The King was a man in his thirties, sporting a mustache and carrying a bit of a potbelly. From his features, one could tell he must have been handsome in his youth. Even now, he wasn’t ugly, but his physique management was poor; once a belly grows, even a peerless immortal immortal turns into a greasy middle-aged man.

He was currently admiring his new clothes in front of a young maid with large eyes, observing himself through the reflection in her pupils. The new clothes did indeed hide his belly quite well, creating a slimmer look, but no matter how it was concealed, the double chin remained; just how good could he look?

Upon seeing Mu Sichen, the King immediately showcased his new clothes, asking happily: “Queen, how do I look in this outfit? Do I possess eighty percent of my youthful charm?”

Mu Sichen recalled the actions of the Queen, deducing she was likely a serious, earnest person who enjoyed managing others. He said coldly: “Rather than appearance, the King should be concerned with matters of state.”

The King’s face immediately fell. Unhappily, he said: “Dealing with state affairs means I have to hold meetings with ministers and patrol with the army. Without good-looking clothes, how can I face people? The Queen took away all the mirrors in the palace, so I can’t see myself at all. Who knows if I will be outshone by those handsome soldiers? I’m not going!”

Mu Sichen also felt the Queen’s approach was a bit too drastic. Blockage is not as effective as diversion; how could she show absolutely no flexibility? And he didn’t know which previous donor had come up with the awful idea of destroying all the mirrors.

Therefore, Mu Sichen said: “There is an octopus by Daming Lake.”

He observed the King’s expression.

“What lake is Daming Lake? Queen, are you allowing me to look at my reflection in the lake?” The King’s eyes lit up.

Seeing him behave this way, Mu Sichen knew the King was not He Fei. He wondered where that kid had actually gone.

With a cold face, Mu Sichen said: “I mean, I have placed a spell on the lake in the back garden, so the lake surface cannot reflect any images now. But if you are willing to properly handle state affairs, I will let you look at the lake surface once.”

“Really?! I will go do the work right now!” The King ran out immediately.

Mu Sichen glanced at the large-eyed maid whom the King had used as a mirror. His gaze swept over her exaggeratedly large eyes, but he couldn’t spot any suspicious details.

At this moment, the Queen’s middle-aged maid said in a rigid voice: “Queen, you should not have allowed the King to look at the lake surface.”

“If he works properly, why can’t he look at the lake surface?” Mu Sichen looked suspiciously at the middle-aged maid.

This maid knew a particularly large amount of information, somewhat matching the “what the Sky Eye sees, it knows” ability. Mu Sichen suspected she might have a connection to the Apostle of Jiantong.

The maid sighed silently: “Queen, as soon as the King looks in a mirror, he will definitely be dissatisfied with his clothes and will surely make new ones. After making new clothes, he will want to look in the mirror again, falling into an infinite loop. It is impossible for him to handle state affairs.”

Mu Sichen: “…”

The King was truly too vain.

After the scene with the King, Mu Sichen blinked, and the page turned. He appeared in front of the King’s room again. The middle-aged maid behind him said: “Queen, I have found out that the King is indeed dissatisfied with his new clothes. He has found three new tailors to make new clothes. Right now, these three new tailors are measuring the King for size.”

The plot was finally moving forward; Mu Sichen felt energized. Although the two swindlers from the original book had turned into three tailors—a change in number—the overall change shouldn’t be too large.

As soon as he entered the room, he saw a tailor with a muscular physique saying to the King: “King, the problem right now is not whether you have good-looking clothes, but that you need to lose weight and get fit! We have designed a strict fitness plan for you. Once you reach your target, you will look good in whatever you wear.”

Mu Sichen, wearing little high-heeled boots, nearly stumbled to the ground.

What about the swindlers? How did they turn into fitness coaches? What had this plot been changed into?

It was probably a donor who had crossed into the book and turned into the two swindling tailors; in order to change the plot and not be swindlers, they had switched professions to become fitness coaches.

“But this plan is too strict; eating so little food in a day will make me hungry,” the King said quite uselessly.

“King, you love your handsome appearance so much, can’t you work hard for the sake of that appearance?” the muscular tailor tried hard to persuade.

With lifeless eyes, the King said: “Can’t there just be clothes that make me look 30 pounds thinner after putting them on?”

