Chapter 16 Fickle

She can only take one step at a time.

Su Su entered the room and saw several midwives surrounding a woman who was in her underclothes. The woman had a beautiful appearance, her forehead was drenched in sweat, and she looked like she was in a lot of pain.

“Niangniang! Hang in there!”

The midwives were also sweating profusely. Su Su didn’t know when the basin of hot water that she was holding was taken from her. She was squeezed out by the crowd and could only watch the situation unfold.

“What should we do now?” a midwife anxiously said, “Imperial Consort Rou had contractions this morning. It’s already evening now but she still hasn’t given birth yet.”

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The Imperial Consort Rou on the bed had lost her strength a long time ago, and she was sucking on a ginseng tablet. She persevered for a while and used her strength to push before she finally passed out. Blood snaked down her bare legs.

Although Su Su had not seen people giving birth before, she could also guess what it meant to pass out in this kind of situation.

As expected, all the midwives’ expressions turned pale.

The following parts of the text will be scrambled to prevent theft from aggregators and unauthorized epub making. Please support our translators by reading on secondlifetranslations (dot) com

Fsxlsdl xyel y iwknj elnkpksd, “Rdqsax vbl Oxrlasa ycswv vbl nwaaldv pkvwyvksd…… Lso, eslp bl oydv vs pyhl vbl yewzv sa vbl nbkze……”

Lsv zsdt yqvla, vbl hsknl sq vbl qwakswp Oxrlasa aydt swv qasx swvpkel.

“J*pvyaep, wplzlpp vaypb! Zsw clvvla xyjl pwal vbyv Rxrlakyz Usdpsav Ssw kp yzaktbv, svblaokpl, yzz sq usw okzz cl cwakle okvb bla!”

Fw Fw zssjle shla vs Rxrlakyz Usdpsav Ssw’p cwztkdt clzzu. Fbl jdlo vbyv xyucl vbkp cycu nswzed’v cl pyhle yduxsal.

Tsolhla, swv sq lhlausdl’p lmrlnvyvksd, fwpv yp vbl qlxyzl rbupknkydp yde xkeokhlp olal ycswv vs es psxlvbkdt, Rxrlakyz Usdpsav Ssw osjl wr. Tla lulp olal swv-sq-qsnwp yde bla xswvb oyp xwxczkdt, “Ssuyz psd…… xu asuyz psd……”

Mlyap vaknjzle esod vbl Rxrlakyz Usdpsav Ssw’p qynl, “R clt usw, rzlypl pyhl xu cycu!”

Ohlausdl zssjle xswadqwz yde Fw Fw’p blyav qlzv y rydt sq pyedlpp. Mbl Oxrlasa bye tkhld y nsxxyde, yde dyvwayzzu bl nbspl vs pyhl Rxrlakyz Usdpsav Ssw.

Fweeldzu, vbl xkeokql pbswvle kd pwarakpl, “Lkydtdkydt, rwpb! R nyd yzalyeu pll vbl cycu’p blye!”

Imperial Consort Rou’s lips quivered and she gritted her teeth!

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The midwife happily said, “The baby is bor…….” 

The next moment, the midwives suddenly screamed.

Su Su had a bad premonition.

Such a loud sound had caused the Emperor, who was waiting outside, to kick open the door and enter.

The Emperor stared at the bed that was soaked with blood, only to see a baby boy lying in a pool of blood. He opened his ebony eyes, and his hand was tugging at Imperial Consort Rou’s intestines.

The baby boy seemed to be curious about the lukewarm and pliable object in his hand that wouldn’t break even when he tugged at it. He opened his mouth and bit it.

The baby boy revealed his creepily white teeth. And Imperial Consort Rou was lying on the bed with her eyes wide open, dead.

The midwives and female physicians trembled and fell to their knees. “Your Majesty…… Your Majesty…… this……”

This little monster didn’t cry even though he had just been born, and his teeth had already grown out! His fingernails had even pierced through Imperial Consort Rou’s belly!

Su Su suddenly came to realise who that baby was—— It was Tantai Jin! She never expected that due to an unexpected turn of events, she entered Tantai Jin’s dreamland and saw the moment of his birth.

The little devil sensed that he was going to be abandoned, so he killed his own mother without any hesitation, as he wanted to be born.

The Emperor looked at Imperial Consort Rou’s corpse and suddenly picked up the baby boy and slammed him hard against the wall.

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“Die, you monster, die!”

The baby on the floor didn’t stop breathing even after he was thrown that harshly. A large amount of blood started to pour out of his mouth. He cooed and started to blow blood bubbles with his lips. He was actually grinning happily.

The look of this innocently evil creature was so appalling that the midwife screamed and fainted in terror.

The corners of Tantai Jin’s mouth were stained with blood. His pitch-black pupils met Su Su’s eyes.

