My Consorts, Please Rein In Your Powers - Chapter 1

The eunuchs and maids on duty outside the prayer hall had all gone to enjoy the bustle of the evening banquet.

Inside, everything was silent, making my laughter particularly grating.

“You’ve been married to him for seven years. You’ve helped him purge corrupt officials, control floods, and quell unrest on the borders. You’ve kept the dying Great Yan dynasty looking as though it might stagger on for another eight or ten years.”

“All that effort, Junior Sister. Don’t tell me… you’ve fallen in love with him?”

The empress stood before the incense table, head bowed, copying Lessons for Women stroke by stroke.

She hadn’t so much as looked up since I came in.

Only at my final question did her hand falter.

Ink spread across the paper.

A black stain, ruining all her work.

The evening breeze stirred the candle flames.

The bodhisattva’s statue receded into shadow, its face lost to view.

“His Majesty has laid on a grand banquet for you in the Star-Plucking Pavilion. Why aren’t you there drinking and enjoying yourself, Senior Sister? Why come here to torment me?”

The empress set the stained sheet aside as though nothing had happened.

Her voice was as still as an ancient well, but she couldn’t hide the hurt in her eyes.

Tsk.

Hopeless creature.

I’d told her from the start.

An auspicious creature like a nine-colored deer simply wasn’t cut out to be a demon empress who brought a nation to ruin.

A red-tailed fox like me, with three dynasties already toppled, was the professional.

Demon beasts sat at the very bottom of the cultivation hierarchy.

Heavenly assignments that would leave our names revered for generations? We could forget those. We got the scraps nobody else wanted, the ones that made our names stink for eternity.

Yet she’d insisted on snatching that decree from me. Talk about overestimating herself.

Now I had to clean up her mess.

Oh, well.

Since succeeding this time would let me ascend as a High Immortal, I’d clean it up.

I glanced at her dejected face and curled my lip.

“Do you think I’m you? A thousand years of cultivation, wasted playing house with one man? Is he worth it?”

Before slipping away, I’d cut a paper figure out of a poetry anthology to keep that incompetent emperor, Murong Jin, company.

The two of them were cuddling and reciting verses.

Not because I was being considerate of my junior sister’s tender feelings.

I cultivated the Way of Carefree Freedom.

Impurity in the six senses was its greatest taboo.

Best to cultivate together with men who were still virgins.

That useless emperor reeked of every kind of rouge and powder, with a whiff of deer mixed in.

Ugh. Bad for my cultivation.

My junior sister slapped her brush down.

“Drop the act, Hu Lili! You never bother with other people’s problems. You’re only willing to take over this disaster because you want to see your old lover!”

I blinked.

“Which one?”

She blinked too.

“The scholar who saved you seven years ago! Isn’t he why you came?”

I was even more confused.

“Er… which one?”

Posing as a helpless commoner girl was one of my usual tricks. I genuinely couldn’t remember who she meant.

She lost it.

“Pei Yan! The man who came third in the imperial examinations, our current chief minister! Do you think I don’t know what you two got up to?”

Ohhh.

Yes. I did seem to remember a Pei Yan.

Not bad, young man.

After several nights with me, he’d still managed to keep his wits and place third in the examinations. Unlike the others, who got a taste and plunged straight into the pleasure houses.

He’d probably forgotten who I was by now.

My junior sister shook her head wearily.

“Since you’ve received orders from the upper realm, I have nothing to say. But a friendly warning: Pei Yan is an upright official and the leader of the court. If you want to destroy Great Yan, you’ll have to get past him first.”

I suppressed an eye roll.

You don’t say.

When I was persuading doomed emperors to slaughter their loyal ministers and capable generals, you were still chewing grass on a mountainside.

“And be careful of the noble consort. She’s His Majesty’s cherished, idealized love…”

My junior sister’s voice faded as she numbly laid out a fresh sheet of paper.

Noble Consort Song Ying had been the wife of the former crown prince—Murong Jin’s sister-in-law.

My junior sister had won Murong Jin’s favor precisely by taking on a human appearance that resembled hers.

After Murong Jin usurped the throne, he shut the former crown prince in a sunless dungeon, where the man died of despair last year.

Song Ying had initially wept and raged, insisting on following her late husband into death.

Murong Jin arrived in time to stop her, then showed her his imperial study, its walls covered with portraits of her.

Song Ying heaved a long sigh and entered the palace that very night.

From then on, every other beauty in the harem paled beside her.

She accused my junior sister of using sorcery to curse the emperor. My junior sister had been confined ever since.

Even her natal family, the Lu clan, which had helped Murong Jin seize the throne, had been executed to the last member after Song Ying found an excuse.

Pah.

Serve an incompetent ruler as his virtuous empress? Serves you right!

I coldly surveyed my junior sister, who looked three sizes thinner than I remembered.

“Lu Rong, Lu Rong. When I join the ranks of the immortals, don’t you dare tell anyone we trained together. Song Ying’s already sent people asking for the emperor—first Her Noble Consortship had a headache, then her feet hurt. I sent them packing with a slap apiece.”

She couldn’t even use the emperor’s power to throw her weight around.

What kind of demon empress was that?

My junior sister closed her eyes.

“What I was trying to say is that she’s also the prized disciple of your nemesis, Celestial Master Cui. Be careful around her, or she might see through your disguise.”

…Celestial Master Cui?

…Cui Jue, who had nearly ruined all three of my previous dynasty-toppling assignments?

Junior Sister, perhaps I was a little loud just now.

I thought that innocent little head of yours was the worst part of this mess.

I hadn’t realized there was something worse.

“But Celestial Master Cui lives in seclusion on Mount Shu and rarely appears in the world. Song Ying only knows a few simple spells. Just don’t arouse her suspicions.”

I pulled the door open with a creak, cutting off her chatter.

The mere mention of Cui Jue gave me a headache.

I’d lost three of my nine tails to that man.

Did he have any idea how much it hurt to be called “Old Six” by the other nine-tailed foxes?

Come to think of it, that ancient Celestial Master could have ascended to heaven ages ago.

Why was he still wandering around the mortal world?

Moonlight flowed like water outside.

Music and laughter drifted from the Star-Plucking Pavilion.

Thoughtfully, I murmured to myself:

“A night this lovely really shouldn’t be spent alone.”

Behind me, a book fell to the floor.

I turned.

“Oh, Junior Sister. Where in the palace can I find plenty of virgin men around twenty—”

“Get out!”