Picked Bestie Sweet Fast-Travel, She Broke Three Therapists

I'm an operative with the Transmigration Bureau.

To let my best friend Rose experience a domineering-CEO romance, I picked out a story rated 9.8 just for her: The Emperor's Beloved.

Her first day back, she checked into three separate psychiatric ERs.

Then she went and left it one star.

Note: This so-called heavenly favor? Even a dog would want no part of it.

I was so furious I dragged her in front of the display screen.

"You start out as an imperial consort. The emperor dismissed the entire harem for you."

"Even the empress has to watch your mood. What is there to complain about?"

She laughed, and it was uglier than crying.

"Three years in that palace. I was forced to drink ninety-nine bowls of sterility draught, targeted by assassins sixty-six times, and I lost ten pregnancies."

"He'd hold me and say he trusted only me, then turn around and plant forged evidence of treason in my father's study."

"One hundred and twenty-seven people in my family, and the emperor who doted on me most signed the order for their execution himself."

I pulled up the character panel: unmatched beauty, the emperor's exclusive favor, ending marked a lifetime of imperial favor.

"A maxed-out favored-consort script, and you still managed to turn it into a sob story. If you ask me, you just don't have what it takes."

"I'll go in myself and show you how it's done. I'll teach you what it means to have an emperor wrapped around your finger."

The next second, I opened my eyes wearing her face.

Empress Edna Rowe was pressing a bowl of pitch-black medicine against my lips.

"Trying the slit-wrists routine again? His Majesty's grown bored of it."

"Or should I give you a hand with it."

I turned my face away and glared at her. "Get your hands off me."

Edna gripped my chin and pushed the bowl half an inch closer.

"Lisa Henson, do you still think you're the grand general's daughter?"

"This is the hundredth bowl. Drink it and we round things off nicely."

I let my head go with the force of her hand and drove my elbow up into the bottom of the bowl.

It smashed at her feet, broken porcelain and dark medicine splashing up across her imperial robe.

Edna's face went cold. "Hold her down."

Before the attendants could lunge, I already had a shard of porcelain up against her throat.

The wound on my wrist tore open, blood sliding down my fingers onto her collar.

"You've lost your mind!"

I pushed the shard a fraction forward, and a thin line of blood welled up along her neck.

"Call your people off."

She froze in place, and at last there was panic in her eyes.

"Lisa Henson, you dare kill an empress? Your family is gone. There's no one left."

"You think His Majesty will still protect"

"Shut up." I cut her off coldly.

I patted her cheek with my bloody, medicine-slick hand.

"What His Majesty thinks doesn't matter. What matters is that he never ordered you to kill me."

"So this becomes a jealous empress inflicting private punishment."

I stared into her eyes and let a mocking smile curl up.

"Kill me, and you're defying His Majesty's decree to keep me alive."

"An empress the Rowe family raised to defy an imperial decree. The whole clan would share the punishment, wouldn't it?"

Her pupils shrank. I'd struck her most secret nerve.

Just then, hurried footsteps came from beyond the hall doors.

"His Majesty the Emperor"

A hem of imperial yellow swept in on the late-autumn chill.

Leonard Vance, emperor of the Great Yuan realm, the male lead of this 9.8-rated sweet romance.

He truly did have a magnificent shell: sword-straight brows, bright eyes, a deep-carved face.

"Lisa!"

Leonard strode forward, his face full of tender concern, and slapped Edna across the face.

The blow knocked her head aside, blood at the corner of her mouth, and all she could do was drop to her knees.

"Get out! I told you to look after my consort, and you dared to force her!"

Having spat out the reprimand, Leonard scooped me up off the floor.

He settled me carefully on the bed, cradled my bleeding wrist, and stroked it gently.

"My Lisa has suffered."

He bent his head and tenderly kissed the blood and medicine on my hand.

"Lisa, I can't bear to see you suffer."

He pressed close to my ear, his voice soft and lingering.

"So many women die giving birth. How could I ever let you take that risk?"

Leonard took another bowl of medicine from the attendant and blew on it himself to cool it.

He sat down at the bedside and drew an arm around my shoulders.

"Be good, Lisa. Drink this, and I'll see you every day, and never have to worry about you suffering again."

I shoved him off with one hand, medicine spilling across his imperial robe.

"The evidence that the Henson family colluded with the enemyyou planted it in my father's study, didn't you?"

Leonard wiped at the medicine stain on his robe, unhurried, and gave a soft laugh.

"The Henson family held the military power. They obstructed me again and again. If I hadn't removed them, I might not even have been able to protect you."

"I will never allow anyone in this realm to threaten imperial power."

