"My dear, please don't ever leave me, okay?"
"You are my queen, my one and only, my dearest love... I was born for you, and I will die only for you."
"If you betray me, I'll tie our wrists together with the most beautiful golden ribbon, and then we'll sleep forever and ever in the royal tomb, with all the past kings bearing witness to our love."
"So... please, forever and ever, look at me and me alone, alright?"
…
"Hiss—"
Bai Xiao jolted upright from the warmth of his bed, gasping for air. Cold sweat had already soaked through his pajamas, the clammy fabric sticking tightly to his skin.
"Darling, did you have another nightmare?"
A gentle voice came from beside him.
Bai Xiao stiffly turned his head and met a pair of eyes that, even in the darkness, were still full of concern.
A breathtakingly beautiful woman lay on her side beside him. Her thick golden hair spilled across the pillow like flowing honey, a few stray strands resting lazily against her fair cheek.
Her gaze still held the haze of sleep; she had clearly been awakened by his sudden movement.
But in response to her concern, Bai Xiao could only force a weak smile.
"I-It's nothing. Don't worry."
"How could I not worry?"
The woman let out a soft sigh, then reached out and pulled Bai Xiao into her arms, soothing him with the warmth and softness of her body.
"It's alright. I'm here. I'll protect you, my dear. Nothing will ever separate us."
Held in her embrace, Bai Xiao could feel her heat and softness, but not the slightest trace of romantic excitement stirred in him.
He only felt cold all over.
Because the source of that nightmare was the very woman who was now holding him so tenderly.
Alexandrina Vina Victoria.
The most exalted empress of Victoria.
Once the lights were extinguished, Vina wrapped herself around Bai Xiao like an octopus and drifted back into sweet sleep. Bai Xiao, however, remained wide awake, staring fixedly at the carved shadows on the ceiling.
His mind drifted back to the first time they had met.
A few months ago, Bai Xiao had inexplicably transmigrated into this world. Penniless and without any form of identification, he had wandered for only two days before being arrested as an illegal immigrant and thrown into prison.
He couldn't understand the legal jargon they recited at him. He only knew he had committed a crime, and according to Columbian law, he was to be sent to do "frontier development" in place of serving a prison sentence. After ten years, he would be released.
Frontier development?
After asking around, Bai Xiao finally learned what that so-called "development" really meant. The name sounded nice, but it had nothing to do with cultivating land in the wilderness. It meant being sent into sunless mining pits, where endless labor would grind away one's life.
Only then did he realize he had started with a catastrophically bad hand. Not only was there no beautiful girl coming to break off an engagement with him, his life was hanging by a thread.
How could he accept that?
He tried every method he could think of, but all he got in return were the prison guards' merciless batons and an increasingly weakened body. He had truly thought he would escape the fate of being sent to the mines...
By dying in prison before they could even send him there.
But just as he was sinking into despair and waiting for death to arrive, a turning point came in the most unexpected way possible.
He remembered that day clearly—it was Columbia's Thanksgiving. To show gratitude for the infected laborers' contributions to frontier expansion, even prisoners like them, who were about to be sent off, were given some feathered beast meat to eat.
And then it happened.
A deafening explosion shook the entire prison. Rubble rained down from the ceiling, and amid the chaos, Bai Xiao and the other inmates were driven back into their cells.
As he curled up in the corner, the cell door was suddenly smashed open, and a figure rushed in against the light.
It was a woman dressed in magnificent formal attire, her golden hair disheveled, the hem of her gown smeared with dust. She moved like someone gone mad, searching one cell after another until her eyes locked onto him.
In the next instant, he was pulled into a trembling embrace so tight he could barely breathe. He could even feel the woman's frantic heartbeat and hear her stifled sobs.
Then, under the astonished stares of his cellmates, he was half-supported, half-carried out of the cell. The guards who had once acted like demons now stood meekly on either side, plastering obsequious smiles across their faces.
And outside the prison—
There was an army.
No wonder everyone inside had behaved so obediently and let this woman break him out. With a fully armed army standing outside, who would dare object?
So...
He'd been rescued?
Probably?
From beginning to end, Bai Xiao had been completely dazed. He didn't know who this woman was, why she was saving him, or where she was taking him.
But he didn't resist. No matter what, it had to be better than being sent off to "develop the frontier."
Outside the prison, a professional medical team was already waiting. Before Bai Xiao could even process what was happening, they began running one examination after another on him. The woman never let go of his hand the entire time, not even for a second.
And it was then that he learned who she was.
