In the depths of winter, at the Prince of You’s Residence.
The gates of Wutong Courtyard, where the princess consort was supposed to live, were tightly shut. The household’s servant women had been driven away, and several burly matrons guarded its entrance, nervously keeping watch on their surroundings.
Inside the main room.
Crash!
A basin of water overturned. Choking and coughing, a woman tore herself free of a menial servant woman’s grasp and scrambled on hands and knees toward the noblewoman sitting upright in the seat of honor.
“M-Mother… cough, cough… Mother, don’t kill me… Please…”
Before Shen Zhaozhao’s hand could touch Madam Chu’s shoe, Madam Chu sprang up from her seat, waving a handkerchief in disgust as if driving away something filthy.
“Quick! Bring another basin of water. Hurry and drown her in it!”
“Useless things! She’s nothing but a fool! What good is all that fat on your bodies if you can’t even hold her down?”
Madam Chu covered her nose and mouth with her handkerchief, urging them on with frantic, vicious impatience.
The disgust on her face made it seem as though the person at her feet were her father’s murderer, not the daughter she had carried for ten months and given birth to.
One matron threw her whole weight onto Shen Zhaozhao while another hurried off to fetch water.
Like a fish stranded on shore, Shen Zhaozhao struggled with all her might, trying desperately to crawl toward Madam Chu.
“Mother… I’m Zhaozhao… Why do you want me dead? Waaah…”
“Am I not your d-daughter…?”
“Zhaozhao was w-wrong… I’ll change… I’ll get smarter… Mother, don’t… don’t abandon me…”
Tears streamed down her face. She was already a young woman in the flower of her youth, but her expression and words were as innocent as a child’s.
Madam Chu gave a cold, disgusted laugh. “Daughter? A fool like you should have been drowned at birth. You’ve brought shame upon the Duke of Shen’s household!”
“The position of Princess Consort of You should belong to my Zhu’er!”
“But I-I’m your daughter…” Shen Zhaozhao sobbed. Her not-very-clever mind couldn’t make sense of Madam Chu’s words. “Little Sister Zhu’er… s-she’s clearly the concubine’s child…”
Something in those words seemed to strike a nerve. Madam Chu’s face twisted in an instant, fierce as a demon’s. She bent down and slapped Shen Zhaozhao hard across the face.
“Bah! A worthless shard of pottery like you dares to slander my precious pearl, Mingzhu! Zhu’er is the one who should rightfully be the legitimate daughter of the Duke of Shen’s household! You won’t stand in her way anymore!”
Madam Chu’s chest heaved with anger. She turned on the menial servant woman and barked, “Has the water arrived? Drown this bastard at once! Hurry up and drown her!”
Afraid of being blamed for delaying the task, the matron seized Shen Zhaozhao by the hair and slammed her head hard against the floor.
The blow made Shen Zhaozhao’s vision go black. Her pleading cries dwindled to feeble kittenish mewls, and her struggles weakened.
The other servant had already brought fresh water. Madam Chu tossed a paper talisman into the basin, and Shen Zhaozhao was lifted like a battered sack and forced headfirst back into the water.
Water flooded her lungs, bringing unbearable agony. Her instinct to survive drove her to struggle again.
“Hold her down!”
“Drown her! Once she’s dead, all her good fortune will pass to my Zhu’er! The position of Princess Consort of You will belong to Zhu’er and no one else!”
“Die! Just die—”
The curses and venomous words came in broken snatches to Shen Zhaozhao’s ears, tormenting her like the water flooding her lungs.
Blood streamed from the wound in her forehead, staining the water in the basin red. As she struggled, a black iron hairpin slipped from her hair and fell to the bottom.
Shen Zhaozhao’s eyes were wide open. Tears and blood mingled until they were indistinguishable.
She was a little fool, and had been since birth. The little fool couldn’t understand why her mother didn’t love her.
The little fool had only ever lived quietly and obediently. She thought that if she did, her mother and everyone else would come to love her.
But she was still despised, hated, and abandoned…
Why…?
Glug…
Shen Zhaozhao breathed her last.
No one noticed a faint glimmer in the phoenix’s eye on the black iron hairpin, which was shaped like a phoenix, at the bottom of the basin. That eye met the young woman’s unclosed, lifeless gaze…
A menial servant woman placed her hand against Shen Zhaozhao’s neck, then sighed in relief and reported gleefully, “Madam, she’s dead.”
Madam Chu hummed in acknowledgment. The frown between her brows had just begun to ease when the snow outside suddenly grew heavier.
With a bang, an uncanny gust burst the tightly shut door open, driving snow into the room.
The roomful of murderers jumped in fright. The blizzard winds buffeted them, leaving them stumbling and reeling. Madam Chu raised a hand to shield her face and shouted, “Shut the door! Quickly, shut it!”
The others scrambled to close it.
In the chaos, no one noticed a snowflake drifting down into Shen Zhaozhao’s hair. In an instant, frost covered the basin of water in which she had drowned.
Beneath the water, the young woman’s long lashes trembled faintly.
