The loud crack of a wooden gavel echoed, striking the heavy marble desk at the front of the grand hall.
"Stephanie Vane! For the attempted murder of your own half-sister, you are officially stripped of your position as the Crown Princess candidate!"
Stephanie's head throbbed violently. The pain felt like someone was drilling into her skull while she was still alive.
She blinked, trying to sharpen her vision. Her sight was blurry, but she could see herself kneeling on the ice-cold stone floor. In front of her sat a row of old men in luxurious robes, glaring at her with absolute disgust.
Foreign memories suddenly flooded her brain like a downloaded file.
Ah, she thought. Transmigration. A few minutes ago, she was the CEO of Asia's largest logistics company, dying suddenly from heart failure at her desk after seventy-two hours of no sleep. Now? She was inside the body of a foolish villainess who had just been framed by her own half-sister.
"Sister... sob... how could you poison my tea?"
That fake, high-pitched sobbing caught Stephanie's attention. Beside the judge's desk stood a girl in a pure white dress. Lysandra Vane. Crocodile tears streamed flawlessly down her powdered cheeks.
Beside Lysandra stood Prince Valerius—this body's former fiancé. The man held Lysandra's waist protectively, glaring at Stephanie as if she were a pile of trash.
"Stop acting, Stephanie!" Valerius snapped, his jaw tightening. "All the witnesses have spoken. It's a good thing the maid spilled that poisoned tea before Lysandra could drink it. From this moment on, our engagement is annulled!"
Stephanie stared at them in silence.
There was no hysterical crying. No desperate begging for mercy like everyone in the courtroom expected from the usually temperamental villainess.
Inside her head, the sharp instincts of a veteran CEO immediately went to work evaluating the situation.
The half-sister's crying act is too forced. It looks like a scam startup's desperate pitch for funding, Stephanie thought cynically. And that teacup evidence? Back in my company, a document forger this sloppy would've been fired without severance.
However, Stephanie also saw the figure of Duke Malakor Vane, her biological father, sitting quietly in the VIP corner of the room. He looked away, clearly having no intention of defending her whatsoever.
The judge was bribed. The father washed his hands of her. This engagement was rigged to be broken from the start. This wasn't a fair trial; this was a highly inelegant hostile takeover.
"Therefore," the Chief Justice spoke again, stroking his white beard. "As a punishment substituting execution, thanks to Duke Vane's profound mercy, you are banished to Winterhaven, the northern edge of this continent. Your noble title is hereby stripped!"
The room fell dead silent. They were waiting for Stephanie to explode in a fit of rage. Winterhaven was a barren land of death. Being banished there was the exact same as a delayed death sentence.
Stephanie slowly stood up. She casually, elegantly dusted off the invisible dirt from the knees of her ruined dress, as if the people in the room were nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
"Alright," Stephanie said calmly. Her voice didn't tremble the slightest bit.
Valerius frowned, taken aback by her cold demeanor. "What did you say?"
Tying my future to a blind man is a terrible long-term investment. Time to liquidate my assets here, Stephanie mused inwardly.
"I said, alright. I accept the verdict," Stephanie repeated. She looked directly into Valerius's eyes, her gaze so piercing and authoritative it made the arrogant prince inexplicably shiver. "You want to break off the engagement? Consider it done, Your Highness. I have absolutely no interest in marrying a blind man who can't tell the difference between real poison and a cheap parlor trick."
Valerius's face flushed bright red in humiliation. "You dare insult me?!"
Stephanie ignored him completely. She turned to her father, Duke Malakor, and gave a faint, extremely cold smile.
Zero severance pay. Classic.
"Thank you for your overwhelming 'mercy', Duke Vane," Stephanie said, her tone dripping with aristocratic sarcasm. "I will remember this parting gift. I shall manage Winterhaven my own way."
