Rebirth of a Nation’s Darling – Prince Charming

A Perfect Prince Charming (2)

Si Huang kept her eyes open as she stared at the fragments of light shining between the gaps of tree leaves and branches. Her throat quivered with great difficulty.

“Yes!”

Nevertheless, this was her reply.

It was an indistinct, husky croak.

Once the word left her lips, two rows of muddy tears streamed down from Si Huang’s eyes.

It was true. Her mind was naturally incapable of tricking her body. Despite her painful misfortune to be reduced to this tragic state, she still wanted to live.

She wanted to live. She had to live no matter what. She wanted to personally send everyone who’d ever hurt her to hell and watch. She wanted them to suffer everything she’d suffered and more… Much, much more… She wanted to live. Truly live. She wanted to do all the things that she had been frantically yearning to do yet was unable to!

When the light in Si Huang’s widened eyes turned to darkness, she woke up on the day that she had received a huge whipping, back when she was 16 years old and plagued with fever.

Her fever finally went away after three days, and the wounds on her back felt slightly better. That voice remained her constant companion, urging her to gather Faith as soon as possible.

“I only have enough power to preserve your life for 10 days. If you do not gather Faith within 10 days, not only will you die, but I will cease to exist as well.” The voice, who had introduced itself as “Wu Bao”, continued urging Si Huang as it echoed in her ears. “If you hadn’t happened to die on my body, soaking me with your blood…”

“If it weren’t for that, who knows how long it would have taken for you to find a suitable heir to merge with,” Si Huang said, cutting it off.

“Do you have any idea how tricky Faith is? You only have 10 days! 10 days!”

Wu Bao seemed to have lost hope. However, it was just as Si Huang had said. It had been waiting for ages. A few hundred years? A few thousand? Who knew. It wasn’t easy for it to find someone who could merge with the Fifth Absolute’s inheritance. It was reluctant to give up, and it certainly didn’t want to disappear. “Your current situation is highly unfavorable. Anyone with a little bit of power could kill you. Don’t you want more power? Once you’ve gathered Faith, you’ll gain more than just life preservation. You’ll have much, much more than that! All you need to do is get Faith!”

“Pfft.” Si Huang squinted her eyes gleefully.

She wasn’t irritated by Wu Bao’s naive voice, which was yapping frustratingly away as if it was delivering an advertising spiel. In fact, she rather enjoyed it. This was how it felt to be a newborn. She was at an age when she still had plenty of time to change everything. She was pure… Yes! Very pure!

Si Huang’s eyes flashed with a glint of obsessive madness.

The people along the bustling streets couldn’t help turning their gazes toward the youth walking by leisurely. Some youngsters had even picked up their phones to sneakily take a picture while whispering and arguing over whether the former was a celebrity.

Si Huang, who was now in the spotlight, wasn’t unaware of the attention she had drawn. Not only did she feel completely at ease, but she simply curved the corners of her lips into an even more obvious smile, turned her gaze to the side, and looked at the three girls who had paused by the side of the road to take pictures of her.

The three girls were stunned at the sight of the boy in their camera phone screen.

The word “dazzling” wasn’t enough to describe that perfect smile and those pleasant eyes with the dark pupils curved into a slight squint that seemed to hold a fresh spring of sunshine, focusing its gaze intently and gently on you. The arc of that smile held a tinge of careless loftiness.

The boy was dressed in black and grey-blue autumn wear. The simple three-piece outfit highlighted his physical proportions splendidly and made his already substantial height seem even higher than ever. The bustling street was in the background with its high-rise buildings, and people were craning their heads to get a good look at him.

This was no random sneaky photograph. It could easily pass off as a picture of a supermodel on the street.

The three girls were in a daze. They looked like students around the same age as Si Huang. By the time they regained their senses, put the phone away, and excitedly tried to see this Prince Charming in the flesh, they realized that he was long gone, drowned in the sea of people.

“AAAAAHHH! Is he a hot new model? Or is he a movie star? I’ve never seen him before. I’ve made a decision—he’s my new Prince Charming!” The female student who was holding the phone was disappointed at first. Then, she stared repeatedly at the picture on the phone, blushing with excitement.

“Quick, quick, send that picture to me. I want to post it on Weibo! Search! I’ve gotta hunt him down! There’s gotta be someone who’s heard of the debut of a person as gorgeous as this!”

“I want the picture too! I’m going to use it as my wallpaper and lick the screen every day! He’s so perfect! Sooooo perfect!”

Wu Bao screamed in Si Huang’s mind as she walked further and further away. “What did you just do? I can’t believe that I missed out on something so important. Why did the Faith value go up? It’s so faint that it could disappear at any moment, but it went up! It f*cking went up!”

Wu Bao felt as if the world had turned into a fantasy. It tried its best to recall every minute and every second of whatever Si Huang had done, but it couldn’t find anything particularly outstanding.

“How many points was that?” Si Huang asked calmly.

“Three,” Wu Bao answered bluntly.

Si Huang nodded.

“Why? Why? Why??? Tell me. Tellmetellmetellme. TELL ME!” Wu Bao demanded.

“You’ve mentioned that Faith comes from the fanatic adoration and love I receive from humans, right? The more people sincerely desire my survival, the longer I will remain alive, correct?”

“That’s right! That’s Faith. The purest, most magical form of thought in the world.”

“Then those three points of Faith came from those three girls.”

“What did you do to them?”

“Mmph.” Si Huang covered her lips and giggled. “I smiled.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Wu Bao collapsed.

Back then, its Master and creator, the Fifth Absolute, had been forced to undergo the most severe trials for the people,

sacrifice his arm for a life

, risk his own life to save the world, and do many similarly heroic deeds to win a meager amount of Faith. He had to carefully plan out his usage too…

Before Wu Bao could continue its analysis, it was stunned by another wave of Faith.

“Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-What have you done this time? Why has the Faith value gone up again? Ah! 10 points, 11 points… 20 points…”

Si Huang paused thoughtfully and took a guess. “There’s this thing called the internet.”

Wu Bao was speechless. What the heck was this “internet”? A terrifying divine weapon?

Si Huang’s destination was her current school, Star Youth Academy of Arts, the most famous school in H City.

Si Hua was a student there too. However, Si Hua majored in Visual and Performing Arts and Management, while Si Huang majored in Dance and Calligraphy.

Dance and Calligraphy were actually good skills that would help a girl increase her value and desirable qualities, especially if the girl had been born into a wealthy family and didn’t need to worry about her quality of life. Unfortunately, everyone seemed to have forgotten that Si Huang had been registered as “male” according to her identification card. She was a boy in the eyes of the public. What use was Dance and Calligraphy to a boy’s future?

I believe this is a reference to the Buddhist parable — 割肉喂鹰, the story of the Buddha cutting his arm away to save a dove.