Madam Chu angrily brushed snow from her clothes, muttering curses. “Useless fools! Who shut the door? You can’t even manage something this simple.”
“The snow’s only just started. Hurry and carry that little bastard’s corpse away and dump it in a well!”
“His Highness the Prince of You’s wet nurse has been summoned to the palace by Her Highness the Noble Consort. While she’s still away, clean up everything here. We need to leave quickly!”
Madam Chu had barely finished speaking when she heard a strange rustling sound.
Like the sound of rime ice falling to the ground on a winter day.
A strange unease stirred in her. The instant she turned, a coldly beautiful yet sorrowful face was right before her. She recoiled in shock, but before she could scream, the young woman breathed out softly. A surge of yin energy poured straight into Madam Chu’s face. Nanny Chen suddenly felt as if she had plunged into an ice cellar and collapsed onto the floor.
“Ahhh! A corpse has risen! It’s come back to life!”
The menial servant women screamed in terror. They had just confirmed that Shen Zhaozhao had no pulse—how had she come back to “life” in the time it took to close a door?
Shen Zhaozhao had always been strikingly beautiful. But because she had been dull-witted, her expression had often seemed foolish, and her heavy bangs had made her look even more awkward, concealing her beauty.
Now her wet black hair revealed a smooth, full forehead. Her dark eyes swept over them. There wasn’t a trace of her former foolishness left.
Pale skin, vivid beauty, eyes black as a deep pool—she looked as if an evil spirit had possessed her, ready to steal their souls!
Shen Zhaozhao—or rather, Chu Zhao—cast an indifferent glance around the room at the servants, her gaze cold as a blade scraping bone.
“What a fine pack of ghostly accomplices…”
“Hiss…”
She touched the wound on her forehead. An eerie red gleam passed through her eyes. She seized the nearest menial servant woman by the throat, parted her red lips, and drew the woman’s invisible vital essence out of her body, swallowing it all.
The next instant, there was a crack.
She snapped the matron’s neck.
Another servant screamed in terror and turned to run.
Chu Zhao lifted her wrist. A high-backed armchair shot forward, blocking the door; at the same moment, another high-backed armchair slammed into the servant from behind.
A crack rang out. The impact snapped the woman’s leg, and she fell screaming into the chair.
Then Chu Zhao’s cold hand settled on her head. The matron’s head tipped back against her will as the dark gaze above bore down on her.
As the matron stared in terror, Chu Zhao smiled and looked down at her. “Why run? It’s your turn now.”
In an instant, the matron’s vital essence was drained. As her body convulsed, Chu Zhao tightened her grip, her fingers piercing flesh and snapping the bones of the woman’s throat.
She drew in a deep breath, the corners of her eyes faintly reddening with satisfaction.
Chu Zhao rolled her neck and flicked the blood from her fingertips. It had been so long since she’d had a physical body—three hundred years. This feeling… She had truly missed it.
Perhaps because she had fought countless battles and killed innumerable people in life, and her baleful aura had grown too strong after death, even the underworld dared not take her. Her soul had been left with no choice but to reside in the black iron phoenix hairpin she had used in life.
Three hundred years without incense offerings, and her soul had nearly scattered. Even Chu Zhao herself had wondered whether every last descendant of the Chu family had died.
Then, just now, she had received the power of a heartfelt wish for the first time. Along with it came a little girl’s plea for help. Drawing on that small measure of power and their blood connection, Chu Zhao had slowly awakened inside the hairpin.
She hadn’t expected her soul to enter the girl’s body directly.
Rubbing her temples, she tried to absorb what little the original owner remembered. The more she recalled, the darker her expression grew.
By the end, she was laughing with fury.
The poor little thing whose body she had taken over was, unbelievably, a grandniece of hers from some distant generation.
Chu Zhao had never married or had children, but her scumbag father had always been prolific. It was only natural that the Chu family had descendants.
Wonderful. The family had produced descendants by the dozen, yet not one had offered her so much as a stick of incense!
Chu Zhao drew a deep breath. What a pack of unfilial descendants. Just wait! She’d deal with every last one of them!
For now, she rubbed her temples and continued recalling the poor girl’s memories. Her jaw clenched tighter and tighter.
What kind of miserable little bitter gourd was this?
Born dull-witted and unresponsive, unloved by her parents, she’d spent her life curled up in a corner like a little mushroom, yet had still been bullied time and again.
Five years ago, the emperor’s seventh son had fallen gravely ill and was near death. The little bitter gourd’s own parents had offered her up in an auspicious marriage intended to drive away his illness.
On their wedding night, the Seventh Imperial Prince recovered. Without even lifting her bridal veil, he ran away and secretly went off to serve in the army at the frontier.
Now he had distinguished himself in battle and been granted a princely title. He still hadn’t returned to the capital, yet someone had already grown impatient and wanted to eliminate the little bitter gourd, his nominal princess consort, to make room for one of their own.
The absurd thing was, the first to come for her life was her own mother.
Chu Zhao slowly lifted her eyes, cold killing intent settling in their depths. She turned her head and looked down at Madam Chu, sprawled on the floor.
