Changliu and Ye Feisheng - Chapter 4

The Imperial Noble Consort summoned my mistress to the palace for a chat.

It was her seventeenth summons that month.

The palace grandees would have liked her to live there, ready to serve them at any moment.

While the Changming Order chose a new leader, Great Qi’s struggle over the imperial succession was growing ever more vicious.

My mistress governed Immortal Manor and all the intelligence in the realm. Naturally, the palace elite flocked to her.

Information was the most expensive commodity there was.

It was also what they needed most desperately.

But she observed the Order’s rules strictly and never spoke carelessly outside.

So the palace elite deployed every trick they knew.

Getting her drunk was only the simplest.

Adding drugs to her wine to cloud her mind and make her tell the truth…she had encountered that more than once.

And those weren’t their only methods.

Without me constantly at her side, she might have been sexually violated countless times already.

Some people were utterly convinced that once a woman slept with a man, she was bound to devote her entire life to him.

Because my mistress was a woman, they ceased to see her as a person.

She was merely a possession without an owner.

All a man had to do was sleep with her, and she would recognize him as her master.

He could even take over her position at Immortal Manor.

Utter madness!

I cut off every filthy hand that reached for her.

Like the one before me now.

The Imperial Noble Consort’s nephew offered to straighten my mistress’s clothes.

Before his hand touched her collar, cold steel flashed.

A forearm fell to the floor.

It was so freshly severed that the fingers still twitched when it landed.

I twirled my sword and sheathed it.

My mistress was still sipping her tea, her eyes lowered.

The man’s scream split the air.

I pulled my cloak around from behind to block the spray of blood.

The Imperial Noble Consort turned white as paper.

She pointed at me. “You—you—you—” But she couldn’t finish a sentence.

She hadn’t thought I would actually do it.

My mistress put down her cup.

“Isn’t it rather beneath your Frostmoon Sky to keep cutting up such filth?”

I looked coldly at the consort’s nephew as I answered her. “Yes. I really should carry a butcher’s cleaver.”

She closed her eyes, the corners of her mouth lifting.

The palace servants quickly removed the man and his forearm.

The Imperial Noble Consort glared at my mistress. “How dare you hurt my nephew! The Wei family will never let you get away with this!”

My mistress picked up a little tea sweet and nibbled at it.

“Too sweet.”

After every tiny bite, she had to take a sip of tea to wash it down.

Ignored completely, the consort heaved with anger.

I gave her a cold look. “Perhaps Your Highness doesn’t know. Your nephew makes five arms I’ve cut off this month.”

“Wh-what?”

“People in this palace certainly know how to keep a secret. I cut someone down in one residence, and not a word reaches the next. I’ve cut off the arms of relatives from four different residences… Did none of them think to tell you?”

She was speechless.

She couldn’t comprehend what I was saying.

It might as well have been some impossible tale.

I added mildly, “Consorts Xian, Liang, Shu, and De all have male relatives. Lately, their families have been calling in Junqianzi, the famed physician from Medicine King Valley. Aren’t you curious who she’s been treating, and for what?”

The Imperial Noble Consort opened her mouth but couldn’t speak.

My mistress put down her unfinished sweet. “Too sweet.”

I looked down at her. “Then why keep eating it?”

“Yours are better.”

“Last time you complained that mine weren’t as fine and smooth as the palace ones.”

She laughed softly.

At last, she looked at the woman who had dared offend her and spoke. “Wei Quezhi, guess what Junqianzi’s specialty is.”

The consort glared at her.

My mistress lowered her eyes, a mocking smile on her lips. “Reattaching severed limbs.”

The consort shuddered.

“So I’d advise you not to let the palace physicians meddle with your nephew. Send for Junqianzi at once. She should still be at Consort De’s family home, tending her younger brother.”

Then she looked up at me. “Changliu, let’s go.”

“Yes, Young Mistress.”

I immediately pushed her wheelchair out of the residence, taking long strides.

Such a filthy place wasn’t worth another moment of her time.