With that, he seized my jaw, his thumb brushing along my cheek.

"The Hensons are gone. From now on, in all this world, only I will treat you with a true heart."

"From now on I'll be the person who loves you most in this world, and you'll be no one's Lisa but mine."

Just then a mechanical voice sounded in my head:

"Ding. Achievement unlocked: Grace for One Alone."

Right now my mind was perfectly clear, and I wanted nothing more than to slap him across the face.

But my body was frozen, as if pinned in place. I didn't even have the strength to raise my hand.

This was the design bug of diving into a story: whoever enters must conform to the original character setup.

I had to maintain the setting where the heroine loved Leonard Vance to the point of ruin, and this body carried an instinctive obedience and terror toward him.

Leonard seemed very pleased with my compliance.

Like rewarding a pet, he drew a red-stained jade hairpin from his sleeve.

I recognized it. It was my mother's favorite hairpin while she lived.

"If my Lisa is fond of children, I'll issue a decree and have the empress's legitimate son placed under your name to raise."

"With me protecting you and a prince at your side, you'll still be the most honored woman in this palace."

Having said it, Leonard slid the hairpin, stained with the blood of the entire Henson family, into my hair.

"There's a palace banquet tonight."

His thumb traced along my ashen cheek.

"Wear it, and come with me to receive the homage of the court."

Night had fallen, and the Endless Palace blazed with light.

Leonard Vance held me steady and settled me into the seat at the right of the throne.

The place stood only half a step lower than his own, and on the table beside me sat the warming brazier I always used.

The officials passed their cups back and forth, and their sneers came without the slightest disguise.

"The whole Henson family wiped out to the last soul, and she still has the nerve to sit here soaking up His Majesty's favor."

"A wicked consort bewitching her lord. No shame at all."

"I hear she even wounded the Empress today. Utterly lawless."

Leonard sat straight on the throne, turning the archer's ring on his thumb, letting them talk.

Then someone murmured, low, "The Henson survivors ought to be dealt with too, all of them."

Snap.

The archer's ring came down against the table, and no one dared open his mouth again.

Edna Rowe sat in the Empress's place of honor and raised a cup toward me.

"Consort Henson has had a fright today. I had the imperial kitchen prepare a nourishing dish just for her."

She lifted her hand, and an attendant came bowing toward me, a tray held before him.

The silver cover lifted away. On the plate lay a bright red paste of venison and blood.

"Plum Blossoms on Snow."

In the quiet of the great hall, a few soft laughs broke out.

Anyone could see it. The dish mocked the Henson family, the rivers of blood the day they were beheaded at the great south gate.

Edna watched me, her eyes brimming with the pleasure of a vengeance long awaited.

"Consort, taste it. Don't let my good intentions go to waste."

Leonard still said nothing. He tilted his head a fraction, watching me with real interest.

I lifted that plate of paste and carried it to the Grand Tutor, who sat at the head of the officials.

"Honorable Grand Tutor, you know the old texts through and through. There is something I don't understand, and I would beg your instruction."

The old Grand Tutor stroked his beard and gave a cold snort. "A criminal's daughter. What right have you to seek instruction from me?"

His manner didn't trouble me. My voice came clear, each word precise.

"The classical rites say that in all sacrifices, the Son of Heaven uses the great offering, and the lords the lesser."

"But this thing, raw flesh mixed with a paste of blood, is called the blood offering."

I paused, let my gaze sweep the whole hall, and let it settle at last on Edna's face.

"When the last emperor of the fallen dynasty saw his realm broken and his house destroyed, the rebel army used the blood offering to honor their perished sovereign."

"So I ask the Grand Tutor. Today is a joyous rite of celebration for our Great Yuan, and the Empress bestows a thing of such ill omen"

I let my voice rise. "What exactly does she intend?!"

The hall went silent all at once.

The old Grand Tutor's face turned iron gray. He slammed the table and shot to his feet.

"Preposterous! The Empress prepares a fallen-nation sacrifice. This is nothing short of treason!"

The officials broke into an uproar and dropped to their knees, one after another.

Edna's legs gave out under her in fright, and she crumpled straight off the imperial seat to her knees.

"Your Majesty, see the truth! I never meant such a thing! I only"

"Enough." The smile left Leonard's face.

"The Empress has breached decorum before the court and bestowed a thing of gross disrespect. Confined to the Empress's Palace for three months!"

Once I was seated again, the chime sounded in my mind:

"Ding. Achievement unlocked: Sole Imperial Favor."

After the banquet broke up, I returned to the side hall, and Leonard pushed the door open right behind me.

