Chapter 09

“It’s truly unbelievable. Simply changing into a different shell can earn so much affection.”

Ye Zheng had expected that adopting a male identity would make readers more tolerant of her, but she had never imagined the effect would be this dramatic.

『You’re cross-dressing as a man, not changing your sex. Sooner or later, Zhao Mei’s true identity will be exposed. You should think of a countermeasure in advance.』

The system believed that once the controversy erupted and popularity declined, the loss would be unavoidable. The best they could do was minimize the damage.

But with the current momentum, this was already far better than the original plot. In the original story, Ye Zheng only reached fifteen thousand popularity points by the mid-to-late stages. Now, right after her appearance, she already had five thousand.

“Compared to my cross-dressing being exposed, there’s another issue I’m more curious about.”

Ye Zheng closed her eyes and leaned back against the plush seat of the carriage. She no longer maintained her usual gentle expression. Her snow-white face appeared cold and distant.

“If I had followed the original plot and joined the protagonist group as Saintess Ye Zheng…”

“What kind of reaction do you think the church, the imperial family, and the entire upper district would have?”

The Cloud Soarers symbolized hope for the lower district, while she was the model Saintess of the upper district. At such a tense and sensitive point in their relationship, if she joined the protagonist group without authorization…

The system hesitated.

『The original plot didn’t go into detail. You would occasionally show inappropriate sadness and fear within the protagonist group, the male lead would comfort you, your relationship would gradually warm up, and readers would curse the historically stiff romance line and the overly affected female lead…』

“The author was truly stingy when it came to writing my character.”

『That’s not entirely fair. At least he drew you with exceptional detail. Whenever you appeared, there were tons of special effects and flower petals.』

Ye Zheng tugged faintly at the corner of her lips. “It seems that, in the author’s eyes, my only value lies in being a beautiful vase.”

She had begun to understand why readers in the original plot disliked her so intensely.

On one hand, women were judged far more harshly in any world. On the other, the manga author had never put in the effort to portray her as a living, breathing person.

Even when she had come within a single step of erasing an entire Aberrant Realm, the author still arranged for his favored son to arrive and steal the final blow, unwilling to spare even a single panel to depict her earlier efforts.

Ye Zheng’s smile curved with mockery. That was fine. Who would ever guard against a mere vase?

✧✧✧✧✧

Ye Zheng returned home just in time for dinner. She entered the dining room, where only her mother sat beside the exquisitely adorned table.

She inwardly let out a sigh of relief, took her seat, and greeted her mother.

Ye Di usually boarded at the Royal Ability Academy, while her father, Ye Fanjing, as a high judge of the upper district, was perpetually buried under both public and private affairs.

Ye Zheng had no fondness for family gatherings. When both of them were present, the constant acting exhausted her.

“Zhengzheng, did you go to the lower district again today?”

The elegant woman looked at her with concern.

Ye Zheng paused with her utensils, glanced around the dining room, and confirmed no one else was present.

She nodded. “Casualties in the lower district have been severe recently. I…”

“Tell Mother the truth. Is there someone you care about living in the lower district?”

Ye Zheng looked at her mother with faint amusement. The guess was not wrong, just not in the way her mother imagined.

“I am the Saintess of the church, destined to devote my entire life to the divine. The thing you’re worried about will never happen.”

“Recently, the young lady of the neighboring An family is determined to marry a boy from the middle district. She’s become the laughingstock of the entire upper district. Girls your age always make people worry.”

The woman sighed softly.

“Please rest assured. Whenever I go to the lower district, I only do two things.”

“One is to provide relief to the people in the name of the God of Hope.”

“And the other is to bring flowers to Grandfather and Grandmother.”

The richly dressed woman froze. She lowered her head in embarrassment and said nothing more.

The meal ended in silence.

Only after Ye Zheng left the dining room did Shu Wan stiffly pull her shawl tighter around her shoulders. She stared at her daughter’s retreating figure, her expression complicated.

Many years ago, she herself had been a little girl without an awakened ability, scavenging through garbage in the lower district, doing menial labor, and constantly guarding against ill-intentioned men.

At that time, she had not yet turned twelve. She resented her useless parents and swore that if she ever had a daughter, she would never allow her to grow up in such a filthy environment.

She had succeeded.

Relying on her awakened S-class talent, she ensured her daughter was born into a wealthy family the young Shu Wan could never have imagined.

Shu Wan knew her husband did not love her. He had married her only to compensate for his B-class talent genes. An S-class wife gave him the high-talent children he desired. The Ye family gained a promising future, and she achieved the class leap she had long sought.

But why did her noble and beautiful daughter seem no happier than the impoverished seventeen-year-old Shu Wan of the past?

Shu Wan clenched her fists tightly. Her carefully manicured nails dug into her palms, yet she felt no pain. It was all because she had failed to give Zhengzheng an S-class talent.

If only Zhengzheng were S-class, she could even marry the crown prince and soar farther than her mother ever had, instead of wasting her life in the church for her father’s benefit.

✧✧✧✧✧

『Your mother was actually born in the lower district?』

『A Cinderella-style reversal?』

Ye Zheng returned to her bedroom and idly played with a jigsaw puzzle on the bed as she replied.

“You should know more about this manga than I do.”

In this world, once a female ability user gave birth, her ability would suffer irreversible damage. Shu Wan was a clear example. She had once been S-class, but after giving birth to two children, her talent had dropped to A-class.

Yet the empire required female ability users to reproduce. The higher their talent, the higher the talent of the children they could bear.

With limited cultivation resources, the empire allocated resources not only according to talent level, but also by gender. High-talent male ability users were prioritized to maximize efficiency in combating Aberrant Realms.