She was the Empress of Victoria.
That was how they first met.
What happened after that was simple enough.
Vina arranged for Bai Xiao to stay by her side and personally took care of his daily life. The two of them were almost never apart, spending every waking moment together.
A month later, Vina proposed to him.
Of course Bai Xiao didn't refuse.
Who could refuse an empress who was beautiful and powerful, gentle yet a little clumsy? Bai Xiao could feel just how sincere Vina's love for him was—so sincere that she seemed to love him even more than she loved herself.
To have the companionship of an empress was enough for him.
This trip into another world hadn't been in vain.
And so they became husband and wife. Bai Xiao became the husband of Her Majesty the Empress, the sole person in her harem. More than once, Vina even offered to hand the throne over to him, but Bai Xiao refused every time.
He thought things were already perfect as they were. And in their constant closeness, he truly had fallen for Vina—not because of her crown.
He deliberately ignored the faint unease in his heart, telling himself that this was what real happiness looked like.
But that was only his wishful thinking.
As time slowly passed, Vina's feelings for him began to change.
Not by growing colder.
Rather, they grew deeper. Fiercer. More intense. More...
Twisted.
That was the word.
Twisted.
Bai Xiao didn't want to use that word, but the truth was right in front of him.
At first, the two of them lived in the palace, with maids attending to them in everything they did. Later, Vina replaced all the maids. At the time, Bai Xiao hadn't thought much of it. He wasn't used to being waited on anyway, so if he needed anything, he could just ask the male guards outside.
He guessed Vina was just a little jealous. If she didn't want women around him, then switching them out for men should have solved the problem, right?
What he hadn't expected was that even the guards were unacceptable to her.
Her possessiveness kept growing stronger and stronger. At first, it was merely a matter of not letting Bai Xiao speak to other people. But now, she wouldn't even let him leave the house.
Ignoring the ministers' objections, Vina even had a huge castle built in the palace garden. With its carved domes and stained-glass windows, every last detail was extravagantly luxurious.
All for the sake of locking Bai Xiao inside it.
Still, aside from not allowing him outside, she never deprived him of anything. Whatever he wanted, she did everything in her power to fulfill it, regardless of the cost. Bai Xiao's wishes were her wishes.
He had tried making things difficult for her, wanting to see her grow angry.
But the exalted Empress of Victoria was willing to serve him in the humblest, most degrading ways. No matter how shameful the posture, she accepted it. No matter how excessive the demand, she did so gladly.
Bai Xiao had resisted as well, only to discover that he couldn't outargue her, and he certainly couldn't overpower her. Worse, every failed act of defiance earned him a whole night of ruthless punishment. He had no idea how such overwhelming strength could be hidden inside Vina's soft, delicate body. Every time he remembered the sight of her straddling him and moving wildly, his lower back began to ache.
It was as though she wanted to use that method to drain away every last bit of his strength—
To make him give up any thoughts he shouldn't be having.
Like...
Running away.
She loved him—of that, Bai Xiao had never doubted for a moment.
But he was no longer sure he could bear the weight of that love.
It was like sweet poison, like molten gold being poured down his throat.
Maybe he could still endure it for now. But who could guarantee that Vina's love wouldn't curdle once again?
It was already becoming pathological.
If it kept going, then it would truly become yandere.
Bai Xiao shivered again.
Vina seemed to sense it in her sleep, but she only shifted a little, nestling more comfortably into his arms.
Bai Xiao let out a long breath of relief.
Vina was terrifyingly energetic when she woke up in the middle of the night. More than once, Bai Xiao had been jolted awake by her riding on top of him and swaying.
Good thing she didn't wake up...
He really had to come up with some kind of solution.
That was easy enough to say, but solutions didn't just appear on their own. His mind was in chaos, and sleep would not come. By chance, his eyes fell on the handheld game console resting beside the bed.
That thing had transmigrated with him.
It seemed to be nothing more than an ordinary electronic device, with nothing particularly special about it.
He turned it on.
The screen displayed a game stage.
The first level was called "Lungmen Horror."
There were two pixel characters on the screen, one holding a longsword and the other a triangular shield. They looked extremely crude. Bai Xiao had tried playing it before, but he had never been able to start the game, as though something had been missing.
This time was the same—
Except now there was an extra line of text.
[Worldline reset detected. Releasing neurotransmitters...]
Neurotransmitters?
Bai Xiao had no idea what that meant.
But the Start Game button had lit up, so he casually pressed it.
And then everything went black.
He fainted on the spot.
-------
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