The Warm-hearted Little Prince

 

Among the teammates shown on the wristband, Lu Mingze did not recognize anyone except Xing Ye. In fact, he didn’t need to choose option b—a difficulty five times higher sounded terrifying.

But when Lu Mingze thought about the half month during which it felt as though a piece of his heart was missing, he reasoned that if the teammates on the wristband felt the same way, it must be unbearably painful for them as well. So he naturally chose to recover everyone’s memories together.

After he made his choice, the White Cube flapped its little wings rapidly and said with apparent delight, “Because the player has chosen the more difficult challenge route, the limited condition for returning initial skills and achievement titles has been triggered. Please check your phone and familiarize yourself with your abilities.”

There was actually such a good deal?
Lu Mingze had played online games before, and just thinking about personally using those flashy skills made him a little excited. He quickly tapped open the phone, and the skill interface in the app lit up.

Player ID: x8888 (ID bonus Luck +99%)

Initial Skills:

• Truth Magic Mirror (Eye of Truth + Eye of Impression)

• Unparalleled Beauty (upgraded version of “Beauty That Topples Nations,” can trigger “Beacon Fires to Amuse the Lords”)

Achievement Title:

• Turning Misfortune into Blessing

Player Points: 15,000,000

Special Ability: Team-linked skills

“Wait,” Lu Mingze pointed at the points and said, “I counted the zeros several times. No matter how I count it, this is fifteen million points. The initial skills only cost 100 points to use, achievement titles don’t consume points at all. Judging by spending levels and total points, isn’t this way too much? I don’t need this many points at all.”

The White Cube replied, “There is a reason for the number of points. Once the player regains their memories, you will understand.”

“Is that so?”
Lu Mingze stared at the number for a while and muttered, “Suddenly I feel incredibly rich.”

After browsing through all the app’s interfaces, Lu Mingze asked, “Normally in exams, bonus questions come at the very end. They don’t count toward the main score—you don’t lose points if you don’t do them, but completing them raises your score. This level is called an ‘extra stage.’ Does that mean there were many questions before, which I’ve already completed, and now I need this bonus stage to earn extra points?”

The White Cube said, “What the player said is correct.”

Lu Mingze continued, “So the names on the wristbands are all my former teammates. We cleared stages together and then collectively lost our memories… An exam that needs bonus points… Does that mean we were the winning side? After winning, our memories were wiped, but because we won, we were given the chance to recover them?”

After a brief silence, the White Cube said, “Player, you’re smarter than I imagined.”

Lu Mingze thought for a moment and said, “‘Smarter than imagined’… I assumed the NPC from the previous stages was also you. But using the word ‘imagined’ means you didn’t interact with me directly before. Your understanding of me must have come from others’ descriptions—impressions formed inside your cube.”

White Cube: “……”

“Therefore, I participated in the game and won, but the impression I left on the previous NPC was that I wasn’t very smart. If I was a victor, why wasn’t the evaluation good? Is it because, during the game, I wasn’t the main contributor?” Lu Mingze frowned.

White Cube: “……Player, your words have changed my view of you.”

“I find it strange too,” Lu Mingze shook his head. “Normally, I don’t think this… logically and methodically. In the past, I could guess many things, but mostly by intuition, without reasoning. This time my thinking is extremely logical, like a science student—but I’m clearly a humanities student.”

The White Cube’s voice softened slightly. “Perhaps because memories disappear, but the changes they bring do not.”

“Did I learn this analytical ability in the previous game?”

Lu Mingze tried hard to recall. Deep in his memory, it felt like someone had been speaking to him continuously. He couldn’t remember the words, but he seemed to remember that warm feeling.

“Generating world based on player’s choice,” said the White Cube.
It flapped its wings and spun once in midair. Lu Mingze looked up and waited.

The White Cube tapped Lu Mingze’s phone with its wing. The screen flickered repeatedly, then settled on a QR code.
After taking a screenshot and importing it into the app for recognition, the generated world appeared.

Game Title: The Warm-hearted Little Prince
Game Type: Management
Player Role: The Little Prince
Victory Condition: Achieve objectives
Victory Reward: Upon victory, restore the memories of the player and teammates; no penalty for failure

A management game? That sounded pretty fun—nothing like something with five times the difficulty. Could it be that the objectives themselves were extremely hard?

Thinking this, Lu Mingze clicked to enter the game.
After another round of disassembly and reconstruction, he arrived in a city that looked utterly desolate.

This world didn’t seem suitable for using a phone. Lu Mingze’s phone disappeared, replaced by an additional pure-white wristband on his other wrist, and a narration appeared in his mind.

Narration: “This is a ruined city. Everyone here seems to have their own troubles. The city has produced nothing for years, severely affecting national tax revenue. The king has sent the prince, who is about to inherit the throne, to deal with the city as a test.”

‘Hm… judging by the narration, I’m supposed to revitalize the city and restore tax revenue,’ Lu Mingze thought.

