Chapter Ninety-Six: Do You Truly Understand This?

Late that night, Hera walked into the study carrying an armful of documents.

“All done. I spent the entire day sorting these out!” She collapsed into a chair, panting, and hammered at her waist with a pained look. “So much work... this is enough to work this old body to death!”

Now that the new king had taken the throne, everyone in the palace was busy. Most of the work was handled by Queen Angie, and since she could command a large number of people to help her, the burden was not too heavy.

On Lin Lei’s side, there was no shortage of work either, but there were precious few people he could truly trust. Eve and Hera were busy every day, so busy they barely had time to sleep.

“Good work. Rest a little first.”

Eve had a night elf maid pour Hera some tea, then rubbed her own aching shoulders.

“People from Twin Moon City should be sending help over. I think they ought to be here soon. Tomorrow should be a little easier for us.”

Hera drank some water and wore a deeply worried expression. “I hope so...”

She was not very optimistic. The merging of the two kingdoms was simply too complicated; just reviewing all the agreements would take an enormous amount of time. There would be plenty to do for years to come.

And it was not only Hera and Eve. The general and the prince-consort had also been sent out to carry out important tasks. Their work was even more important: they had to travel all over the country to reorganize the army, and the difficulty was far greater than what the two women faced.

“I wonder when His Highness the prince-consort will be back...”

Hera let out a sigh. A look of confusion flashed in Eve’s eyes. “The prince-consort? He came back this afternoon. Didn’t you know? He’s staying in Florence for the night.”

“What!”

Hera shot to her feet at once and stormed toward the door like a furious beast. “That liar said he would keep his word after this incident...”

Eve stared after her in astonishment. “Her back doesn’t hurt anymore?”

“That was an act,” said the night elf maid beside her as she calmly poured tea. “Lady Hera is notoriously lazy. She must have been fooling you.”

With a sharp crack, Eve snapped the pen in her hand. A surge of anger rose in her chest, and she slapped the desk hard.

“Why are they all like this!”

Who were these people around her? One by one, they all shirked their duties, and she was the one doing everything.

Eve decided to go find the chief culprit. When the beam above is crooked, the beams below follow as well. If Lin Lei was always slacking off whenever he had the chance, how could Hera dare to lie to her?

“This time I won’t let him get away!”

Eve strode out of the room.

“Lady Eve!”

Suddenly, a voice came from afar. Eve turned around and saw several forest elves being led this way by guards. Her face brightened.

“Annie, Connor!”

“Lady Eve!” Annie rushed over excitedly and hugged Eve’s arm. “Amazing! Lady Eve, what exactly happened? Why did the little prince become the king of the night elves?”

“Annie, calm down!” Connor was excited too, but he still pulled his fiancee back. “Lady Eve, by order of Lord Lin, we’ve come to help.”

Besides the two of them, the other elves were also Eve’s former subordinates, and among them were the best scribes she had ever worked with.

“This is great. With all of you here, I won’t have to work myself so hard.” Eve finally smiled. She was desperately short of help. “Did the queen come too?”

She asked the question after that. This time, quite a lot of people should have come.

“No, the queen didn’t come.”

Annie shook her head. The king had feared Winnie might cause trouble in the night elf kingdom, so he sent her back to Twin Moon City to help out.

This incident left not only the night elves busy, but also the forest elves in need of hands.

“That’s fine too...”

Eve nodded. She was also worried Winnie might make trouble. Her son had become king of the night elves; if Winnie came over, she would probably turn everything upside down.

“We came together with the little prince’s maids,” Annie said. “They’ve already gone to find him.”

“Perfect. I’m looking for him too. In that case... you should all go rest first.”

Eve had a maid lead her subordinates away to rest, then walked coldly toward Lin Lei’s room. This time, she was going to teach Lin Lei a proper lesson.

In Lin Lei’s room, three maids were making a water bed for him.

“It’s done.”

The three maids stepped aside. Lin Lei climbed onto the bed and felt a coolness spread through his whole body.

“Good work.” He narrowed his eyes on the bed, as though he had returned to old times. “This weather is killing me. Fan me, all of you. Don’t stop.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

The three maids picked up their fans with resigned expressions.

How had it ended up like this? Why had he started loafing around and waiting for death again?

The maids had thought they would finally be free from their ordeal for a while, but to their surprise, the little tyrant called them back after only a week. That was far too quick!

