Tactical Telecommuting (With a Trash System)
Before I completely and irrevocably lose the final shred of my fragile, fifty-year-old sanity, I decide to call upon that literal piece of electronic garbage residing rent-free in my cerebral cortex.
*System 888, get your digital backend over here right now!*
I roar internally, my mental voice slamming against the walls of my skull like a rogue ping-pong ball.
"Host, you do realize I can hear you perfectly fine without the shouting, right?" System 888's voice chimes in, sounding entirely unbothered, deeply condescending, and matching the tone of an underpaid tech-support worker.
"I am literally hardwired inside your mind. Your entire consciousness is basically an open-source document to me."
*The heck I care!* I mentally huff, folding my imaginary arms.
*I intentionally say it out loud in my head to offend you, you stupid little toaster!*
"Sigh~ still as childish as ever, Host," the System murmurs, its digital avatar probably doing a dramatic eye-roll behind a glowing screen somewhere.
"Your physical body might have the youthful metabolism of a prime cultivation vessel, but your attitude is currently matching a toddler who dropped his ice cream in the dirt. So, why exactly did you call me out of my energy-saving mode?"
"Oh, right. I almost forgot because my blood pressure is currently reaching atmospheric heights," I reply, forcing my internal voice to shift from absolute panic to severe corporate seriousness.
*Hey, trashy system. You can monitor basically anything in this entire world, right? Like, you have the premium satellite-tier surveillance package?*
"Yup, Host!" the System chirps back, its annoying, childish electronic voice bouncing around my brain with a terrifying amount of cheerful compliance.
"As long as it doesn't require me to physically lift objects or engage in hand-to-hand combat against high-realm terrifying bosses, my digital scanning radar is 100% operational!"
*Good. Then stop watching my romantic demise in 4K and actually do your job,* I command, channeling every ounce of my past life's managerial authority.
*I would like you to immediately monitor the Tang Manor. Keep your digital eyes glued to that place and report to me every single piece of information, gossip, or treasonous plotting that you can get.*
"Yes, Host! Initiating stealth-reconnaissance protocol! Deploying digital drones to the Tang Manor coordinates now!"
With a faint *boop-beep* sound, the System's presence fades from the direct forefront of my mind as it reroutes its processing power to spy on our political enemies.
I let out a long, shuddering breath, staring up at the grand, silk-draped canopy of the imperial bed.
I need to be completely serious about this mission. If I mess up the political plot lines of this world, the system rules state I will face immediate, absolute termination. And frankly, dying twice sounds like a massive logistical nightmare I don't want to deal with.
*Sighs~* This is my very first world to transmigrate into, yet I genuinely feel deep within my bones that it is also going to be my last. At this rate, the plot won't kill me; the sheer, unadulterated embarrassment will.
=====°°°°°
The Prince, The Pillow, and the Gloom
While I am sitting there, deeply mulling over my tragic life choices and calculating the probability of surviving the next seventy-two hours, the heavy lacquered doors of the western bedchamber suddenly fly open.
The loud *thud* of the wood echoes through the room, instantly announcing the terrifying presence of the Crown Prince.
My body reacts on pure corporate survival instinct. I stand up immediately, smoothing out the silk robes and trying with every ounce of my willpower not to look incredibly nervous, terrified, and fundamentally shaken.
Behind the Crown Prince, a small army of imperial subjects, guards, and high-ranking attendants are hovering nervously.
With a single, sharp wave of his long, gold-embroidered sleeve, Longwei Zian issues a silent, absolute command.
The subjects bow instantly, their faces pale with unspoken stress, and they hurriedly evacuate the room, shutting the heavy doors securely behind them.
The room plunges into a suffocating, dead silence.
I want to run. Every single fiber of my being, my heart, my common sense, and my internal fifty-year-old alarms are screaming at me to deploy a tactical retreat, shatter the window lattice, and sprint as fast as my civilian legs can carry me. But my body is completely betraying me.
It feels like my feet have been permanently superglued to the floorboards.
The Crown Prince begins to walk slowly toward me.
As he gets closer, I notice that the teasing, arrogant smirk he wore earlier is completely gone. Instead, his striking features are clouded by an incredibly dark, heavy, and gloomy expression.
A profound, suffocating aura of sadness and unreleased rage clings to his towering figure.
I have absolute zero idea what just happened out there. Due to the complete psychological shock of the 'Saliva String Incident' from earlier, I had totally forgotten to instruct the System to monitor the Prince after he left the room.
When the vivid, high-definition memory of his lips slamming into mine flashes across my brain, I instinctively take a sharp step backward, terrified that this royal pervert is about to launch round two of his tongue-wrestling tournament.
But before my foot can even properly touch the rug behind me, the laws of physics completely cease to apply. In a literal fraction of a second, the distance between us vanishes.
*Whoosh!*
Before I can even blink, I am swept entirely off my feet and securely pinned into the Prince's iron-clad arms.
He is carrying me bridal-style, marching directly toward the grand imperial bed with absolute, unyielding purpose.
"The heck?! Not again! Please, anyone, save my elderly dignity!" I scream internally, my mind throwing a full-blown, catastrophic tantrum.
I struggle in absolute panic, thrashing my legs and trying to twist my torso out of his grip. I desperately want to yell at him to put me down, but the sheer shock completely robs me of my voice.
