The Butcher Girl and Her Hapless Crown Prince - Chapter 2

Drifting Cloud Pavilion was even more exquisite than I’d imagined.

Rock gardens, flowing water, carved beams, painted rafters. Now this was wealth.

Xiaotao, the maid who showed me in, trembled the whole way. The moment she’d delivered me to my room, she ran off on the pretext of fetching refreshments.

I pushed the door open, and a chill washed over me.

An ordinary person might only have thought it pleasantly cool. I saw a room full of drifting ghosts.

There was a maid hanging from a ceiling beam, a concubine who’d drowned herself in a well, and several old people who looked as though they’d died of illness.

“The new young lady?”

A ghost with a blood-covered face floated up and pulled a face at me.

“Finally, someone else to play with!”

I grabbed it. Under its horrified gaze, I sucked it straight into my mouth with a slurp.

The other ghosts scattered.

“Don’t run! You’re here already.”

This was much tastier than braised pork knuckle.

I chased them all around the room.

With a wild-haired female ghost in my left hand and a servant boy missing half his head in my right, I ate them one at a time, like skewers of grilled meat.

They were rich in yin energy, cool and slippery on the tongue. Delicious.

“Help! This girl’s mad!”

An old ghost shrieked and burrowed under the bed.

I crouched, caught his ankle, and dragged him out.

“Don’t hide, old fellow. A ghost of your age must be wonderfully nourishing!”

“What wickedness!”

The old ghost struggled in my grip.

“I’ve been dead thirty years, and I’ve never seen a monster like you!”

I chuckled and opened my mouth. With one gulp, he turned into a wisp of smoke and disappeared inside.

I belched. Looking around again, I found the remaining ghosts huddled together on a ceiling beam, shaking.

“Where did this demon come from? How can she eat ghosts? How can anyone be so cruel?”

A little ghost dressed as a maid sobbed.

“Look at all that murderous energy. She must have taken so many lives!”

A pale ghost who looked like a scholar stammered the words out.

I had taken plenty of lives. Pig lives, admittedly.

I wondered what they’d think if they knew I was just a pig butcher from the market.

“What if we join forces and drive her out?”

One bold ghost made the suggestion.

All the others took a step back.

“You think you can do it? Go ahead.”

It lost its nerve at once, shrinking its head into its shoulders and falling silent.

As I was working out how to get the ones on the beam down, a cautious knock came at the door.

“M-my lady, I’ve brought your refreshments.”

I wiped my mouth and straightened my clothes.

“Come in.”

Xiaotao’s hands shook so hard the tray rattled. She didn’t dare let her eyes wander.

I noticed she was clutching a protective talisman so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.

“Put it on the table.”

Looking as though she’d been pardoned, she set down the tray and made to flee.

“Wait.”

I stopped her. “Are you very frightened of this place?”

She went rigid and forced a smile that looked worse than tears.

“You’re mistaken, my lady. I just… I need to relieve myself.”

I waved her away. “Then hurry along.”

She fled faster than a startled rabbit and nearly tripped over the threshold.

Was she really that timid?

Drifting Cloud Pavilion certainly deserved to house a marquis’s daughter. Every furnishing was exquisite.

The silk quilt cover was smooth as water. If only my godfather could have one like it.

I began rummaging through cupboards and chests, stuffing any small object that looked valuable into a bundle.

A pair of jade bracelets, a few little gold ingots shaped like melon seeds, an ivory comb…

Raising me hadn’t been easy for my godfather. Now that I’d made my fortune, naturally I had to look after him.

While I was busy packing, the wardrobe door creaked open a crack, all by itself.