ITVCFITB CHAPTER 114

 Chapter 114 — Give Me Back My Children!

Shen Mingyun often slipped into the speech habits of his past life and, even after years here, never felt the need to “blend in.” He’d always believed this world was a game so who cared about fitting in? And almost no one ever questioned the way he talked. So when Zhou suddenly asked, Shen blinked.

Wasn’t he just an NPC? How could he not recognize the lingo?

“It just means ‘soldiers’, a casual way to address the troops,” Shen tossed off.

Zhou had no intention of digging deeper; he chalked it up to Shen’s hometown dialect.

The fighting was at its fiercest. Shen ordered long ladders brought up to scale the Third Prince’s walls. Arrows still poured down, thick as rain, no one could tell how many archers lurked within. The shaft-storm fanned out like flower petals and was almost impossible to evade.

Impatient by nature, Shen started to fret as nearly an hour ticked by with no progress on the main gate.

“How many arrows do they even have?”

Zhou remained steady. “They’ll run out eventually.” His elite corps was gone; he couldn’t return to Zhou until the Fourth Prince actually took the throne. The men he’d brought were only a slice of Zhou’s strength, important, but not decisive. Still, losing a few thousand hardened troops stung.

Even without those elites, he still had command. Shen knew nothing of warcraft, no wonder Li Mingchun had stuck Zhou to his side to prevent disastrous calls.

Zhou hadn’t expected taking a single manor to drag on. Nearly an hour had passed and they were still bottled up outside; the household guards barring the front hadn’t budged an inch.

Had he grown weak or was the enemy simply strong?

Either way, Zhou intended to obey Li Mingchun’s instruction: no one in the Third Prince’s manor left breathing.

“There must be other entrances,” he said. “Let’s split up and strike the flanks. Seize the Third Prince Consort and the little prince first, cut off the head and the body follows.”

Shen slapped his own forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that? Find the back gate! There should be east, south, west, and north gates, most of the manpower is here; the others will be thin.”

“How about this,” Zhou said. “You hold here. I’ll take a detachment to probe the other gates. If there’s a gap, we go straight in and take the key targets.”

“Great idea. Go.”

“We split here. If anything changes, signal me.”

“No problem, Brother Zhou, be careful.”

They both knew: everyone inside that manor was hard to handle.

—

While Shen and Zhou were hatching plans, Luo Shuyu activated the pieces he’d planted in the Fourth Prince’s household. Disguised shadow guards moved in tandem, quietly lifting the Fourth Prince’s two children out from under everyone’s noses. Compared with the Third Prince’s estate, security at the Fourth’s was laughably lax and full of holes. The shadows escorted their targets out with ease.

Circling back through the rear lanes, they even spotted Zhou’s men skirting toward the side gates with Imperial Guards in tow. Did these Great Xia soldiers really not know the “officer” leading them was a foreign prince? Unbelievable.

The children were delivered into Luo Shuyu’s presence.

He took one look at the two pink-cheeked dumplings and, rather than frighten them, had them gently awakened.

For all his “protagonist” shine, Shen Mingyun wasn’t stupid or greedy by nature. If he’d ignored the system, lived cleanly, and raised his son and daughter with care, he could have had a decent life.

The boy, Li Chengyi, and the girl, Li Chengtian, blinked awake to a refined “uncle” holding a very cute baby. The room was unfamiliar, fear pricked then the baby smiled at them, and fear melted.

“Do you two remember me?” Luo Shuyu asked, voice soft.

Because the Fourth Prince actually invested in Chengyi’s education, raising him as a future heir, the boy bowed politely. “You’re the Third Royal Uncle’s consort.” A beat. Quick on the uptake, he added, “Royal Uncle, why am I here? I was reading in the study.”

“Do you remember Zhuang Zhou’s butterfly?” Luo Shuyu smiled. “The butterfly saw you studying too hard and carried you to visit me and play with your little brother. Have you met him?”

Chengyi shook his head.

It’s not a surprise since the two households had barely interacted this past year; the children had never met.

“He’s called Chongchong,” Luo Shuyu said, then to the baby: “Chongchong, this is Brother Chengyi and Sister Chengtian.”

Chongchong obligingly cooed. He could say “daddy” now, but most other words were still babble.

Three-year-old Chengtian hid behind her brother, skittish without her nurse. Still, she peeked out, curious, at the cute baby.

Luo Shuyu had child-friendly treats brought in. “Sugar figurines and cakes, would you like some?”

Chengyi eyed the animal-shaped pastries with longing, but father and papa had drilled into him: don’t eat food from outsiders.

He hesitated. “Papa said not to eat things from outside.”

“This isn’t from outside,” Luo Shuyu said lightly. “Our own kitchen made them. Try one? If it’s not good, we’ll stop.”

When Chengyi was with his papa, Shen Mingyun, he rarely got this kind of gentle attention. Mostly he heard arguments. Back when Papa was very overweight, Chengyi stuck to his father instead, studying and practicing under strict guidance. His papa’s handwriting was dog-scratch compared to Chengyi’s, and their time together had dwindled. Papa did care, but his voice would spike without warning. Nothing like this calm, mellifluous Third Royal Uncle.

Bathed in that warmth, Chengyi felt steady and safe. He accepted a bunny-shaped cake and ate obediently. Their house had everything, but this was the first time someone had spoken to him with such gentle respect.

Father could be kind, too, but carried heavy expectations and was stern more often than not. As for Papa, always busy with his own schemes; books made him sleepy. In time, Father had stopped asking Papa to supervise lessons.

