My Consorts, Please Rein In Your Powers - Chapter 3

Murong Jin silenced the ministers’ criticism with a verbal decree designed to make an example of them.

Then the complaints from the consorts began.

Song Ying led the charge, throwing her noble-consort rank around and making trouble for no reason. Yesterday, she summoned me to pay my respects and stand through a lesson in etiquette. Today, she cut off my palace’s supplies of food and clothing.

Unfortunately for her, Murong Jin seemed to have put down roots in my rooms.

Every trick she tried turned into a rotten move left on her hands.

Song Ying panicked.

“Has Your Majesty forgotten whose birthday it is today?”

Dressed in plain robes and looking exquisitely forlorn, she waited on the route Murong Jin and I had to take back from the imperial garden.

He immediately raised a hand. The palanquin stopped.

Song Ying met my eyes, her lips curving with the confidence of certain victory.

On this day last year, Murong Jin had spent relief funds meant for starving disaster victims on ten thousand sky lanterns for her birthday, then named her noble consort.

The next day, opportunistic palace servants informed her that the empress was using sorcery to curse the emperor.

Song Ying sobbed as she begged him to let Lu Rong at least die with her body intact.

Perhaps mindful of Lu Rong’s reputation as a virtuous empress, Murong Jin had ultimately confined her to the empress’s palace instead.

The truth didn’t matter.

Whom the emperor wanted to believe did.

That showed how far his partiality toward Song Ying went.

The entire harem changed direction with the wind. Everyone knew there was a noble consort; nobody remembered an empress.

But she’d forgotten something.

The favoritism of a fickle man didn’t last as long as one of my paper figures.

“Noble Consort, seeing you reminds me: the empress has been confined for a year now, hasn’t she? Since there’s no conclusive evidence, return authority over the harem to her. From tomorrow, you will all resume paying her your respects.”

Murong Jin lowered his hand. The palanquin rose again.

Just before the curtain fell, I caught the full sight of Song Ying’s bloodless face.

We’d gone quite some distance before a eunuch haltingly reminded him that today was the noble consort’s birthday.

“Find some agate or coral in the Imperial Household Department and send it over. Must I concern myself with this sort of thing?”

He made no attempt to hide his impatience.

Such a fall in one short year.

I’d expected Song Ying to go mad.

I hadn’t expected her to go so mad that she simply bribed a scullery maid to kill me.

How vulgar.

Apparently palace intrigue hadn’t progressed either.

Vulgar, but effective.

My paper figure met with foul play.

So when I turned up at the empress’s palace on time the next morning, positively glowing, Song Ying ran out screaming.

Run along.

When she got back, she would find the scullery maid lying beneath her quilt, blood pouring from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

I’d even burned some incense for her.

Improve the atmosphere a little.

“Honestly, Junior Sister, if you’d learned even one or two of her tricks, Great Yan would have fallen long ago.”

I sighed over my melon seeds.

Lu Rong glanced at me.

“You look much better than the day before yesterday. Don’t tell me you’ve gone after the guards? I hear Celestial Master Cui has noticed something wrong at court. He may already be on his way to the capital.”

I sprang up indignantly.

Seed shells scattered across the floor.

“How could you think that of me? You warned me to be careful! Would I really be that reckless?”

Hee-hee-hee.

Naturally, I’d gone outside the palace to do it.

Last night was a full moon, you know.

Diligent as I was, I wouldn’t waste a single chance to make great strides in cultivation.

Things had been a little tricky at first.

The capital was under curfew. Only Pingkang Ward was still alive with music and dancing.

But where was I supposed to find a virgin man in a pleasure district?

Dejected, I was about to return to the palace when I noticed an inn on the corner, its doors and windows wide open.

A young man dressed as a scholar stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back, gazing into the distance.

That face.

Calling him a celestial descended to earth would hardly have been an exaggeration.

He also gave off the cool, clear essence of a mountain spring.

The very finest untouched yang energy.

I snapped my fingers.

An enchanted gust sent fallen blossoms whirling through the air. Exquisitely elegant.

The young man instinctively narrowed his eyes.

When he opened them again, there I was, biting my lower lip.

“Young master, I’ve lost my traveling money and can’t afford a room. Might I… stay the night?”