Looking at the inn waiter in front of her with a professional smile plastered on her face, Su Mu was about to cry.
She had just wanted to casually open the door, so how did she end up with a dagger pressed against her?
“Esteemed guest, this item is quite valuable. Allow me to deliver it inside for you.”
Although extremely reluctant, Su Mu could feel the hard object pressing against her lower abdomen, so she obediently stepped back.
The inn waiter holding the dagger followed Su Mu into the room and promptly bolted the door shut behind them.
Seeing the tightly shut door, Su Mu’s heart raced with panic.
This woman wouldn’t be some kind of perverted serial killer who dismembers bodies, would she?!
Maybe I should pretend to comply for now, wait until she lets her guard down, then suddenly strike and ambush her.
Not everyone has strength like Chen Qing’s, after all. If I catch her off guard with a surprise attack, she probably won’t react in time.
Staring at the dagger glinting coldly, Su Mu felt a surge of eagerness.
But the woman’s next actions caught Su Mu off guard.
She sheathed her dagger and said apologetically, “My actions were rather rude. Please forgive me, esteemed guest. My master wishes to invite you to the manor for a gathering.”
“Invite me to the manor? Who is your master?”
Su Mu stared at her in bewilderment. Who invites people at knifepoint like a decent person? Besides, she didn’t know many people in this world. Could it be a friend of the original owner’s?
Su Mu knew next to nothing about the original owner of this body, so she could only ask the System.
“System, did the original owner of this body know her master?”
【Host, in the original novel plot, although you are the Villain’s Shizun, you barely have any scenes at all, so I don’t know either.】
“You’re supposed to be the System, but you don’t know anything? You’re completely useless!”
Hearing the System’s useless response, Su Mu was furious.
She felt like this System was only good for chatting with her and had no other uses whatsoever.
Not only did it know nothing when asked, but it kept pitting her all the time. If she could rate it, this trash System would get negative five stars.
Although the System couldn’t help Su Mu, it knew how to play dead.
Seeing Su Mu call it useless, it immediately activated its core skill: silence is golden.
Once the System went quiet, Su Mu knew she couldn’t rely on this trash anymore. To escape danger, she’d have to handle it herself.
“My master’s identity will naturally be revealed once you come with me. Rest assured, we won’t harm you!”
Seeing the hesitation in Su Mu’s eyes, the fake inn waiter hurriedly assured her sincerely.
“Fine, you said it—no harming me.”
“Rest assured, my master specifically instructed me not to harm even a single hair on your head.”
Once Su Mu agreed, the fake inn waiter breathed a sigh of relief and turned to unbolt the door.
Bang! A flower vase smashed squarely onto her head.
The fake inn waiter, her head covered in blood, collapsed straight to the ground.
Looking at the shattered vase fragments and the blood on the fake inn waiter’s head, Su Mu felt a twinge of panic.
She hadn’t expected an empty vase to pack such a punch. This smash wouldn’t be fatal, would it?
The more Su Mu thought about it, the more panicked she got. Overcoming her fear, she reached out and checked the fake inn waiter’s philtrum.
Feeling the faint breath, she finally let out a sigh of relief.
Although she’d seen Chen Qing kill plenty of people, if she had to kill someone herself, she’d be scared to death.
Su Mu was still wondering how to bandage the woman on the floor to stop excessive bleeding when a knock suddenly came at the door.
“Miss, is everything alright?”
It was Ye Qinglian from the next room over. She’d heard the vase shatter and thought something had happened, so she hurried over to check.
“N-No, it’s nothing. I accidentally knocked over the vase just now. I’m cleaning it up.”
Su Mu didn’t want more people knowing about this.
She planned to interrogate the fake inn waiter thoroughly once she woke up, to figure out her mysterious master’s identity and why her master wanted to invite her.
But hearing the slight panic in Su Mu’s voice, Ye Qinglian frowned.
If it was just a broken vase, there was no need to sound so flustered. Maybe something else was going on.
Ye Qinglian tried pushing the door with her hand and found it locked, which confirmed her growing sense of unease.
But on the surface, she pretended not to notice anything and said calmly, “Then be careful, miss, and don’t hurt yourself.”
“Mm.”
Once the shadow outside the door disappeared, Su Mu breathed a sigh of relief.
This guilty, thieving thrill felt strangely exciting.
Su Mu clapped her hands and dragged the woman on the floor out from the vase shards.
Looking at the wound on her head, Su Mu felt troubled.
She had no disinfectant or bandages on hand right now.
And the wound was on her head—even if she had bandages, it would be hard to wrap.
Though conditions were crude, with blood still flowing steadily from her head, Su Mu gritted her teeth and got to work.
She asked the real inn waiter for a basin of warm water, a face towel, and—amid his odd look—a bottle of hemostatic powder.
Fortunately, the inn saw a lot of traffic, and guests often got injured, so they stocked basic medicines for convenience.
Otherwise, Su Mu would have had to risk going to the clinic outside.
After rushing back to the room, Su Mu used the washed face towel to wipe away the blood oozing from the wound.
She was just about to sprinkle the hemostatic powder on it when she heard a strange noise from the window.
Su Mu’s heart skipped a beat. This woman wouldn’t have accomplices, would she?
Unsure if the person outside was with the one on the floor, but anyone prying at the window definitely wasn’t up to any good.
Su Mu grabbed a stool from the room and quietly approached the window. The moment the person outside poked their head in, she’d smash them with it and send them to join the one on the floor.
Outside the window, Ye Qinglian carefully clung to the window frame, her heart pounding.
She planned to climb through the window into Su Mu’s room to check the situation and see if she was in danger.
But she hadn’t expected the window frame to be so slippery—she nearly slipped off.
After adjusting her position, she continued inching toward Su Mu’s side. After struggling for a bit, she finally reached the window under Su Mu’s room.
She freed one hand to hold a small knife for defense while gripping the window edge with the other, about to peek her head in to check.
A solid wooden stool came crashing down toward her head.
Su Mu was smug about her aim when she realized the person outside looked a bit familiar.
Taking a closer look, her mind went blank.
“S-Sorry!”
She hurriedly dropped the stool and pulled Ye Qinglian in from the window.
Ye Qinglian’s head buzzed as she took dozens of seconds to recover.
She never imagined that the first time her head got cracked open—from childhood to now—would be because she was concerned about an ally.
Seeing Ye Qinglian’s somewhat dazed eyes, Su Mu panicked. This blow wouldn’t have caused brain damage, would it? She hadn’t hit that hard.