“Under such unfair distribution, the greatest path of advancement for female ability users is not cultivation, but marriage.”

“Especially for someone like my mother, born in the lower district yet fortunate enough to awaken S-class talent. Many upper-district noblemen with mediocre or even nonexistent abilities were more than willing to marry such women to produce offspring.”

Ye Zheng stated the facts calmly. The system recalled this minor setting and fell silent for a moment before responding.

『This setting actually caused a lot of controversy among readers.』

『The author admitted he isn’t good at drawing women. Almost all the main characters are male, but that creates logical inconsistencies. In a world of ability users, physical differences between men and women should matter very little. Logically, there ought to be many female powerhouses.』

『So he added the setting that childbirth severely damages female ability users, while the empire desperately needs population growth…』

“This conveniently justifies constructing a world dominated by male elites.”

“Two S-class individuals of the same age. My mother can only sit at home worrying about her daughter’s marriage prospects, while a male ability user becomes a hero admired by tens of thousands and secures a seat at the heart of power.”

Ye Zheng chatted casually with the system as her fingers continued assembling the puzzle pieces.

『At least the author didn’t give the male lead a harem, nor did he draw excessive fanservice. By male-oriented story standards, he’s already considered friendly to female readers.』

『If you were the female lead in other works of this genre, you wouldn’t just lack meaningful plot moments. You’d also be fighting other women over the male lead.』

The system defended the manga author, completely unaware that Ye Zheng had already completed more than half of the puzzle.

If one examined the puzzle closely, one might discover that its pattern resembled a topographic map, though the outlines were still vague, blurred, and difficult to distinguish.

Ye Zheng brushed her hand across the surface, scattering the carefully completed image once more.

Hearing this, she curved her lips faintly. “Is that so? Then I suppose I should be grateful for having been born into this world.”

『Hmph. You’re being sarcastic again.』

Ye Zheng lowered her gaze. She was not being sarcastic. Judging from the system’s fragmented descriptions of the real world, combined with the information she herself had gathered, the world beyond the manga did not appear to be any better.

At the very least, within this manga world, she possessed the ability to alter her fate through higher-dimensional powers.

Ye Zheng could clearly sense that the fifty action points converted from five thousand popularity points were sufficient to shift a moderately important plot direction.

So what if she had five hundred, five thousand, or even fifty thousand action points?

Beyond the manga’s storyline, could she also alter the fundamental rules of this world?

“By the way, system, why hasn’t the manga app updated with any new spoilers?”

Ye Zheng flipped through the app on her phone. The progress remained frozen at the moment Zhao Mei joined the protagonist group.

『To prevent interference with plot development, you can only view story content related to yourself.』

『According to the original plot progression, you will not appear again until the third stage of the ability competition. Until then, there will be no original plot content involving you.』

No plot involving her meant that, prior to the third stage of the competition, she would not be constrained by the plot’s control.

Ye Zheng suppressed the upward curve of her lips and lowered her eyelashes with a trace of melancholy. “What a pity. That means I’ll be attending the Crown Prince’s banquet completely blind.”

『In the original plot, Saintess Ye Zheng did not attend this banquet.』

『Be careful not to let the protagonist group discover that you are Zhao Mei.』

The system could not help but complain.

『Your female-to-male disguise is far too half-hearted. You only wore a wig and green contact lenses, without altering your facial features at all.』

Ye Zheng pointed at the vividly colored manga characters on her phone screen and defended herself calmly. “But this is a manga world. Changing one’s hairstyle and eye color is enough to make someone a completely different character. Everyone’s faces look more or less the same anyway.”

For once, the system found itself unable to refute her.

✧✧✧✧✧

The Crown Prince’s banquet was the most anticipated event in the upper district in recent days.

Held under the pretext of celebrating the conclusion of the second stage of the ability competition, the banquet invited all teams that had successfully advanced to the third stage, along with countless upper-district nobles eager to curry favor.

After all, this was a banquet hosted by the future heir to the empire. Everyone was desperate for a chance to demonstrate loyalty and catch the Crown Prince’s attention.

Inside the Ye family mansion.

“Zhengzheng, try this one again. This color is even more breathtaking.”

The girl clad in a water-blue evening gown turned gracefully. Her hair, flowing all the way to her ankles, had been braided and draped over her chest. Her beautiful, gentle face showed a slight frown as her fair, slender fingers lifted the hem of her skirt while she walked, like a fairy stepping through water.

“Mother, there’s no need to try more. I’m merely attending the Crown Prince’s banquet, not getting engaged to him.”

Ye Zheng looked at her mother helplessly.

Crown Prince Sykes was a villain in the manga, which did not surprise Ye Zheng in the slightest. She disliked him deeply, despite his handsome appearance, S-class talent, and exalted status.

What truly puzzled her was his immense popularity on the manga forums. His fan count appeared second only to that of the male protagonist.

Even her mother now wished for her to draw closer to Sykes. What exactly did people find appealing about him?

Ye Zheng had no desire to associate with such a person. Yet she could not deny Sykes’s value as a tool. Otherwise, she would have found countless ways to decline this invitation.

She quickly lifted her water-blue gown and left, afraid her mother would seize her again to try on more outfits.

“Oh, right, Mother. Please remind Ye Di to wear knee pads when he goes to the church to kneel… I mean, to pray. After all, he’ll be kneeling in my place for six hours.”

Ye Zheng let out a breath as she entered the car. In truth, the most important reason she agreed to attend this banquet was simply that she no longer wanted to kneel and pray.

It would be even better if she never had to do it again, Saintess Ye Zheng thought irreverently.