Kill That Transmigrator Woman - Chapter 21

Chapter 21: Looking at Him Up Close

Cui Wanwan, after all, had trained in martial arts and had excellent hearing. She had already sensed their presence the moment her father arrived.

The girl in red spun midair and landed gracefully, coming to a stop.

She turned around and looked up.

Her father had widely accepted disciples and made friends throughout the entire capital, some were even people from the martial world.

So Cui Wanwan wasn’t surprised that an outsider had come to the Cui residence as a guest.

What surprised her was the person himself. It was an utterly ordinary moment of eye contact, and yet it made Cui Wanwan freeze. The sounds around her ears suddenly slowed, and the falling snowflakes seemed to pause midair.

In both her previous life and her current one, this was the very first time Cui Wanwan had come into such close contact with Shen Jingzhou, the son of the Great General Shen.

Of course, this excluded the encounters she had in her past life when she’d already become a ghost.

Cui Wanwan was used to seeing Shen Jingzhou as a monk. To suddenly see him now, with hair black as ink, left her momentarily unresponsive.

Shen Jingzhou wasn’t an ordinary young man. He carried the maturity of someone far older, his entire bearing calm and composed beyond his years, as though the world and all its workings lay quietly beneath his gaze.

His eyes held neither sorrow nor joy, containing a kind of compassion for the world, which made Cui Wanwan always feel that he was someone chosen by the heavens to become a monk.

And yet this young man, dressed in a pale blue long robe, was so refined and exceptional in appearance, like an elegant gentleman, like an orchid, like the clear glow of the moon.

How could such a person possibly be the invincible Young General of a hundred victorious battles?

Cui Wanwan was shocked and deeply surprised.

Wasn’t it said that military men, on blood-soaked battlefields where swords knew no mercy, were all cold-blooded and stone-hearted killers?

That Shen Jingzhou had chosen to become a monk—this, she could somewhat understand. After all, he looked so gentle and calm, his eyes filled with compassion for the world, his entire being exuding a sense of peace and quietude.

But to think that he could become a general worshipped and revered by the people across the Nine Provinces, that was simply beyond belief.

Yes, suddenly she recalled a phrase she had heard many years ago.

It was how the common folk described this young general:

A gentleman in battle, shaking all directions.

He could be a gentleman in literature, and a killing god in war.

The withered branch in Cui Wanwan’s hand slipped from her fingers and dropped into the snow, that was what finally snapped her back to her senses.

She gathered her fox-fur cloak around her and walked in her father’s direction.

It was obvious they had seen her, and she had seen them too.
Not stepping forward to greet them would be simply inexcusable.

As a daughter of the Cui family, even if her parents had doted on her in childhood, the proper etiquette and upbringing could not be abandoned, otherwise, she would face the family rules and harsh reprimands.

Cui Wanwan walked up to Shen Jingzhou and first gave him a respectful and proper salute. “Greetings, Young General.”

Then she turned to her father and gave a slight curtsey. “Father.”

Father Cui instinctively furrowed his brows. His youngest daughter hadn’t called him A’die (Dad) in a long time. He didn’t know whether it was because she had grown up, changed a little after her three years of travel, or if she still harbored resentment over his adoption of Wei Qingyu.

Snowflakes gently drifted down, and with the winter wind, they fluttered through the air like scattered jade.

The seventeen-year-old youth, dressed in pale blue, carried an air of chilly elegance. The expression on his face, neither joyful nor sorrowful, faded completely the moment their gazes met, replaced instead with a warm, gentle smile.

Cui Wanwan noticed this change and instinctively widened her eyes.

She hadn’t seen it wrong, had she?

Though that smile was faint, almost imperceptible, she was sure she had seen it.

Cui Wanwan had always been confident in her looks, but back in her previous life, when she had lingered as a ghost around Shen Jingzhou after he became a monk, every time she saw that face, which could enrage gods and men with its beauty, she would fall into a deep inferiority complex.

This guy was prettier than she was.

Even bald, he had been a handsome young man.

“Lord Cui, how about letting your esteemed daughter take me on a stroll through this plum garden?” Shen Jingzhou politely addressed Father Cui, who stood to the side.

