Shen Yuzhu’s courtyard lay in the southeast corner of Duke Shen’s Residence. Called Orchid Courtyard, it was lavishly appointed, with waterside pavilions and elegant terraces.
Just inside the entrance stood a screen wall carved with magpies perched on branches. Chu Zhao took one look and smiled.
Those weren’t magpies at all. They were cuckoos.
Cuckoos were nest thieves—the “doves” in the saying about a dove occupying a magpie’s nest.
The farther in they went, the more surprises there were.
In her previous life, Chu Zhao had been a conqueror who fought to rule all under heaven. After her death, she had spent another three hundred years as a ghost. In her eyes, these things were all low-class, underhanded tricks.
She kept one hand around Shen Yuzhu’s throat as they walked, commenting along the way:
“A winding pond with a nine-turn pattern? Water governs fortune, and winding water traps it, preventing it from flowing back to its rightful owner. You really spared no expense.”
“Chiwen stone drums in front of the main house? Chiwen swallow water, which means swallowing other people’s blessings. She isn’t afraid it’ll make you burst.”
“Oh, and a whole row of Soul-Seizing Bells…”
Chu Zhao reached up and pulled down one of the bronze bells. Looking inside, she found the birth date and hour engraved in tiny characters.
The characters were minuscule and hidden on the inner wall. Unless someone knew to look, they would be almost impossible to find.
The birth details were unmistakably Xiaokugua’s.
Every time the bell rang, it stole a little more of her fortune.
Orchid Courtyard was full of things designed to steal fortune. Xiaokugua had been targeted before she was even born; even a perfectly healthy person would have been turned into an idiot living among all this.
Chu Zhao had dragged Shen Yuzhu along by the throat the entire way, making quite a commotion. The servants and guards of Duke Shen’s Residence had gathered around, but they didn’t dare lay a hand on Chu Zhao given her current status.
Every word she had said carried clearly to everyone present. They exchanged uncertain glances, their expressions varied.
“Shen Zhaozhao, let go of Mingzhu!”
“Someone! Hurry and rescue Second Miss!”
“What are you all standing there for? If anything happens to Second Miss, I’ll have your worthless lives!”
Madam Chu arrived, supported by someone, with a large crowd of servants and guards following close behind.
She had naturally heard Chu Zhao’s words. Over the few steps it took her to reach them, her face shifted again and again—shock, fury, then a pallor like that of a thief whose fig leaf had been stripped away in public.
Her hands began to tremble.
She couldn’t understand how the ‘Shen Zhaozhao’ before her had seen through the feng shui fortune-stealing formation.
Shen Zhaozhao had been nothing but an idiot… Unless… unless… she was like Madam Chu herself…
Whose soul now inhabited Shen Zhaozhao’s body? Could it be that the real Madam Chu had possessed her own daughter to come back and take revenge?
‘Madam Chu’ went cold all over. Her voice turned shrill and grating.
“Attack! She isn’t Shen Zhaozhao! Don’t let her hurt Second Miss—she’s an impostor!”
Seeing her cornered, frantic look, Chu Zhao smiled with amusement. She didn’t even wait for the guards to rush her. Instead, she yanked a pearl hairpin from Shen Yuzhu’s hair and slashed it across her neck.
“Ah!!!”
A line of blood spurted out.
Clutching her neck, Shen Yuzhu screamed. Before she could flee, Chu Zhao grabbed her by the hair.
“Mother, save me! Wuwu… Elder Sister-in-Law’s gone mad! She’s trying to kill me—”
Across from them, ‘Madam Chu’ was just as furious, her eyes nearly bulging from their sockets. “You wretch! Let go of my daughter!”
Chu Zhao clicked her tongue and rubbed one ear with her free hand. “You’re so noisy. Why are you yelling so loudly?”
She had been smiling a moment earlier. The next, she raised the hairpin and drove it into Shen Yuzhu’s cheek.
The pin pierced the flesh, going straight through her cheek.
Shen Yuzhu screamed in pain, trembling all over.
Chu Zhao smiled. Did it hurt? Good.
When Xiaokugua had been eating coarse-flour buns, a sewing needle stabbed into her tongue. That had hurt even more than this.
The people around them shrieked in horror. ‘Madam Chu’ let out a piercing howl. “I’ll kill you!”
She charged without a thought. Chu Zhao didn’t so much as flinch. Gripping Shen Yuzhu by the hair, she swung Shen Yuzhu’s head like a battering ram straight into ‘Madam Chu’s’ face.
“Ah!!!”
Mother and daughter screamed together and fell in a heap.
Nanny Zhou, whose teeth had been knocked out, also came shrieking forward. “Tie her up! She’s a lunatic! Protect Madam! Protect Second Miss!”
With ‘impostor’ already ringing in their ears, and Chu Zhao so utterly unlike the ‘Shen Zhaozhao’ the people of Duke Shen’s Residence remembered, the guards and servants immediately believed Madam Chu’s claim. They surged forward to subdue her.
A glint of interest passed through Chu Zhao’s eyes.
She hadn’t fought anyone in three hundred years, and she was itching for a fight. Perfect timing!
Instead of retreating, she charged headfirst into the crowd.
The first guard to rush her hadn’t even seen how she moved before her foot struck his chest. He went flying backward and crashed into three men behind him.
Chu Zhao snatched a staff from one of them and spun it around, sweeping through the crowd.
There were two sharp cracks. Two legs broke, and screams rose one after another.
She fought at an unhurried pace, with something of the ease of a leisurely stroll. In her previous life, she had raised an army at fifteen and brought the heroes of the realm to their knees by twenty. This little scuffle wasn’t even a warm-up.
The guards fell all around her as the staff flashed through the air, their cries of pain filling the courtyard.
Chu Zhao stood leaning on the staff, not a speck of dust on her clothes. She clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction. This body was still too weak. Even though it had inherited some of her innate strength, it had never learned martial arts.
Otherwise, why would it take twenty breaths to deal with a few useless wine-sacks?
She didn’t look at the people writhing on the ground. Instead, she glanced toward the screen wall and drawled, “Had enough of the show?”
A figure emerged from behind the screen wall.
Yan Qi stepped out with his hands behind his back. The wind lifted one corner of his crane-feather cloak, revealing the close-fitting black outfit beneath, patterned with dark designs.
He was watching her, his eyes so dark they revealed nothing.
No one knew when he had arrived, but he had been watching her ever since he appeared behind the screen wall.
Watching her staff work.
More precisely, her spear technique… He had seen this technique before.
The Xuanzhao King’s Overlord Spear…