“I like piggy ones,” Chengtian whispered.

Luo Shuyu laughed and passed her a little “pig.” “No rush. These are all yours. Tell Royal Uncle what you want.”

Chengyi nodded, then glanced at the baby. “Can little brother have some?”

“He’s still small,” Luo Shuyu said. “Only a few teeth. He can’t manage cake yet. You two enjoy.”

Out front, Shen still had no idea his children were “visiting” the very manor he was attacking. He was busy ordering more ladders and bleeding the defenders’ arrows.

Zhou’s report arrived: every side gate was guarded, the defenders hidden and sharp-eyed. They’d barely approached before arrows found their thighs, deadly accurate, as if shooting at a hundred paces. Where had these people come from?

Scouting in secret was a non-starter; every probe was driven back by precise shafts.

Zhou returned to Shen’s side to rejoin the main push.

Fine, take the front first. Once the main court fell, the other gates would have to divert men. That would be the moment.

The fight raged from morning to noon. Waves of men rotated in and out, both sides exhausted. Shen, who’d started the day on horseback, now sagged with an aching back and slid down to sit, kneading shoulders. When had he last suffered like this?

Staring at the still-untaken manor, he muttered to the system, “Got any recon tools? A little scouting plane? Right, a drone.”

The instant he asked for something to attack Luo Shuyu, the shop populated with a mini-drone he could afford.

“Perfect!”

His numbers were thinning; the wounded came off by the stretcher-load. At this rate, he’d be fought to a temper-tantrum long before the walls fell.

With a drone, he could see dispositions, pick a weak point, send infiltrators straight in.

He wanted to infiltrate himself, but his invisibility cloak was spent, and he didn’t have the points to redeem another. The system’s other items didn’t fit.

The timely drone sent him over the moon. Today, he’d take the Third Prince’s manor for sure.

A modern device, the drone was invisible to everyone except Shen; even Zhou wouldn’t see it. He didn’t need a controller either, he could steer it by thought through the system’s pane.

He hadn’t known the system could do that. “And you didn’t list this sooner because…?”

“As the saying goes,” the system replied, “circumstances change with the times.”

“…,” Shen said. Irritating and yet not wrong.

He launched the drone.

He’d visited the manor twice; he could at least find the main court.

High up, the little craft swept the walls; thermal imaging tallied archers. It traced a full loop to count bodies within.

Cutting-edge, this thermals thing, excellent.

Numbers in hand, Shen marked the ambush nests around the perimeter. Lure them out, smash in detail, that would do.

Usage time: ten minutes. Not long. With thirty seconds left, he skimmed again for stragglers.

A few figures emerged from the main courtyard, familiar silhouettes. He dipped lower. Luo Shuyu stood in the center, a child in his arms. And the two children beside him looked… wildly familiar.

They looked exactly like his son and daughter.

Chengyi.

Chengtian.

What were they doing there?

He tried to confirm and the feed cut. Time expired.

Panic hit like ice water.

He didn’t even pass the intel to Zhou, he immediately dispatched riders to the Fourth Prince’s residence.

“Ride! Check the manor, are Chengyi and Chengtian there? Go!”

He remembered clearly: when he’d set out, both children had been in the residence, guarded by trusted men. What was going on? Had his eyes deceived him? How could his children be in the Third Prince’s estate and smiling beside Luo Shuyu?

How had they gotten them out?

No, he must be seeing things. It couldn’t be them. It had to be a trick.

He couldn’t bring himself to believe it.

The messengers raced back. Shen’s worst fear was confirmed.

Both children were gone. If he hadn’t misseen, they were inside the Third Prince’s manor right now.

He forgot all about expending a rare system item. He bellowed to the Imperial Guards, “Stop! Everyone stop! No one is to attack the Third Prince’s manor! Cease at once!”

They’d been moments away from breaking through. Zhou stared, baffled until he saw Shen’s bloodless face.

“What happened?”

Shen’s hands trembled. “Chengyi and Chengtian are gone, they’re not in the residence. They’re in the Third Prince’s manor!”

Zhou blinked. “Weren’t they home when we left? How? We posted men at every exit. No one got in or out. The household swears it.”

“It’s true,” Shen said hoarsely. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

Zhou knew better than to doubt Shen’s…peculiar abilities. “So they’ve been brought here. Did they look hurt?”

They might be the Fourth Prince’s children, but Zhou wasn’t about to speak lightly about them.

Shen was in pieces. He wasn’t much of a hands-on parent, but those two were his greatest soft spot. If he ever had to leave this world, they’d be what tore him apart.

Nothing could happen to them.

“Not hurt,” he said. He described the brief image he’d caught. The children had even seemed happy. That only sharpened his fear: if Luo Shuyu soured, would he take it out on them?

That bastard, Shen raged. Kidnapping my children to threaten me, shameless!

He sent word to the palace at once: the Third Prince had taken the Fourth Prince’s children.

And then he would negotiate.

A massive banner unfurled along the Third Prince’s outer wall.

Zhou took two steps back, secondhand embarrassment prickling.

[Luo Shuyu, give back my children! You cowardly turtle, shameless wretch, come out and negotiate with me!]

A moment later, a banner rose from inside.

Shen saw it and nearly fainted with rage.

[No Entry for Shen Mingyun and Dogs.]

---

Author’s Note

Third Prince: Husband, you used the tiger bench on Shen Mingyun yesterday. Today I’ll give you the ahem old man’s wheelbarrow.

Luo Shuyu: …

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