin Yuqing’s desk, her voice tinged with haughty pride. “Keep this. It is your elder sister’s affection.”

Qin Yuqing arched a brow, then picked up the pendant and hung it at her waist under Qinqin’s watchful gaze. “There’s no proof against Fifth Sister. I’ll make inquiries for you.”

“I like clever people.” Qinqin returned to her seat, in high spirits, and resumed copying.

【Host has completed Main Mission One: Survive.】

【Issuing Main Mission Two: Escape.】

Qin Yuqing was baffled. Escape? Escape to where? Did it mean something was about to happen here?

Just then, a foul stench filled her nose. She had smelled this somewhere before.

Outside the door, a red flare of fire flashed. Qin Yuqing’s scalp prickled. She leapt up, shoved the door open, and cried, “Stop!”

Qinqin also ran out. The sight of what the man held made her gasp. “Do you know who we are?!”

A robed Daoist clutched a wooden ladle. That nauseating odor came from it, and on the ground, a slick black liquid gleamed with a metallic sheen.

Qin Yuqing barely had time to marvel—petroleum, in this age?—before the Daoist, seeing his plot exposed, drew out a fire striker to throw down.

She snatched up the massive scripture beside her and hurled it at him. Qin Qinqin, not for nothing trained in martial arts, recovered from her shock in an instant, seized the man’s arm in a twist, and kicked the fire striker toward Qin Yuqing.

Qin Yuqing bent to pick it up. By then, guards from the National Preceptor’s pagoda were already rushing over.

The Daoist, realizing he was finished, swallowed poison and died before either princess could react.

“How brazen, to keep death warriors!” Qinqin kicked the corpse in contempt before casting Qin Yuqing a disdainful look. “And what use is throwing a book? Next time follow me—I’ll teach you martial arts.”

“Thank you for the kind offer, Fourth Sister, but with my body as it is, I doubt I can manage.”

Qinqin clicked her tongue in annoyance, then muttered as she gave orders to the guards, “What a nuisance. If you hadn’t done decently with that strawman business, I wouldn’t bother with such a burden.”

Qin Yuqing watched her walk away, puzzled. In the original story, this princess and the heroine were sworn enemies. But now? Their relationship didn’t seem quite so rigid.

Was her arrival warping the plot? Or were there details the book had never recorded?

That night, no further dangers arose. More guards were posted around the pagoda. She heard the assassin had been from the Mu clan of Qingzhou, embittered against imperial power, who learned the princesses were here and seized his chance.

But still the system did not mark Mission Two complete. So “escape” didn’t simply mean surviving a threat. Then what?

Qin Yuqing pulled out paper and began jotting events in a modern style, replacing key people with animals or numbers, linking them with plants. Staring at her coded notes, she thought she’d found a blind spot.

Then, a gust blew the paper across the floor toward the door. When she stooped to pick it up, she looked up—and froze. A figure was hanging upside down from the ceiling.

She blinked, then let out a half-laugh. “General Lu, appearing in such a creepy pose in a young lady’s room at midnight—isn’t that a bit improper?” She slipped the paper into the lamp’s flame, watching it burn to ash.

“I saw.” Lu Jingchuan dropped down, his first words cryptic.

Qin Yuqing was thrown off. “So what? If you have no proper business here, General, please leave.” She stifled a yawn, but her gaze slid to the embroidery at his cuff. A small, distinctive stitch—she suddenly understood. “You were sent by Chuntao.”

That explained it. In the original, Chuntao only appeared near the end—by then, there was no mention of any “Little General Lu.” Yesterday, Qin Yuqing had noticed the same odd embroidery on Chuntao’s sleeve. It was the character “Lu.”

“Yes. She’s one of the death warriors I raised.” Lu Jingchuan was utterly frank. His eyes locked onto hers. “You survived.”