He reached back to lock it, backed me into the corner, and dragged the pad of his thumb across my cheek.

Something feverish flickered in the depths of his eyes.

"This is exactly what I like. You, with claws grown in."

He murmured it low, his warm breath spilling into the hollow of my neck.

"Far more interesting than before, when all you could do was cry."

I turned my head aside and slipped out from under his touch.

Leonard reached up and drew the jade hairpin from my hair.

"The claws can be sharper. But you're not to hurt yourself again."

His fingers tightened, and there was a crisp crack.

The hairpin snapped in two in his palm, and the pieces of jade fell to the floor.

"From now on, whoever you want dealt with, come to me directly."

I clenched my fists hard, fighting against this body.

Outside the hall, a scream tore up all at once.

"Mercy, Your Majesty! This servant won't dare again!"

Leonard arched a brow and pulled me over to the window.

In the courtyard, several attendants were swinging their rods, beating a young attendant.

The young attendant was the very one who had carried the plate to me at the banquet.

"Do you see it clearly now?"

Leonard circled my waist from behind and rested his chin on my shoulder.

"In this palace, I will always keep you safe."

The young attendant's cries grew weaker and weaker, until in the end he was nothing but a body of ruined flesh and blood.

Leonard drew his gaze back, satisfied, and pressed close to my ear.

"Tomorrow, I'll go with you to the Ministry of Rites."

He paused, and the tips of his fingers lifted my chin, forcing me to look into his eyes.

"The Henson family genealogy, I'll have it burned."

"From then on you carry no Henson name, and you're no criminal's heir. You are only mine."

He kissed the space between my brows.

"After this, no one will ever dare use the Henson business to shame you again."

A cold spread through me, and my stomach cramped.

Burn the genealogy, wipe out the Henson name. What Leonard loved wasn't me. It was a puppet who could only cling to him to survive.

Stay in this palace, and sooner or later he'd devour me until nothing was left.

I had to go.

Before dawn the next day, Leonard was pinned in the imperial study by an urgent report from the frontier, and he sent four imperial guards to escort me to the Ministry of Rites.

I made an excuse about fetching the genealogy from a side hall and pressed the golden hairpin into the hand of the palace steward in charge of purchasing.

"Get me a set of eunuch's clothes, and ready a slop cart that leaves the palace to dump the waste."

He gripped the hairpin, his face going pale.

I lowered my voice.

"There's five hundred taels of gold waiting at a bank outside the city. Get me out, and it's all yours."

He swallowed, greed working in his throat.

Half an hour later, I knocked over the lamp oil, and the flames raced up the eaves. The crowd scattered the imperial guards. I changed into the clothes, took the seal I'd lifted from the Ministry of Rites, and climbed into the slop cart by the back gate.

I crouched behind the wooden barrels, listening to the wheels grind over the flagstones.

Once I was past the north gate, I could find a way to reach the Transmigration Bureau and rewrite the flaws in the book.

"Stop. Search it."

The moment the driver held out the papers, the clatter of armor rose inside the palace gate.

"Imperial guards, seal the north gate."

I clutched the seal, its edge biting into my nails until they ached.

The boards of the slop cart were wrenched away.

When they were, Leonard was sitting on horseback, his black cloak falling past the horse's belly, my forged papers between his fingers.

"Lisa."

He said it softly, the way he usually called me to rise and eat.

"That handwriting. I taught you every stroke of it myself."

He unrolled the papers and tapped the signature.

"How could you forget I'd know it?"

Leonard swung down from the horse and came toward me, step by step. I jumped off the cart, snatched the saber from a guard beside me, and leveled the point straight at him.

"Don't come closer!"

Every blade around us hissed from its sheath, but Leonard raised a hand.

"Back off. Don't frighten her."

He walked toward me, and there was almost a smile in his voice.

"The blade's too heavy. What if you hurt your hand?"

I swung it at him. He turned aside, caught the edge in his palm, blood sliding down between his fingers. He seemed to feel nothing, closed his grip around my wrist, and slowly bled the strength out of my arm.

"If you want to kill me, you don't have to fight this hard."

I stumbled back, and he reached out to cradle the back of my head, gathering me against him.

"I thought that if I erased the Hensons, no one could shame you again."

Gently, he brushed the wet hair stuck to my face.

"So it turns out that in your eyes, I'm the one who did wrong."

He stared at me, the anger in his eyes pressed down very deep.

After a moment, his arms tightened.

"But even so, I can't let you go."

He took the sword an imperial guard handed him and set the point against my left ankle.

I struggled with everything I had, and all it earned me was a soft sigh.

"Don't be afraid. It'll be quick."