How could Father Cui possibly refuse?

Letting his daughter accompany him on a walk through the plum garden? Even if the Young General asked to dig up the entire garden and move it to his residence, Father Cui wouldn’t dare utter a single word of refusal.

Great General Shen was a close personal friend of the current emperor. It was said that the general’s late wife had been someone the emperor had once longed for deeply, even many years after her passing.

But fate had seen that the general and his wife were deeply in love, and the emperor had no choice but to let go, offering them his blessing.

It was often said that when merit overshadows the ruler, disaster follows. But when it came to Great General Shen and His Majesty, all talk of overwhelming power or overwhelming popular support was complete nonsense!

Some even said that had the Great General wanted the throne back then, the emperor might very well have handed it over willingly.

After all, the general and the emperor had grown up together. When the emperor had still been a prince, they had trained and fought side by side in the military for many years.

The battlefield was full of peril. In his youth, the emperor had nearly lost his life multiple times, each time, it was Great General Shen who had saved him, risking his own life.

After seizing the throne and still finding it unstable, the emperor had even issued an imperial edict.

If, after his death, none of his sons were deemed capable enough to rule, the throne was to be passed on to General Shen.

Father Cui agreed without hesitation and gave Cui Wanwan a meaningful glance, signaling her to properly attend to their esteemed guest and not to neglect the rules of etiquette under any circumstance.

Cui Wanwan stood beside Shen Jingzhou with her head slightly lowered, feeling a bit ill at ease.

You have to understand—the person beside her was a true god of slaughter. Rumor had it that when the Young General was twelve, he once fell into an enemy ambush.

At the time, not a single soldier was by his side, while the enemy had surrounded him with three hundred elite troops.

It was a situation of certain death. The enemy’s intention was clear—they wanted to cut off the Shen family’s only bloodline, to kill the one and only heir of the General’s Mansion.

But what no one could have expected was that this twelve-year-old boy not only broke through the encirclement in the end, but left all three hundred elite soldiers dead in that vast desert, not a single one surviving.

The blood that soaked the golden sand dyed it red. Although Shen Jingzhou didn’t come out unscathed, he was seriously injured and remained unconscious for several months after returning to the camp, in the end, he had won.

The world said that once Young General Shen inherited his father’s command seal, there would likely be no one in all the Nine Provinces who could rival him. The unification of the realm and its complete submission to Beilin would be only a matter of time.

Because of this, neighboring states regarded Shen Jingzhou with deep wariness. Over the years, the number of assassins sent to kill him was beyond counting.

And yet, not one succeeded.

Aside from that serious injury at age twelve, Shen Jingzhou had never been wounded again, not even a single strand of his hair had been touched by the enemy.

“Miss Cui, it’s been a long time.” Shen Jingzhou’s voice was clear and gentle, warm and pleasant to the ear.

Cui Wanwan still felt horrified.

To single-handedly slay three hundred elite soldiers, let alone now, she couldn’t have done that even with two lifetimes combined.

Yet the person beside her had accomplished it at just twelve.

God of slaughter. Stay far away from the god of slaughter…

With her head full of strange and absurd thoughts, Cui Wanwan didn’t even pay attention to what Shen Jingzhou was saying to her. She cautiously glanced up at his face, then quickly lowered her head again.

“No way… With or without hair, he’s this good-looking?” Cui Wanwan murmured to herself, dazed.

Suddenly, laughter came from above her head.

Cui Wanwan looked up and nearly fainted.

Bald, he had a kind of ascetic beauty; with hair, he was strikingly handsome, and when he smiled like this, it completely shattered Cui Wanwan’s forced calm.

So noble, so stunning. His bearing was like green bamboo, his face like fine jade.

She even thought, if in her past life she had met this man first, she never would’ve wasted her feelings on that bastard Dongfang Moxang.

Since her rebirth, she had been wrapped tightly in hatred, but at this moment, Cui Wanwan felt an unprecedented sense of ease.

They say beautiful people are pleasing to the eye, and gazing upon them can add years to your life. It truly wasn’t a lie.