The words sent a chill down her spine. She forced her expression to remain calm though her mind reeled. The system had just declared her mission complete this very morning. And now Lu Jingchuan said the same?

“I’ve been alive all along. Don’t tell ghost stories in the middle of the night—you’ll scare people.”

“No.” He said only that one word more, then fell silent, gazing at her like a loyal hound abandoned by its master, eyes dark and wet.

Qin Yuqing couldn’t stand that look. Still, since Chuntao was his person, it meant today’s events were orchestrated under his orders. That meant she could use his help.

In the book, the Lu family was later charged with treason and destroyed, accused of colluding with rebels. Yet earlier descriptions painted them as loyalists, their generations steadfast and true. It didn’t add up.

What’s more, Lu Jingchuan himself had entered the palace as a hostage, a safeguard: should the Lu clan betray the throne, the imperial family could eliminate their last heir instantly.

Piecing it all together, Qin Yuqing felt the book’s early and later chapters couldn’t possibly have been written by the same author—the logic was too inconsistent.

“Lu Jingchuan, shall we cooperate?” She knew if he dared appear here, there could be no other eyes around.

“How?”

“I’ll help preserve your Lu family. You’ll help me sit for the imperial examination.”

She recalled—in a month’s time, the exams would be held. Perhaps the mission meant escaping the palace altogether. After all, her ultimate goal was to become Empress. Trapped here, how could she hope for that?

She had no powerful family, no imperial favor, and worst of all, she was a woman. The only path left was through the exams, entering officialdom by merit.

For once, Lu Jingchuan’s stoic face flickered—surprise, and fleeting joy, before his mask slipped back.

Qin Yuqing didn’t dwell on why he seemed pleased. The more she thought about it, the more certain she became: the exams were her next step.

【Main Mission Three triggered: Sit for the Imperial Examination.】

The system’s voice was like a final verdict.

“Very well,” Lu Jingchuan said. “But I have a condition.” He clapped his hands. Four or five black-clad men vaulted in through the window, each carrying a wine jar. “Drink with me, and I’ll agree.”

Qin Yuqing almost laughed. So that was all?

“System, does my modern constitution come with me into this world?”

【Yes.】

“Then it’s settled. Back in my world, I never once got drunk. ‘Thousand-cup constitution’ wasn’t an empty boast.”

She picked up a jar and eyed Lu Jingchuan. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” His gaze was unwavering, almost obsessive. His voice was cold, yet carried some emotion she couldn’t name. “I’m a soldier. We believe in drunken truth.”

“Drunken truth, hmm.” Qin Yuqing’s brows arched. She suddenly wanted to see what he was after. “As it happens, I believe that too.” And with years of business banquets behind her, she knew every trick of feigned drunkenness.

She drank deep from the jar. Lu Jingchuan immediately matched her. Neither would concede. Jar after jar was emptied, whisked away by the shadows and replaced with new.

She lost track of how long it went on. At last, Lu Jingchuan’s eyes turned red at the corners, his body swaying, tears glimmering unshed. The flush on his austere face lent him a kind of restrained allure.

It was about time. Qin Yuqing deliberately fumbled the jar, nearly dropping it. She staggered back, groaning as she knocked into a bookshelf.

“This wine bites!” she gasped in mock pain, then downed another mouthful, choking into coughs. “But I like it.”

Almost against his will, Lu Jingchuan stepped forward as if to catch her—but stopped himself after three strides, iron will restraining him.

The more Qin Yuqing watched, the stranger he seemed. Something about him felt familiar. Yet whether in her modern life or the book’s world, she had never once crossed paths with a “Lu Jingchuan.”

Her memories were intact—no gaps, no confusion.

So logically, this was their very first—albeit odd—meeting.

“Come on, keep drinking!” she raised the jar again, but this time it really slipped, shattering on the floor.

“Little liar.”

The crack of pottery drowned his words. Qin Yuqing didn’t catch them. “What did you say?”

“You should be drunk by now.”