He drew the sword down.

The tendons of my ankle felt as if they'd been torn apart. My mouth fell open, and it was a long moment before the scream came out.

He still held me, waiting until I stopped struggling, then moved the point to my right foot.

"Then these feet will never run again."

He pressed his forehead to mine.

"Bite me if it hurts. As long as you never leave me again."

My vision went black, and the taste of blood rose to the root of my tongue.

In my head, the system's voice was as flat as ever.

"Ding. Achievement unlocked: A Gilded Cage."

So this was what the despair my friend left in that review had meant.

Leonard lifted me sideways into his arms and strode toward the bedchamber.

Back inside.

He laid me on the soft imperial bed and brought over a bowl of tonic.

"The physician says grief has knotted itself in your heart. If you don't rest and recover, your body won't hold up."

He dipped a spoon and blew on it lightly.

"Drink."

"From now on, you'll spend your whole life in this bed, and I'll be with you every day."

I looked at the bowl of medicine, then at that tender, devoted face of his.

And I smiled.

If I couldn't escape, then I'd make him die here at my side.

Leonard Vance dipped a spoonful of medicine and tested its warmth against his wrist before bringing it to my lips.

"It tastes worse cold. Drink it, and I'll change your dressings."

He held the spoon to my mouth.

"Once your wounds are stable, I'll depose the empress and make you my empress."

"From now on, of all this vast realm, you are the only one I will let stand beside me."

I lowered my eyes, hiding the killing intent in them.

"All right."

I feigned obedience and leaned my head toward him.

Leonard's breath caught, and he brought the bowl closer.

I lifted my right hand from where it hid in my sleeve,

the iron sliver I had lifted at the north gate clenched between my fingers, and drove it straight at his throat.

A single drop of blood rolled down the side of Leonard's neck,

but my hand stopped.

The point pressed into the wound, and no matter how hard I pushed, it would not sink another fraction.

An alarm blared through my mind.

Warning! Warning!

This is a sweet-romance world. The heroine may not act to endanger the male lead's life!

World laws forcibly intervening!

I stared, eyes wide with shock.

Leonard set down the bowl, caught my wrist, and pressed the side of his neck against the blade.

"You still want to kill me?"

His voice was very low, and for just an instant something bitter surfaced in his eyes before he hid it.

"Lisa, so what if you hate me? Your body can't bear to hurt me."

"Admit it, Lisa. Even a little, you have me in your heart."

Watching how certain he looked, I suddenly understood.

This world, locked around its male and female leads,

had, at its very foundation, stripped away any chance of the heroine killing the hero.

As long as I was still the heroine, I would never be permitted to kill him.

I would forever be a plaything turned over in his palm.

Leonard ignored the blood on his neck and pried my fingers open to check whether the sliver had cut into my palm.

"How could you dare hide something like this in your sleeve. Don't hurt yourself."

"Leonard Vance."

I looked at him, and suddenly I laughed out loud.

"You're right. This body really can't kill you."

The smile had only just begun to rise in his eyes when I twisted my wrist back.

I stopped fighting the resistance of the world's laws.

I went with the force instead, and slit open my own throat.

"Shhk" flesh peeled apart.

The world's laws could stop me from killing him, but they had not stopped me from killing myself.

Hot blood surged out all at once and splashed across his face.

Leonard's smile froze on his face.

He lunged and clamped his hands over the wound, his palms soaked through in moments.

"Lisa?"

He called my name, as if he could not believe it.

The hand that had always held life and death in its grip shook for the first time, unable to hold the wound closed.

"The physician! Send for the physician!"

The doors slammed open, and attendants and physicians dropped to their knees in a heap.

Leonard cradled the side of my neck and said only two words.

"Save her!"

The words had barely left him when a mechanical alarm cut through the hall.

Host body destroyed. Forced logout sequence initiating!

Time, in that instant, snapped to a halt.

The physician's terrified tears hung on his cheeks.

Leonard was frozen mid-air.

A beam of blue light pulled free of Lisa Henson's corpse.

Leonard's pupils tightened, bit by bit, as he looked toward the light.

A woman in a trench coat and fine high heels, her face nothing like Lisa Henson's,

her presence like that of a god, stood in the air on unseen steps.

I looked down at Leonard from above.

I raised a hand and, in the empty air, opened a screen of deep blue light.

"Leonard Vance, Emperor of the Great Yuan. That's you, isn't it?"

My voice had gone cold to the bone.

"I've had enough of swallowing this humiliation for three days."

"Now I'm bringing my main account online."

"Time to settle the account for how you tortured and killed my best friend, and killed me."