The city’s desolation was beyond imagination. Ruins were everywhere. He had no idea where people lived—did they live in the ruins?

Lu Mingze stood in the centre of the city, a massive plaza whose size showed that the city must once have been densely populated.

At the centre of the plaza stood a dilapidated statue with an unrecognizable face.
There was a huge hollow in its chest, as if someone had gouged it out.

Behind the plaza seemed to be the administrative building of the city’s highest authority—probably four stories tall—but it was now completely rundown.

Lu Mingze looked around and didn’t see a single person. He couldn’t help asking, “Narrator, I’m a prince about to inherit the throne—why don’t I have any subordinates? This is a Western-style setting, right? Where’s the all-purpose butler?

“And I don’t even have a carriage. How did I get here? Airdropped?”

Lu Mingze thought very directly and was also extremely curious. He asked question after question, causing the wristband to completely crash. The narration went silent, and the wristband only showed a task progress of 0/6.

“Does progress mean I need to complete construction in six key locations? Shouldn’t you at least give me a map? Do I have to find the quest-giving NPC myself too?” Lu Mingze raised his left wrist and spoke to the wristband.

The wristband played dead.
Lu Mingze slapped it hard while saying, “Do you have even a shred of logic or rationality?”

After a long while, the narration finally spat out one sentence: “All seemingly unreasonable elements in the story have their causes, which players must discover themselves. The difficulty of this world is five times that of restoring only the player’s own memories. It is impossible to provide too much information. The world contains danger. Player, proceed with caution. Farewell.”

Lu Mingze: “……”

Farewell—pretty polite, actually.

Since the system was unreliable, Lu Mingze stroked his chin and made his first decision—

He wanted to see what his face looked like in this world.

His clothing was clearly very luxurious. Even the small hat was set with gemstones, and a gem-studded sword hung at his waist. In a city that screamed poverty, his outfit was basically shouting from head to toe: “Come rob me.”

He should change into ordinary clothes—but the prince didn’t even have luggage. It was as if he had been teleported here out of thin air. Very strange.

Lu Mingze drew his only weapon, trying to see his reflection in the blade. He failed. This was a Western fencing sword—far too thin to reflect a face.

The prince also didn’t carry a mirror. Not being able to see his face made him unhappy.

Lu Mingze placed a handkerchief on the statue’s base, sat down beside it, and patted it. “Hey, could someone give me a mirror?”

And then—something fell from the statue.

It was an ordinary bronze mirror.

Lu Mingze: “???”

Why would a statue drop a mirror? He stood up and looked up at the statue. He discovered that if he stood on the base, he was about the same height and build as it.
Though the statue was badly damaged and its features indistinct, its face shape was strikingly similar to Lu Mingze’s.

Lu Mingze looked at the mirror and saw that the face reflected in it was exactly the same as his own—perfect and flawless.
He smiled happily and patted the statue, saying, “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome.”
A voice echoed in… Lu Mingze’s mind?

It wasn’t a sound produced in the real world, but one that appeared directly inside his head.

Upon hearing the voice, Lu Mingze felt inexplicably excited. Seeing that the statue was extremely dirty, and staring at the chin that was shaped exactly like his own, Lu Mingze found it hard to tolerate and said to the statue, “I want to help wipe you clean. Do you know where there’s a source of clean water?”

He raised his small handkerchief and added, “Without water, it won’t wipe clean.”

“There is a well behind the City Lord’s residence. The water in the well is clean and drinkable,” the voice in his mind replied.

“A well… is it the kind you crank by hand and draw water with a wooden bucket?” Lu Mingze asked. “There should be a bucket next to the well, right?”

“There is no bucket, but you can remove my leg and use it to carry water. The inside of my leg is hollow,” the statue said.

Lu Mingze: “……”

“How could that be acceptable? You’re still intact right now. If I remove your leg, you’ll be completely damaged. I only want to wipe the statue so you’ll be more comfortable—removing your leg would be putting the cart before the horse.”

He touched his glittering, heavy little crown. After taking it off and looking at it, he said happily, “This crown can actually hold water. And I don’t need to fill it too much—if it’s too heavy, I won’t be able to carry it.”

The statue asked somewhat gloomily, “That is your crown, the symbol of your honour.”

“But things like crowns, honour, and power only have meaning when there are subordinates and people, don’t they?” Lu Mingze said. “There isn’t a single person here. I’m… a prince with nothing—not even a butler—standing before a city full of ruins. Does the crown still have any meaning?”

The statue fell silent.

Lu Mingze continued, holding the crown in both hands, “But you gave me a mirror, kept me company, and told me where there’s clean water to drink. So if I use my crown to carry water and wipe your body, isn’t that repaying kindness with kindness)? I’m going to fetch the water.”

“Wait,” the statue said. “Throw away the mirror. It is a cursed mirror. I gave it to you so that after you look into it three times, we will exchange bodies—you will become the statue, and I will become the prince.”

Lu Mingze: “……”

So this world really was dangerous after all.

 

Translator : DarNan