Without waiting for the judge's gavel to strike again or for the guards to escort her, Stephanie turned around. She walked out of the courtroom with firm, measured steps, her chin held high, leaving the entire row of nobles gaping in absolute, stunned confusion.
To them, Winterhaven was a wasteland. To Stephanie, it was a brand new monopoly market, completely untouched by competitors.
Three grueling weeks later.
The northern wind howled like a starving wolf. The old, rickety carriage carrying Stephanie finally came to a halt with a hard jerk that made her teeth rattle.
"M-My Lady... we have arrived," a trembling voice squeaked.
Vespera, the only personal maid foolish enough—or perhaps loyal enough—to follow her into exile, stared out the frosty window with blue lips.
Stephanie pushed open the heavy carriage door. The extreme cold slapped her face instantly. Thick, blinding snow covered everything up to her calves.
In front of them stood Winterhaven Castle.
Or rather, the massive pile of frozen rubble that used to be a castle. Half of the roof had collapsed under the weight of the snow. The windows were gaping holes without glass, allowing the blizzard to freely enter its dark, haunted hallways.
"My Lady, we are going to freeze to death here..." Vespera began to sob softly, hugging her own shivering body clad only in a thin, worn-out coat.
Stephanie stared intently at the dilapidated castle. The territory's treasury was reported to be at a severe deficit of 500 gold coins. There was no food, no heating, and no guards.
This is the worst corporate bankruptcy I have ever inherited, Stephanie thought.
Yet, her lips slowly curved into an ambitious smirk.
"Freeze to death? We won't, Vespera," Stephanie muttered, her eyes gleaming with a strange fire. "Dry your tears. We are going to turn this frozen junkyard into the center of the world. Let's go inside; we need to see what's left to salvage."
Just as her leather boot stepped past the rusted iron gates of the castle courtyard, the freezing air in front of Stephanie's face suddenly rippled.
A semi-transparent, bright blue screen suddenly popped up in front of her eyes.
Stephanie gasped. Reflexively, she stepped back until she bumped into Vespera, making the poor maid yelp in surprise.
A hologram? Augmented Reality technology? In the middle of nowhere? Stephanie's eyes widened. She tried to touch the glowing screen, but her fingers only phased through the freezing empty air.
"M-My Lady? What's wrong?" Vespera asked in confusion, staring at her mistress who seemed to be grasping at thin air. It was clear the maid didn't see any screen.
Realizing she was the only one who could see the panel, Stephanie closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep, freezing breath. As the former boss of a tech giant, she was used to adapting to anomalies instantly. If soul transmigration was real, treating this weird glowing screen as a 'built-in management feature' of her new world wasn't impossible.
She quickly suppressed her shock, letting her analytical instincts take over completely. Her eyes narrowed sharply, reading the glowing lines of text one by one.
[Ding! Ultimate Tycoon System Successfully Activated.][Scanning Host... Complete.][Current Balance: -500 Gold Coins (Warning: Severe Bankruptcy!)]
Stephanie frowned in annoyance at the negative balance, but then the screen blinked rapidly, bringing up new, urgent text in red.
[Emergency Quest Triggered: Survive the First Night!][Warning: Temperature will drop to -20°C in two hours. Predicted mortality rate from hypothermia: 99%.]
[Asset Detector Active: An SSS-Class Asset detected in the castle basement. Asset body temperature: Extremely Hot.][Objective: Descend to the basement and tame the Cursed Prince to use as a free space heater!][Failure Penalty: Freeze to death and get eaten by Frost Wolves.]
Stephanie read that last line twice. A Cursed Prince? An SSS Asset? A free space heater?
"Hah," Stephanie sighed, adjusting the collar of her thin coat against the howling storm. "It seems this company's audit needs to start from the basement."
[Nymphaearoot the Author]: Welcome to the icy north! Hope you enjoy reading! If you like it, please add it to your library and let me know your favorite moments in the comments. Our CEO is about to meet her very hot (literally) space heater!