One of the three tailors couldn’t stand the King anymore, rolled their eyes, and turned their head, just in time to see the dignified Queen, Mu Sichen. The tailor looked at Mu Sichen, showing a hesitant expression, then looked at Mu Sichen again, and chuckled.

Mu Sichen also found this tailor familiar and spoke up: “What? Is this Queen very funny?”

“Of course not. Queen, you are very beautiful; you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” The tailor emphasized the word “woman” and added, “There is a lake called Daming Lake near the village I live in. Queen, you are as beautiful as the legend of the octo… mermaid of Daming Lake.”

As soon as he said this, Mu Sichen knew it was He Fei.

Therefore, Mu Sichen said coldly: “A mermaid? I heard a legend when I was a child. After catching a mermaid, you must ‘hang him on the city wall for ten days,’ otherwise he will jump into the sea and turn into foam.”

Hanging on the city wall for ten days was their agreed-upon code. Tailor He Fei blinked at Mu Sichen, indicating he had received the code.

“Beautiful Queen, may I make clothes for you?” He Fei asked.

“Bold!” The middle-aged maid stepped forward and scolded, “The Queen’s clothes are all tailor-made by the court’s official tailors. How could it be the turn of folk tailors like you?”

He Fei was not angry, but said: “We are very famous tailors; we have a great reputation, and the King trusts us very much, doesn’t he?”

The King nodded and said: “Queen, they are the best folk tailors I have hired. Just let me make a set, and you can make a set while you are at it.”

The middle-aged maid wanted to say something more, but Mu Sichen spoke first: “Then you shall design clothes for me.”

Since both the King and Queen had spoken, the middle-aged maid could not say anything else and could only lower her head, a hint of unwillingness flashing in her eyes.

Mu Sichen said to the King: “I am having this tailor make clothes for me; is that okay?”

“It is rare for you to also like making beautiful clothes, Queen. Of course I will give them up,” the King waved his hand and said. “I have two tailors here, which is enough.”

Mu Sichen immediately brought He Fei back to his room, chased away the tag-along middle-aged maid, and let out a long sigh of relief as he sat in a chair.

He Fei, on the other hand, laughed while holding his stomach: “Hahahahaha, you are actually the Queen, and you even have a bit of a femme fatale feel! Hahaha!”

Mu Sichen said coldly: “Didn’t you also play a princess? Don’t laugh at someone else for walking fifty steps when you have walked a hundred. After entering the game, what did you do and what did you encounter?”

He Fei laughed a bit longer before getting down to business: “I am not actually a tailor; I am a prince. As soon as I entered the book, the prince’s mother told me to come to your country to marry the princess. But I heard the Queen is a beautiful but vicious witch, so mother told me to be careful and gave me a dagger, a shield, and a bottle of antidote.”

He unzipped his backpack and took out these items to show Mu Sichen.

He Fei’s shield was as smooth as a mirror, capable of reflecting a person’s face. Mu Sichen said: “Wrap the shield up properly. Don’t let it reflect light, and especially do not let the King see it, otherwise he will want to look in the mirror and buy new clothes again.”

“It’s already hidden away,” He Fei said. “As soon as I arrived in this country, I heard that the vicious Queen had crazily destroyed all the mirrors in the country and used sorcery so that the water’s surface would not reflect people’s images. Some people advised me to keep the shield hidden.”

Mu Sichen frowned. He had been continuously turning pages; he had no idea how many days had passed. But he felt that the water surface not reflecting images seemed to have only happened a day or two ago. Was the news spreading a bit too fast?

He Fei continued: “I have been looking for you, but I couldn’t find you. It just so happened that the King was recruiting tailors. I figured the King is the central figure of this story, so I couldn’t go wrong staying by his side. It also happened that two tailors determined to be fitness coaches wanted to enter the palace, so I gave them a bit of money and blended in with the tailor trio to enter the palace.”

So far, although the story had become a mess, it was still trying hard to move towards The Emperor’s New Clothes. The Queen, the Captain of the Guard, the maid, the tailors—these people had likely all been possessed by donors; everyone was trying all sorts of ways to change the ending of the story.

In the future, a straightforward minister and a child who speaks the truth might appear. All these people might change the ending of the story.

