Revenge for My Sister - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

When the emperor came to my palace, I was bathing.

Speaking of which, I really had Consort Rong to thank. She must have gone to complain about me.

When footsteps sounded behind me, I was washing myself.

At the noise, I turned my head without the slightest guard up, panic flickering in my eyes.

I must have looked exceedingly beautiful, because I saw amazement in the emperor’s eyes.

Sinking down into the bath, I asked curiously, “Who are you?”

I knew what would happen next.

I did not care.

He had a vast empire, hundreds of thousands-millions-of soldiers, endless wealth, and countless lackeys in both the court and the harem.

What did I have? Nothing but a beautiful face, a mind half-mad, and a life that, without my elder sister’s protection, would have long since been thrown into a nunnery to gasp out its last breaths.

The emperor gazed at me in silence, his eyes crawling stickily over every inch of my skin.

Then he deigned to crouch down, raised a hand, and tucked the wet hair at my cheek behind my ear. “We are your husband,” he said.

I began to tremble again, as if all the blood in my body had boiled at those words.

Had he once said that to my elder sister too?

He must have. And then he had watched her die.

Him.

All of them!

I looked at the emperor, then swept my gaze over the palace servants attending at the side-they all deserved to die!

I put on a docile expression, as if I truly were a little princess who understood nothing, and obediently let the emperor lift me into his arms.

“You! Always so good at pretending to be obedient!” My elder sister’s chiding voice suddenly rang beside my ear.

I wrapped my arms around the emperor’s neck.

At last, two months after my elder sister’s death, tears fell from my eyes.

The emperor gave a low chuckle. “Why are you crying? Frightened?”

I nodded.

Frightened.

So frightened.

I was frightened that you would not die painfully enough, that you would not die unwilling enough to comfort my elder sister’s spirit in heaven!

When Consort Rong learned that I had been favored, she could no longer sit still.

When she arrived, I was lounging lazily on a chaise longue.

Consort Rong’s face twisted with anger. Clutching her chest, she scolded me, “You lowborn thing, unfit to be seen in proper society. You don’t even know how to pay your respects! Servants!”

Pay my respects? As if she deserved it.

I smiled sweetly. “Sister Rong, I learned a phrase today.”

Consort Rong’s hand, about to order someone forward, paused. “What phrase?”

Smiling, I provoked her. “Arrogant. Because. Of. Favor.”

Consort Rong said, “You…!”

She was furious, but in the end, she had been born to a noble family. She had never seen a lunatic as lawless as me.

Only after smoothing down her own breath did Consort Rong calm herself.

Once a person calmed down, they knew that to beat a snake, one struck at its vital point; to fight a cripple, one kicked the cripple’s one good leg with all one’s might.

And so, she suddenly smiled in satisfaction. “Sister, you are celebrating far too soon.”

I feigned surprise. “Oh?”

Consort Rong drew closer and lowered her voice. “Do you think Your Majesty will favor you forever? Do you know what Your Majesty likes to do, or where Your Majesty goes on ordinary days?”

“So what if that precious elder sister of yours was favored? In the end, wasn’t she still cast aside by Your Majesty?”

“Do you know how she died? So many men! Guards, penal officials, eunuchs! Your Majesty brought me along and watched her breathe her last.”

“She was so good at staying alive… She bled so much, yet she took a full seven days to die!”

With every sentence Consort Rong spoke, my face grew another shade paler.

She thought I was afraid, so she laughed with delight. Straightening, she said, “If I were you, I would learn to read the room. Be polite to me, and I’ll let you breathe your last a little sooner!”

My lips trembled as I helplessly imagined everything my elder sister had suffered before she died.

The truth I had pieced together from her corpse and a few scattered words became even more concrete. It was as if I could see my elder sister lying in a pool of blood, weeping in despair.

Why had I not been here then? Why had I not stopped my elder sister from entering this marriage alliance?

Stop thinking about it!

Stop thinking about it!

I clutched my head and beat at my temples.

Consort Rong was satisfied. She cast me a sidelong glance, thinking she had frightened me into madness, then left with a smile.