Lin Feng nervously lowered her head and twisted the hem of her clothes. At some point, her eyes had already reddened. With a sob in her voice, she poured out her feelings: "But I'm still scared... Sob, sob... I really don't know what to do anymore... My lord, I really don't want to be burned to death..."
"Who wants to burn you to death? Who would dare burn you to death?"
Lin Feng pouted and muttered,
"That's what all the storybooks say."
Shen Tang raised an eyebrow. "Storybooks? What storybooks?"
Lin Feng blinked and stammered out the names of several.
The core of the stories seemed to have been carved from the same mold—
The male lead was a poor scholar from a humble family, yet extremely talented, with a Literary Heart as pure as water and ranked Second Rank Upper-Middle. The female lead was usually the daughter of a Chancellor, the emperor, or a powerful minister. The male and female leads either admired each other or the woman pursued the man. Otherwise, the bride's family recognized a promising young man and shamelessly insisted on marrying their daughter to him. The villainess was an "anomaly" in Heaven and Earth, having condensed a Literary Heart or Martial Spirit. A hen crowing at dawn would bring disaster, so she remained hopelessly devoted to the male lead. Then, unable to have his love, she turned evil, only to be punished, redeemed, burned, or have her Dantian crippled in the end...
Shen Tang was speechless for a moment. "I thought that, given your family's circumstances, the women of the inner residence couldn't possibly come into contact with that sort of storybook."
Lin Feng muttered, "But they're really good..."
The world in those stories was strange and wonderful, completely different from the inner residence where