But for Mu Sichen, the most important thing was not the ending of the story, but whether the Apostle of Jiantong was here.

The purpose of the Apostle of Jiantong staying in a book must be to avoid Shen Jiyue’s pursuit, and secretly accumulate power for the Pillar, waiting for a time when Shen Jiyue is relatively weak to drive out Shen Jiyue’s power and prop up the Pillar again.

To that end, the Apostle of Jiantong would definitely reject elements related to Shen Jiyue, such as the moon or mirrors.

From this point of view, the most likely person to be the Apostle of Jiantong was actually the Queen that Mu Sichen was playing. Mu Sichen was certain he was definitely not the Apostle of Jiantong, so the middle-aged maid who was constantly urging him to destroy mirrors was the most suspicious.

While Mu Sichen was thinking, He Fei said: “This place isn’t as dangerous as you imagined. My journey here was very smooth. Did you guess wrong? How about we hurry up and create an ending to leave here.”

“No,” Mu Sichen touched his belt.

If he hadn’t encountered the little octopus, he probably would have thought, like He Fei, that this was just a fairy tale that had been modified many times. But the little octopus was here. The little octopus must have been brought in by a follower of Qin Zhou, but why was the little octopus left alone in the sea, and why did it lose a tentacle before being caught by the fisherman?

Did the follower die in the book? Or did the follower invisibly change their faith, unable to continue bearing Qin Zhou’s power, leaving the book alone and leaving the little octopus here?

Regardless of the reason, it proved that this was a place that looked ordinary but was actually very dangerous.

What should he do? Who was the Apostle of Jiantong? Could it be the middle-aged maid?

Mu Sichen unconsciously touched the blue belt around his waist.

“Did you hear any news on the road about an octopus that can grant wishes being in the Queen’s possession?” Mu Sichen asked.

“No,” He Fei said.

No? Mu Sichen frowned. Clearly, it was only after he obtained the octopus that he borrowed its power to prevent the lake from reflecting human images. Why did the rumors say only that the Queen knew magic, but there was no mention of the octopus?

There were too few clues; continuing to daydream would yield no progress. He needed more information.

Mu Sichen made up his mind. He spoke aloud: “Someone, come here.”

The door opened, and the middle-aged maid walked in with a serious expression, glaring at He Fei.

Mu Sichen cut straight to the chase and asked her: “This tailor told me that people are now saying the Queen is a witch who can make the water surface unable to reflect human images. I should have only done that to the lake in the palace; why is the news spreading like this? Have you heard this rumor?”

The maid lowered her head and said: “I just heard about this from other maids.”

“You are always well-informed. Do you not even know who spread it? This should have only happened a few days ago, right?” Mu Sichen asked.

The maid: “It was only three days ago, yet it has already spread outside the palace. It must have been spread by one of the Captain of the Guard’s subordinates. I will go question them immediately.”

It had only been three days, yet the news had already reached Prince He Fei, who was far away in a foreign country. If no one was fueling it, how could it spread so fast?

But what was the purpose of smearing him? It looked a bit like someone wanting to use public opinion to force the Queen to allow the use of mirrors.

But wasn’t the Queen destroying mirrors beneficial to the Apostle of Jiantong? It was actually not beneficial to Shen Jiyue…

This story was constantly turning pages, all night scenes took place within the palace, and the only outdoor activity occurred during the day, when the King displayed his non-existent new clothes to the entire populace. The moon never appeared throughout the entire story, greatly suppressing Shen Jiyue’s power. If the mirrors were destroyed as well, Shen Jiyue would have absolutely no medium to wield power here. If Shen Jiyue’s Apostle had already come into this book, they would definitely do everything in their power to prevent the destruction of the mirrors.

Looking at it this way, the maid who supported the Queen in destroying mirrors actually became exceptionally reliable.

No, she wasn’t necessarily reliable; the maid might be related to the Apostle of Jiantong.

Matters were becoming complicated. Mu Sichen decided to temporarily set other things aside and focus on confirming the maid’s identity. He asked: “Even the ministers do not know the story of the fisherman and the octopus; how do you know it so clearly?”

The maid: “The fisherman’s story has already spread everywhere. Every maid in the palace knows about it. I heard it from them too.”

The maid’s answer was flawless.