Madam Chu, a daughter of the Chu family, was also one of Chu Zhao’s distant descendants.
Madam Chu trembled like a leaf. She had no idea what was wrong with her; her whole body felt frozen stiff, too cold to move.
“Shen Zhaozhao… You actually dare to kill people!” she shouted, trying to sound fierce. But when Chu Zhao’s cold gaze fell on her, Madam Chu went rigid.
She felt as if an evil spirit had fixed its eyes on her, and a chill shot straight up her spine.
“You’re not Shen Zhaozhao… Who are you?!” Her face changed dramatically.
Chu Zhao tilted her head slightly, her beautiful eyes narrowing. “If I’m not Shen Zhaozhao, who else could I be? But you…”
She bent down and used the black iron phoenix hairpin in her hand to lift Madam Chu’s chin. In her other hand was the paper talisman Madam Chu had thrown into the basin.
It was a fate-stealing talisman, one designed to seize another person’s destiny and fortune!
“You tried to murder your own daughter and steal her destiny for a concubine-born daughter. Anyone who didn’t know better would think that girl was your own flesh and blood…”
Madam Chu’s expression changed drastically. She stared at Chu Zhao in horror. “What nonsense are you talking about…? Wait, why aren’t you a fool anymore? Are you human or a ghost?!”
“Curious? Go ask the ghosts in the underworld.” Chu Zhao tightened her grip. Murderous intent filled her eyes. She only had to thrust the hairpin a few inches farther to pierce Madam Chu’s throat.
At that very moment, a stubborn obsession rebelled inside this body. Chu Zhao’s breath caught, and she closed her eyes.
In her heart, she cursed: Useless little thing!
The poor girl was already dead, but the cowardly girl’s dying obsession had been too strong. Even in death, she still wanted to understand why her own mother had tried to kill her.
Chu Zhao had been trapped inside the hairpin for three hundred years, and her soul had nearly scattered. She had only just returned to life in this body. Though she had consumed the vital essence of two wicked people, it was nowhere near enough.
She was borrowing the poor girl’s body. If she didn’t resolve the body’s lingering obsession, she would inevitably be hampered in using it.
Tch. What a nuisance.
Madam Chu saw Chu Zhao pause and let out a breath of relief, as though certain that “Shen Zhaozhao” wouldn’t dare kill her own birth mother. She even put on airs again.
“I’m your birth mother! You dare kill me?! If you so much as touch a hair on my head today, Heaven will strike you down with lightning! Even the laws of the Great Xuan Dynasty won’t let you get away with it!”
“The law…” Chu Zhao repeated the words, then gave a low laugh.
Three hundred years ago, she had trodden over the bones of nobles and ministers. When had she ever given a damn about the law? She had been just one step away from leading her army south across the river and unifying the realm, only to die on the eve of the crossing.
And now some worthless, foolish descendant dared to swagger in front of her.
“I’d like to see whether that damned Heaven really dares to strike me with lightning!”
The black iron phoenix hairpin abruptly changed direction. Chu Zhao drove it down hard, driving it through Madam Chu’s hand and pinning her to the floor.
“Ahhhhhhhh!”
The woman’s piercing scream cut through the wind and snow.
Hooves pounded through the snow. A man in a crane-feather cloak over dark armor led his troops back to the residence, and the woman’s anguished scream reached his ears from far away.
The Prince of You looked toward the sound, remembering the unfamiliar carriage parked outside the residence gates.
“Who came to the residence today?”
“R-Reporting to Your Highness, the Duke of Shen’s wife has come to visit the princess consort.” Wang Yue, the steward of the outer gate, answered in trembling fear. The message he’d received not long ago had said the prince wouldn’t be back in the capital for some time. Why had he returned today of all days?!
The Prince of You furrowed his brow. The instant his sharp brows lowered, the snow and frost seemed to grow harsher.
“Go to Wutong Courtyard.”
Outside Wutong Courtyard, the household women guarding the gate saw the black-armored soldiers arrive, armed with sharp weapons, and their legs turned to jelly.
The courtyard gate was kicked open.
A woman’s taunting laughter drifted out. The Prince of You halted mid-stride and looked into the courtyard.
Amid the swirling wind and snow, a disheveled noblewoman crawled across the ground like a beaten dog, screaming and begging for mercy. Her pierced hands left winding trails of blood in the snow.
A woman in thin clothing stood beneath the eaves, her ink-black hair hanging loose. Her dark eyes brimmed with mocking amusement.
Like a blot of ink against the pallid world—pure evil, baring its teeth and claws, brazen and unrestrained.
Their eyes met. The man’s gaze shifted slightly.
The smile slowly faded from Chu Zhao’s face. Through the wind and snow, she stared at the face that seemed almost divine.
Her eyes narrowed. For an instant, she was dazed. Had time turned back, or had she not returned to life in another body at all, but finally tumbled down to the underworld?
Otherwise, how could she be looking at the pretty-boy face of her old nemesis, Yan Fuwei?