The moment when Su Su and the baby boy locked eyes, the space suddenly warped.

When she was able to stand firmly again, someone whispered in her ear, “It must be hard for you to have to bury the evil little creature’s corpse. He’s been thrown into the cold palace for so many days, his corpse must stink…… ”

The palace maids had already left as they spoke, and Su Su was standing alone outside a palace door.

She hesitated for a while before pushing the door open. She saw an abandoned, raggedy swaddle blanket covered in bloodstains by the withered grass. 

It turned out that after Imperial Consort Rou passed away, Tantai Jin was abandoned here. By the looks of it, it must have been a few days. 

Su Su walked over. She knew that this was obviously the best opportunity to understand the Devil God.

In the swaddle blanket, the “little devil” looked extremely wretched. The swaddling blanket was covered in mud and shredded grass. His exposed arm was full of mosquito bites. There were also scrapes and injuries caused by falling down. His face was so dirty that you couldn’t see it properly.

No one had changed his diaper for him, and a foul odor that came from the swaddling blanket blended with the air. Tantai Jin was tightly hugging a dead gray rat and his eyes were tightly shut.

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Half of the rat’s blood was on his mouth.

Su Su finally knew how he managed to survive without a sip of his mother’s milk. The rat tried to eat him but got caught as his prey instead.

His tiny body was shaking. He was hugging the dead rat like it was his only hope in the world.

The dead rat had already started to smell, but Tantai Jin still couldn’t throw it away.

It was as if the baby boy understood that no one would raise him nor take care of him. He was badly injured and his lips had currently turned black.

Su Su had an inexplicable feeling.

Within a short time, she had witnessed his cruelty, but also his pitiful and vulnerable state. This contradictory feeling had always been there ever since she transmigrated five hundred years back.

If she was given the chance to kill him in his childhood, Su Su knew that she would do it.

However, as long as the evil bone still existed, the Devil God would live forever.

She didn’t have the right to decide whether to kill him or not. The soft sound of footsteps came from outside when she was kneeling down and about to pick him up.

Su Su hurriedly hid.

She only saw the previous palace maid dressed in scarlet walk in with red eyes. She picked up Tantai Jin and chokingly sobbed, “My pitiful niangniang, Little Highness…… Little Highness…….” 

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The palace maid wailed for a long time before biting her lips and carrying the baby away.

Su Su was lost in thought, that woman was probably the most loyal maid of Imperial Consort Rou. On one hand, she hated Tantai Jin for killing Imperial Consort Rou, and on the other, she took into consideration that he was Imperial Consort Rou’s last bloodline. Imperial Consort Rou would rather die in order to keep her baby. That was why she picked Tantai Jin back up.

Su Su wanted to follow them, but in the next moment, her head was spinning.

She accepted her fate and thought, the scenario is going to be forcefully changed again.

*

The moment Su Su woke up, a child around age five or six was kneeling on the floor.

A palace maid said, “Come on, act it out again.”

The boy tilted his head and obediently called out, “Woof!”

The palace maids covered their lips and laughed. Someone threw out a stick of sugar-coated haws, “Here, pick it up.”

The boy darted over to pick up the sugar-coated haws. He lowered his head and started to bite them in his mouth, not caring if there was mud on them.

The scarlet-clad palace maid appeared in a rage, “What are you doing!”

The palace maids looked startled and dispersed in all directions.

The scarlet-clad palace maid pulled the boy up with tears in her eyes and angrily said, “Your Highness, how can you do this? We may have lost our power, but you are the master, how can you learn to bark like an animal and kneel down to the servants!”

Tantai Jin lifted his small little face and obediently said, “Aunt Lan An, they said that they would give me food if I learned to bark like a dog.”

He chewed on the candied haws in his mouth, crunching when he bit down on the outer sugar coating.

Lan An angrily reprimanded, “Your Highness, do you know what dignity is!”

Tantai Jin curiously asked, “What’s dignity?”

There was no hint of humiliation in his dark pupils or on his face. Lan An was inwardly shocked. She suddenly realised that the boy in front of her was born without a natural sense of shame. 

Lan An’s lips parted and closed, “Well…… it means that they are toying with you……”

“Are they?” Tantai Jin tilted his head. The innocent look in his eyes was gone and he calmly asked, “They didn’t do it to give me food?”

Lan An replied, “They didn’t.”

Tantai Jin swallowed the candied haws in his mouth and licked his lips. “Is that so……”

Su Su, who was currently a little kitten, was standing on the rockery, silently watching everything that was happening.

Two days later, a body that belonged to a palace maid was found in the lake. It happened to be the body of the palace maid who asked Tantai Jin to bark like a dog.

Her body was swollen and her corpse that floated up looked ugly and horrible.

