Title: Transmigrated as the Foolish Maid: My System Feeds the Empire
Chapter 4: Kneel for the Fool
[DING! Host has delivered a severe face-slap! +800 Shock Points!]
"Mother, don't listen to this vile slave!" Ye Wan shrieked, clutching her stomach as it growled with the force of a thunderclap. "She's using dark magic to trick us! That duck is an illusion! We'll report her to the Emperor, and she'll be executed!"
I laughed. The sheer audacity of these pampered idiots. We were thousands of miles from the capital, surrounded by wasteland, and they were still clinging to their imperial titles.
"An illusion?" I asked, tossing a stripped duck bone onto the dirt.
Instantly, three heavily armed imperial guards threw themselves onto the ground, fighting each other like rabid dogs to gnaw on the bone I had discarded.
"Mine!" "Get off, I licked it first!" "Give me the marrow!"
Captain Zhao, still pinned to the ground by my supernatural thorns, watched his men reduce themselves to beasts over a single scrap of my leftovers. His arrogance was completely shattered.
"Spare me..." Zhao croaked, his face pale from blood loss where the thorns pierced his skin. "Grand Aunt... Fairy... please. I was blind. I didn't know you were an immortal cultivator. Please, spare my life."
I wiped my mouth with a silk handkerchief (purchased for 5 Shock Points).
"Captain Zhao," I said lazily. "You were the one who ordered my master’s legs to be broken in the imperial prison, weren't you?"
Zhao's eyes widened in terror. "No! I mean... it was orders from above! The Prime Minister—"
"I don't care," I interrupted.
I raised my right hand. The supernatural energy of the Wood Element surged through my veins. The vines wrapped around Zhao’s arms thickened, mutating into thick, wooden pylons. With a sickening crunch, the vines constricted violently.
Zhao let out a blood-curdling scream as both of his arms were broken in multiple places.
"Consider that interest for my master's legs," I said coldly. I snapped my fingers, and the vines retracted, sinking back into the dry earth as if they had never existed.
Zhao collapsed, sobbing in agony. The remaining guards dropped their weapons, falling to their knees in unison. They slammed their foreheads into the dust.
"We submit! We beg the Fairy for mercy!"
I ignored them, turning my gaze back to Madam Ye and her daughter. They were backing away, their faces drained of all color.
"Now," I said, picking up another juicy piece of duck meat and slowly waving it in the air. "About that dirty bun. Are you going to eat it, Madam Ye? Or shall I break your arms too?"
Madam Ye looked at the moldy bun resting in the dung. She looked at my glowing, emerald-lit hands. Her pride warred with her absolute terror.
Slowly, agonizingly, the once-haughty aristocrat who commanded hundreds of servants dropped to her knees. Shaking violently, tears of utter humiliation streaming down her face, Madam Ye crawled over to the dung-covered bun.
"Mother! No!" Ye Wan cried out.
Madam Ye picked up the rock-hard, foul-smelling bun. She closed her eyes, forced it past her lips, and took a bite. She immediately gagged, vomiting bile and dry dust onto the ground, but she forced herself to swallow.
[DING! Supreme Face-Slapping Achieved! Madam Ye’s dignity has been completely annihilated! +5,000 Shock Points!]
I felt a rush of absolute vindication. In my past life, I hated bullies. In this life, I was going to be their god of karma.
"Good," I said, turning back to my feast. "From now on, the Ye family exiles answer to me. I walk in the front. You walk in the back. If I tell you to halt, you halt. If I tell you to crawl, you crawl."
Ye Chen watched me, a mixture of awe and deep affection swirling in his eyes. "Ah-Zhu... you have changed. You are not the girl I remember."
"I am who I need to be to keep you alive, Young Master," I replied smoothly, serving him a bowl of steaming chicken broth from my inventory. "Eat up. We have a long journey ahead, and the capital's dogs are not done with us yet."
As if on cue, a sharp, piercing whistle echoed through the canyon.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
A volley of black-fletched arrows rained down from the cliffs above, striking the dirt around our Persian rug. Two of the kneeling guards were instantly skewered, collapsing with wet thuds.
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