Wen Li and Gu Linshu waited for two days and were practically dying of boredom. Well, more accurately, she was the only one who couldn't sit still. Disguising herself with a different face, she dragged Gu Linshu out onto the streets.
The two ate and drank their way along, buying quite a few everyday trinkets. Whatever Gu Linshu couldn't hold in his arms, he tossed into his storage bag.
As they gradually approached the streets near the imperial palace, the area remained prosperous, yet street vendors and clamorous noise thinned out. The surrounding residences belonged to members of the imperial clan, mostly guarded by sentries who prohibited the common folk from causing a disturbance.
Wen Li and Gu Linshu stood in an alley and stole a glance from afar. The palace gates were tightly shut and utterly silent; it seemed Zongzheng Huangyue had not returned yet.
They rented a small nearby courtyard and waited another day.
Finally, in the dead of night, Wen Li—sound asleep in bed—twitched her ears. She sensed a contingent of mounted riders hurrying past their vicinity toward the imperial palace.
Yet she was in no hurry, merely rolling over and going back to sleep.
...
Inside the imperial palace of Houchi Kingdom.
Summoned the moment she returned, Zongzheng Huangyue was currently kneeling inside a magnificent grand hall. The surrounding candles had been extinguished and the palace attendants dismissed. Inside the pitch-black, deathly quiet palace, only the candles atop the elevated dais were lit.
She was merely limned by the faint light cascading down.
At this moment, she was completely alone.
With her head lowered in a respectful posture, her slender eyelashes veiled the trace of fear and ambition deep within her eyes. Her fingers pinched the cuffs of her robes, her spine held straight.
Soon, a shadowy figure materialized out of thin air upon the dragon throne atop the hall.
“You went to Beiqiong Kingdom.”
Separated by a beaded curtain from the lower hall, the figure on the high seat had an obscured face and form, appearing like nothing more than a shadow. The voice was neither cold nor warm, yet carried an aloof, supreme majesty. The words fell upon the ears like a blade suspended overhead.
Zongzheng Huangyue's heart gave an involuntary leap. Bowing her head, she answered respectfully, “Reporting to the Saint Emperor, I went to Beiqiong Kingdom to amicably dissolve my engagement with Wangquan Sheng. He is now a cripple; allying with him would only tarnish the majesty of Houchi Kingdom's imperial clan.”
“And he agreed?”
“Yes.”
“Were you not intending to kill him? Why did you suddenly turn around to save him?”
The leisurely question drifting down from the dais caused Zongzheng Huangyue’s eyes to darken. Although she knew none of her actions could escape this Saint Emperor, fear still gripped her heart.
She paused, hesitating over whether to mention Wen Li. It wasn't out of concern for Wen Li's safety; rather, she feared that if the Saint Emperor already knew and she failed to speak the truth, she would be utterly ruined.
Yet if she revealed that woman's existence and provoked her wrath, any hope of taking her as master would vanish entirely.
“What? Having seen him once, could it be you have fallen for him?”
The sudden words from the dais instantly shattered Zongzheng Huangyue's train of thought. Was the Saint Emperor worried that she had become entangled in romantic folly?
She immediately responded, “Reporting to the Saint Emperor, I harbor no such feelings for him whatsoever. In this life, Huangyue is born solely for the Zongzheng clan and dies for Houchi Kingdom. A mere man—how could he ever make me bow beneath him? I had originally intended to kill him, but later realized that if he died, Beiqiong Kingdom would investigate even if he were a useless cripple. If the trail led back to me, it would jeopardize diplomatic relations between our two kingdoms, which is simply not worth the cost.
“Therefore, I moved to stop the ambush on him, saved his life, and reasoned with him using both sentiment and logic, prompting him to voluntarily dissolve the engagement with me.”
Nine parts truth mixed with one part falsehood. Even if the Saint Emperor sought to verify it, he would find no fault.
Silence fell over the elevated dais. Zongzheng Huangyue did not dare look up, merely waiting quietly for the verdict.
“Well done. But you must remember your current status; there is no need for you to handle such trivial matters in person.” Finally, the shadow on the dais spoke.
Knowing she had passed this hurdle, Zongzheng Huangyue felt a weight lift from her heart. “Yes, Huangyue will engrave the Saint Emperor's admonition into her memory.”
“How has the fusion between your soul and that body been progressing lately?”
At this mention, Zongzheng Huangyue could not resist looking up slightly, though her gaze did not stare directly at him, focusing only near the shadow. “Though this body belongs to my biological younger sister and shares the highest soul compatibility with me, over these past few days, I have faintly felt a suffocating, excruciating pain in my chest. From time to time, my flesh festers and my bones are exposed. Your Imperial Majesty Saint Emperor, are there really no drawbacks to my Nether Ghost Physique?”
Back then, when her father brought her into the palace to pay respects to the Saint Emperor, the Saint Emperor had seen through her Nether Ghost Physique with just a single glance. He selected her, slaughtering ten thousand members of the Zongzheng clan as sacrifices to condense essence blood for her to soak in. Yet the myriad vengeful souls and cursed toxic water in that pool rotted away her physical body.
Thanks to the peculiarity of her once-in-ten-millennium Nether Ghost Physique, her soul did not immediately disperse. Instead, she was able to survive with a cultivation base at only the Fifth Level of Qi Refinement. The Saint Emperor bound her soul within an array, nourishing it with essence blood and feeding all ten thousand vengeful souls to her to devour, setting her onto the path of a ghost cultivator.
Later, unable to endure looking like a skeleton—neither human nor ghost—and with the Saint Emperor stating that she needed to find a physical body to possess so she could appear normally before the subjects of Houchi Kingdom, Zongzheng Huangyue immediately chose her biological younger sister, Zongzheng Yuanling.
Zongzheng Yuanling died, and Zongzheng Huangyue lived.
One was a kite, the other a phoenix; between the two, only one could ever survive.
The shadow on the dais shifted, and the beaded curtain between them swayed slightly. Zongzheng Huangyue instantly felt a suffocating, overwhelming power descend upon her. She was rendered completely immobile, capable only of enduring the intrusive probe of this power into her body.
“You have not thoroughly merged with this body yet. You still need to continue soaking in the underground blood pool for another month. Coupled with the ghost cultivation technique I bestowed upon you, once you practice it to the third level, this body's resistance toward you will completely vanish.”
Before long, the power vanished. The cold sweat on Zongzheng Huangyue's forehead had already pooled into a droplet that fell to the ground with a faint "pat."
She gasped violently for air. The immense pressure that had weighed on her back earlier was like ten thousand mountains crushing an ant, leaving one breathless and utterly incapable of resisting.
“...Understood!”
“As for the drawbacks of this Nether Ghost Physique, a constitution seen only once every ten thousand years marks you as a natural-born ghost cultivator. It granted you a second life, allowing you to possess another with merely a Fifth Level of Qi Refinement cultivation. That ninety percent bloodline purity is something countless people can only dream of. You are now an imperial princess; whatever drawbacks there may be, it is still your great fortune.”
The ethereal, majestic voice overhead carried a faint trace of contempt, forcing Zongzheng Huangyue to lower her head. Under her sleeves, her hidden fists clenched tightly, while her mouth offered humble obedience, her tone gentle and grateful.
“Yes, Huangyue will firmly remember the Saint Emperor's and the clan's cultivation and high regard for me.” Fortune? If this fortune is so wonderful, why don't you take it yourself? Dying once and living again, you old bastard.
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