My Consorts, Please Rein In Your Powers - Chapter 4

“And afterward, you slipped away again, leaving him to think it was only an erotic dream?”

Lu Rong sounded dubious.

What else?

Otherwise, wouldn’t he cling to me?

I’d learned that lesson the hard way.

Back when I seduced Pei Yan, his cool, handsome features and tender affection had proved rather hard to leave.

I’d casually invented a background for myself and spent my days with him too.

It was bad enough that he solemnly gave me a family heirloom and promised to ask for my hand once he passed the examinations.

Then he just had to drag me to Sanqing Temple to pray, where we ran straight into Cui Jue.

Fortunately, I severed a tail, turned it into a human double, and sent it tumbling off the cliff. Pei Yan kept Cui Jue occupied by screaming for his wife back.

Otherwise, I’d have died there.

Ever since, I finished every session of dual cultivation with a puff of memory-clouding smoke.

Convenient.

Safe.

Easy to come back for more.

Take last night’s young man.

I would definitely be back.

What could I say? He was far too nourishing.

He was no ordinary mortal scholar. Probably a young prodigy from some cultivation sect.

Not only did he have the face of a banished immortal, beneath those plain robes he had a fine, graceful frame and a wonderfully pure spirit.

“And you think he’ll stay at the inn waiting for you? Besides, so many eyes are on you, inside and outside the palace. Don’t ruin the important business.”

Lu Rong shook her head in disgust and wiped the drool from my mouth with a silk handkerchief.

Here we go again.

Sometimes I admired Murong Jin.

With that rotten character of his, he’d managed several years of marital harmony with my irritating—no, kindhearted—junior sister.

We hadn’t gotten along even when we cultivated together on Mount Bixia.

Naturally.

She was an auspicious beast, a sign of peace throughout the realm and the coming of a sage ruler.

I was a demon beast, a sign of chaos, foolish emperors, and corrupt ministers.

When you had nothing in common, half a sentence was too much.

So let’s stop talking.

I sneered.

“Are you telling me how to do my job?”

I’d put a tracking bell on that cultivator.

As for criticism from the ministers, that was nothing new.

They needed to criticize me louder—loud enough for everyone who hated the world’s injustice to rise in rebellion.

And so—

“Junior Sister, it’s time to give me your throne.”

Murong Jin’s reaction surprised me.

He wasn’t even as calm as Lu Rong.

“The empress’s throne?”

He repeated it softly, his eyes fixed on mine, deep as an icy pool.

For the first time, there was no heat of desire in them.

“Can my beloved consort not bear to leave me? Sharing my bed every night isn’t enough—you want to share my tomb as well?”

He half joked. It sounded like a refusal.

Hm?

Was he developing resistance to my enchantment?

I waved my sleeves. The sultry fragrance in the room deepened.

“What, doesn’t Your Majesty want to meet me again in the world below, our names preserved forever in history as husband and wife?”

I twisted onto his lap and persisted.

A faint flush returned to his eyes. His gaze slowly blurred.

“Very well. Whatever you wish.”

See?

Persuading a bad man to do bad things was as easy as breathing.

So long as you didn’t care whether he lived or died.

Other people weren’t so easy to fool.

The instant His Majesty’s wish to depose Empress Lu and install Empress Hu became known, Chief Minister Pei Yan objected.

The Lu clan had lifted Murong Jin, a prince with neither real power nor imperial favor, onto the throne.

When Song Ying framed them, Pei Yan had done everything he could on their behalf. But none of it could stand against Murong Jin’s single command: “Kill.”

Lu Rong, their sole survivor, was known inside and outside the palace for her virtue and generosity. In seven years as empress, she had committed no fault.

And me?

A seductive demoness of unknown origins, bewitching the ruler.

The ministers knelt in droves.

They repeated all the principles of righteous conduct, over and over.

Every word was good advice.

But you couldn’t talk sense into a man who was doomed.

I’d expected all of this.

And I’d told Murong Jin how to answer.

“Seven years as empress and still no child. That alone is her great fault.”

One sentence shut half the ministers up.

The next silenced the rest.

“How imposing Chief Minister Pei has become. I miss court for a few days, and suddenly all my ministers take orders from you? My humble court can no longer accommodate you. Go live freely as a country commoner.”