My throat is as dry as the desert, and I can only gasp like a caught fish as I try to break free from his vice-like hold.
"Calm down," Zian says, his baritone voice sounding incredibly deep, weary, and completely calm. He doesn't even look down at my flailing form.
"I am not going to kiss you right now."
Despite his verbal reassurance, I absolutely do not put down my guard.
*Oh, sure! That's exactly what a royal predator would say right before launching a predatory strike!*
He reaches the edge of the mattress and gently—almost carefully—deposits my slender body onto the soft, plush sheets. But before I can even roll over to crawl away, the next thing he does completely knocks my soul straight out of my physical body.
He doesn't strip.
He doesn't make a creepy remark. Instead, he drops his massive, high-realm cultivation body directly on top of me, wrapping his muscular arms around my waist and burying his face into the crook of my neck, hugging me tightly like a giant, oversized body pillow.
*...Eh?*
My brain completely ceases all cognitive functions. I try to struggle against the heavy weight of his chest crushing down on mine, but the Crown Prince slightly shifts his head.
His striking, beautiful blue eyes lock onto mine from mere inches away. The sheer, freezing intensity of his gaze carries an absolute, wordless warning:
*If you struggle even one more time, you will be thoroughly, ruthlessly punished.*
My survival instincts instantly override my pride. My arms freeze mid-air, and I immediately surrender to my tragic fate of becoming a luxury, silk-clad human pillow for a bratty, emotionally volatile Crown Prince.
=====°°°°°
The Ultimate Grandfatherly Blunder
As the minutes tick by in absolute silence, the initial wave of terror slowly begins to fade, replaced by a profound sense of utter confusion.
*What on earth could have happened out there to make this perverted, arrogant prince look so incredibly sad?*
I wonder, my eyes staring blankly at the carved wooden ceiling panels.
When we first met, he was the definition of an icy, unfeeling tyrant. Then, within the span of a few minutes, he transformed into a smooth, boundary-crossing pervert. And now?
Now he feels like a vulnerable, heavily burdened child who is secretly suffering through an invisible tragedy.
*Sighs~* What an incredibly complicated, exhausting personality.
As I lie there, pinned beneath his heavy frame, the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest slowly triggers a deep wave of nostalgia within my soul. His current behavior reminds me vividly of one of my grandsons from my past life.
Back in the corporate world, whenever that poor kid was feeling completely down, overwhelmed by school stress, or rejected by a crush, he would run straight to my study, bury his face in my sweater, and silently demand my comfort.
Lost in the warm, deeply comforting memories of my past family, my 50-year-old grandfatherly instincts completely take over the driver's seat of my brain.
Without even realizing what my physical hands are doing, my arms slowly rise. I wrap them gently around the Crown Prince's broad shoulders, drawing him slightly closer, and begin to softly, rhythmically pat the back of his head—using the exact same soothing, gentle motions I used to comfort my past loved ones.
*Pat. Pat. Smooth.*
The silk of his dark hair is incredibly soft beneath my fingers, and I continue the grandfatherly comfort loop for a solid thirty seconds, completely dissociated from reality.
Suddenly, a bolt of metaphorical lightning strikes my brain.
My internal eyes bulge out to the size of absolute dinner plates as reality comes crashing down on me like a collapsing mountain range.
*THE HECK?! I AM CURRENTLY TOUCHING THE SACRED HEAD OF THE CROWN PRINCE OF THE YANG KINGDOM!!! OoO*
My soul screams so loud it probably wakes up ancestors three generations back.
*I am dead! I am completely, legally, and physically deceased! In these ancient, high-realm cultivation societies, touching any part of the royal bloodline—especially the literal imperial head—without express written permission is an automatic, one-way ticket to the executioner's chopping block!*
Panic floods my system, my heart hammering against my ribs so violently I'm worried it'll wake him up.
I freeze completely, my hand hovering mid-air above his dark hair like a man trying to disarm a live nuclear warhead.
I close my eyes, bracing myself for the immediate explosion of royal fury, the screaming, or the sudden burst of high-realm Qi that will blast me through the palace walls.
But due to my absolute, baffling, plot-armor tier luck, I somehow manage to escape death once again.
The expected roar of anger never comes. Instead, the heavy tension in the Prince's muscular shoulders slowly melts away. His breathing deepens, turning into a slow, perfectly even rhythm against my collarbone.
I carefully peek down. All my immediate worries vanish into thin air when I realize that my grandfatherly hair-patting technique didn't offend him—it completely knocked him out cold.
The fearsome, future Emperor of the Yang Kingdom is officially fast asleep, using my chest as a literal mattress.
However, while the threat of immediate execution has passed, a brand-new, highly problematic logistical crisis instantly blossoms inside my chest.
*How the absolute heck am I supposed to get out of the Crown Prince's iron-clad embrace now?!*
He is heavy. He is incredibly strong. Even in his sleep, his arms are locked around my waist like industrial steel handcuffs. If I try to pry his fingers open, I risk waking up the sleeping dragon and getting punished "with pleasure."
But if I stay here, I am stuck playing the role of an imperial plushie until morning!
"System..." I whimper silently into the void of my mind, desperately wishing for that annoying digital toaster to return.
"Help me... I've accidentally domesticated the tyrant..."
The room remains dead silent, save for the soft breathing of the Prince, leaving me entirely trapped in the most comfortable, terrifying, and straight-man-ruining embrace in human history.