Revenge for My Sister - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

When my elder sister’s remains were brought back, heavy snow was falling over the capital.

Clutching a hand warmer, I asked the palace maid beside me, “Shouldn’t my elder sister’s body be buried in Great Xia’s imperial mausoleum?”

The palace maid stammered for a long while, not daring to answer.

Off to the side, Mother Empress was clutching Father Emperor, her voice hoarse with grief, every word soaked in blood and tears.

“Even a woman like me knows that when two armies are at war, envoys are not to be killed! Jun’er went there for a marriage alliance, yet they tortured Jun’er to death!”

“Jun’er should have been buried in their imperial mausoleum! What do they mean by sending her back? The road is so long, so rough! My Jun’er! Even in death, she was not granted a single moment of peace!”

“If you still have even the slightest bearing of an emperor, then kill every last person Great Xia sent here!”

“Kill them!”

Father Emperor let Mother Empress pull and shake him. His eyes only reddened, and in those cloudy, aged eyes seeped a trace of humiliation and uselessness.

I dropped the hand warmer, strode forward, and lifted the lid of my elder sister’s coffin.

Bang!

The coffin lid hit the floor.

My elder sister lay inside. That face of hers-the one that would have made every sentimental scholar sigh over a beauty that could topple an age-was crisscrossed with blade scars. The arms that had once held me so gently were bent at unnatural angles.

“Get out! All of you, get out!” I shouted sharply.

I rarely showed such a mad, deranged side of myself. At the sight of it, the palace maids and eunuchs abruptly remembered all the deranged things I had done as a child. One after another, they lowered their heads, faces pale, and withdrew.

Once the hall was cleared, I ignored all propriety and climbed into the coffin, groping over my elder sister’s body.

Her chest was impossibly soft, far too soft for a corpse.

My eyes widened. Not a single tear fell. Calmly, I peeled open my elder sister’s clothing.

“Zhaohua! What are you doing?!” Mother Empress screamed hysterically.

But I still pulled the clothes aside.

Gone.

Her chest, her abdominal cavity-gone. All that remained was packed full of cotton.

I grew even calmer. I pulled out the cotton, and frozen-stiff maggots rained down onto my elder sister’s body.

Great Xia was warm as spring all year round, and bodies rotted easily. Yet when they sent my elder sister back, they had not even bothered with any proper preservation.

I lowered my head and patiently picked the maggots off her, then dressed my elder sister again. I climbed out of the coffin and ordered the servants to bring my elder sister back to my palace.

I had only ever known how to destroy.

Taking birds apart, skinning cats and dogs, concocting poisons to harm people-those were the things I was good at.

But restoring my elder sister’s body was not something I could do well.

“No! No, no, no!”

Anxious, I bit my fingernails. Blood seeped from all ten of my fingers, and the fine, dense pain kept me clear-headed.

I should kill a few palace maids, cut things from their bodies, and replace what my elder sister had lost.

I would have to kill a few more, too, in case my clumsy hands failed to make it perfect.

Holding a dagger, eyes wide, I crouched on the chaise longue. I bit my nails and rocked back and forth-just as my elder sister used to rock me when she soothed me as a child.

The palace maids’ faces went white with terror. They were kneeling all over the floor.

They knew their lives would soon be over.

But damn it, were they truly the ones who deserved to die?

The ones who truly deserved death were someone else entirely!

At that thought, I grabbed the dagger and ran out.