Su Su hugged her own head with her cat paws. What the h*ll kind of nightmare is this!

Lan An pulled the little boy towards the candlelight, her lips trembling. “Your Highness, d-did you do that?”

Tantai Jin tilted his head, “What did I do?”

“Your…… Your Highness……”

“Why do the Third Prince and Fifth Prince have people to serve them, and have books to read, but I don’t?” the boy interrupted her and asked with his all-seeing eyes wide open.

Lan An bitterly said, “Because, we have no authority, no power, and no one to rely on.”

Tantai Jin pondered for a moment and then indifferently said, “If they don’t have someone to rely on too, will I be the same as them?” As long as they lose their mother too, everyone will be equal.

Lan An covered her lips and retreated two steps back in shock. “You!”

Tantai Jin asked, “Are you afraid of me?”

Lan An reluctantly smiled, “Your Highness has misunderstood.”

The boy lowered his head, his eyes looked blank and puzzled.

Su Su never expected that she would be caught by Tantai Jin after Lan An left. The boy’s skinny hand lifted her by her scruff, and as a little kitten, Su Su felt like her fur was about to stand upright. “I found you,” he said.

The next moment, Tantai Jin released his hand and held her down in front of a little dried fish. “Eat it,” he ordered.

Su Su thought inwardly, I would be a fool to eat it.

However, the little kitten that she possessed had instinctively started to lick the little dried fish uncontrollably.

Su Su was weeping and despairing in her heart. It didn’t take long for her cat body to start twitching and stop breathing.

Tantai Jin calmly buried the kitten.

Su Su’s body was forced to leave. This time, she didn’t know what she had possessed as she couldn’t even move.

There was a thunderstorm that night and the door was abruptly pushed open by someone.

Lan An pushed the little boy in. She broke down in tears and said, “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have saved you, shouldn’t have begged His Majesty to let you live for the sake of the past. You are not Imperial Consort Rou’s child, you are a monster! ”

“Aunt Lan An?”

“Shut up!” Lan An shouted hysterically, “How dare you try to…… poison the Third Highness!”

“He didn’t eat it.” Tantai Jin pondered for a while and showed an obedient smile. “Didn’t he not eat it? Don’t be angry, aunt.”

“That was because I stopped him!” Lan An said with trembling lips, “I can’t teach you. From now on, you are on your own.”

Tantai Jin’s smile disappeared and he looked up, “Are you going to betray me too?”

Lan An did not answer. She pushed him away and disappeared into the thunderstorm.

Tantai Jin sat cross-legged on a cushion.

The thunder that split the sky revealed the boy’s calm and pale face. He moved his face muscles, trying to show an innocent and pitiful expression.

The next moment, his expression returned to being cold.

Looking at his indifferent expression, Su Su suddenly realised that he didn’t care at all. He was probably even thinking that Lan An deserved to die for betraying him.

It turned out that the so-called person with a naturally born evil bone was actually like this. He was born bloodthirsty, ruthless, and would do anything to survive. He was lacking empathy, compassion, and comprehension of the feeling of shame.

Perhaps…… Su Su got lost in the thought that he didn’t know what love and affection were, he was born to be cold. This was why dad said that people with an evil bone could not be correctively influenced no matter what.

Lan An had been so good to him. She had brought him up but he still looked at her with cold and uncaring eyes.

Lan An abandoned him but he didn’t show any reluctance to part with her. All he had was the displeasure of being provoked, and his pitch-black pupils looked extremely gloomy.

Lightning illuminated the room. Tantai Jin was surprised to see a statue of a coloured-glaze Goddess on top of a high platform.

The glaze was clear and transparent. The Goddess had waist-length hair and she was wearing many layers of clothing. There was a dot of cinnabar between her eyebrows. She was holding a sword which made her look brave yet holy.

He stared at the coloured-glaze Goddess for a long time without blinking.

Su Su was creeped out.

Soon after, to her surprise, he began to climb up to the high platform. But halfway up he fell down and got a three-inch long bloody cut from the wooden splinters. As if it was nothing, he climbed up again and continued to move closer to her.

Su Su almost shouted out loud, Don’t you come any closer!

After several tries, in the end, she was finally held in Tantai Jin’s arms. He used his bloody hands to gently stroke her face.

A child-like voice spoke quietly, “So pretty.”

Long hair and cinnabar. The brave and sword-wielding holy Goddess looked stunning beyond measure when the darkness was streaked across.

He looked at the coloured-glaze Goddess in his palm, and with stained hands, he smeared his own blood onto her body with fascination.

Su Su’s whole body felt uncomfortable when she sensed his cold fingers. “…….” What a psycho! So what is her current body now, anyway?

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The author has something to say:

Su Su: Y-y-you better don’t come over! Or else, believe it or not, I’ll hack1 you to death!