And they had not even rested before being sent to work again.

“Your Highness, can we resign?”

The boldest maid asked the question outright.

“Hm? Resign?” Lin Lei sat up straight. “Of course. Come on, let’s settle it with rock-paper-scissors. If I lose, I’ll let you quit. If I win, you keep working for me.”

The maids angrily threw down their fans.

“Your Highness, that’s too tyrannical!”

“How can something like this be decided by rock-paper-scissors?”

“We don’t want to do this anymore!”

Deciding whether they could resign by playing rock-paper-scissors was simply absurd.

Lin Lei shook his head in disappointment. “If you won’t agree, then forget it. You three can fight me one against three. If you beat me even once, that counts as winning. What’s so hard about that...”

“Your Highness, we can still talk this over!”

The maids’ expressions changed at once. So it was three against one.

All three of them smiled brightly. “It’s not like we dislike you that much. It’s only rock-paper-scissors, right? Come on!”

“Exactly, exactly. We’ll play you!”

“Little prince, we like you so much!”

How could three against one possibly lose? That was what the maids were thinking.

Then, after Eve stepped through the door, the very first thing she saw was the three maids crouched miserably in a corner, looking as though life had been drained from them.

What on earth happened here?

Eve was a little dazed, but she quickly turned cold.

“Little prince.” She walked to the bedside and said, “You look awfully comfortable.”

She was busy to the point of frenzy, yet he was lying here dozing off. How could Eve possibly forgive him?

Just as Eve was about to explode, Lin Lei opened his eyes. “Eve, I was just looking for you! I’ve thought it through carefully. Your work is far too exhausting. I need to help you.”

Eve’s anger stopped dead in its tracks. What? Had the little prince actually had a change of heart?

“In that case, little prince, tonight you’ll come with me to the study...”

“Don’t rush.” Lin Lei called for a dagger to be brought over by the maid, then smiled at Eve. “I’ll take you somewhere.”

He used the dagger to bring Eve into the dream. Eve was instantly stunned by the scene before her.

“What is this place...?”

“My world,” Lin Lei said.

He took Eve’s hand. Eve swayed again with dizziness, and the next moment she was standing in a library.

“You can look at anything outside whenever you want. This is the deepest part of the dream, and this is the place I wanted to bring you to.” Lin Lei spread his arms toward Eve. “The Library of Multiversal Knowledge. Welcome.”

This library was the deepest place within Lin Lei’s dream, preserving all the knowledge in his memory. And the books here were real books, unlike those on the streets outside, whose contents were exceedingly sparse.

Eve was dazzled by the countless books.

“So these are the knowledge of the multiverse...”

“Unfortunately, there aren’t many books on the sciences. Most of them are in the humanities, so I’m opening this side for you to look through.”

Lin Lei led Eve over to several bookshelves. This library was too important, so he had set up absolute permissions. Every time a guest entered or left, he himself had to guide them in. If anyone else came even slightly near, the library would collapse.

To date, the only people who had entered this library were him, Winnie, Lin Wen, and Panther. Lin Lei did not want anyone else to come into contact with it.

The humanities contained many pieces of propaganda. If he allowed other elven mages to wander in and out at will, who knew whether they might come up with ideas about life, rights, and the like.

Eve scanned the books on the shelves, utterly stunned. “You know all this, little prince?”

“At the very least, I remembered it.”

That was what Lin Lei said. He was a transmigrator, and he had always believed that. But as time passed, he began to find it strange.

In his memory, he should have been a humanities student, very intelligent, someone who could also do very well after changing fields to programming once he graduated.

But the present Lin Lei did not actually have a very deep grasp of the knowledge in the library. Aside from programming, which seemed to match the body’s talent quite well, much of the other knowledge was only memory to him, not something he truly mastered.

His personality was also very different from what it had been in his past life. Lin Lei found this odd, but it was not especially important.

He did not care very much about who he had been before. What mattered was now.

“Eve, you’ll study this here.”

Lin Lei casually took out a book and handed it to her: "A Live Demonstration: Thirty-Six Illustrated Marital Positions."

“Little prince, you really know these things?”

“...This place is too big. I may have picked the wrong bookshelf.”

Lin Lei hurriedly put the book back on the shelf of indecent volumes, then led Eve to another shelf. “Found it. Management studies, and some practical techniques...”

He handed the proper books to Eve, whose expression had turned rather strange.