The Soulkeeper's Pavilion: Where the Phoenix Roosts - Chapter 1

As I lay dying, I dimly heard the bandits click their tongues.

“Such soft, tender skin. They say she’s the daughter of the Xie family’s principal wife.”

“Shouldn’t have got in the princess’s way, then. When Princess Ning’an wants something, she gets it.”

The princess had fallen in love with my fiancé, Cui You, the thirteenth young master of the Cui family.

We had been betrothed since childhood. Even when the Cui family’s property was confiscated and Uncle Cui was exiled to the frontier, Father refused to break the engagement.

He said we could not go back on our word, trampling people when they fell and fawning over them when they rose.

The thirteenth young master was ambitious. One day, he would surely make his own way in the world.

Father was right about that. Cui You worked hard to get ahead.

He applied himself diligently to his studies—and just as diligently to courting the powerful.

He and the princess carried on a secret affair. She became pregnant.

He could simply have told me and ended our engagement. But he feared being called an ungrateful wretch, so he refused to break it off.

To preserve his reputation and the princess’s, he sent a message asking me to meet him in the countryside.

We were engaged. In another three months, we would be married.

When he invited me on an outing, I happily accepted without suspecting a thing.

But it was not Cui You waiting for me outside the city. It was the princess’s hired bandits.

They fabricated wheel tracks. Cui You even forged a letter in my handwriting, claiming I had eloped.

After I died, Father felt he had wronged Cui You and took him in as an adopted son.

My family gave him every support. In the end, he killed them too.

He rose through the ranks while I lay dead in the wilderness, my family destroyed.

Unable to let go of my hatred, I drifted at his side for ten years, powerless to harm so much as a hair on his head.

I thought my muddled life would end with no one to hear my grievance.

Then, just as my soul was about to dissolve, a veiled woman arrived at Cui You’s gate.

She looked him over and patted his shoulder.

When she left, I drifted away after her.

“Pawn your soul to me for five hundred years, and I’ll give you a chance to begin again. What do you say?”

It took me a moment to realize she was speaking to me. I nodded frantically.

If I could live it all again—

I would make Cui You pay in blood!

“Once you sign the pawn ticket, there’s no changing your mind.”

“I won’t regret it. Thank you for helping me!”

Her lips slowly curved. “Don’t thank me just yet.”

“Miss! Miss!”

A familiar voice sounded beside me. I opened my eyes in bewilderment and saw Cuiliu, who had grown up with me.

She was smiling. “Miss, there’s a letter from Young Master Cui.”

I looked at her, my thoughts drifting back.

In my last life, Cuiliu had brought me that invitation too.

Like a fool, I had gone to meet him, never knowing she was his creature all along.

We had grown up together. I had planned to release her from service when I married, so she could return to her family and never be a servant again.

But she had been involved with Cui You for years. She had no intention of leaving him. She was waiting for me to marry into his household so she could become his concubine.

Cui You was a schemer, and he had a gift for handling women.

Maid or princess, he knew how to make them fall for him.

No wonder he was going places.

Even after marrying the princess in my last life, he had kept using that skill to make his way in the world. He could charm the empress dowager into raptures, and she was in her seventies.

Much as I hated him, I had to admit he was good at it.

“Cuiliu, how long have you served me?”

She paused, then smiled. “Ten years. I came to you when I was seven.”

“Ten years.”

I raised my eyes to hers and gave a soft laugh. “Quite a ten years.”

“Hongyu, shut the door.”

My other maid promptly closed it.

Cuiliu stood frozen. “Miss—”

I seized her arm and pushed up her sleeve. Around her slender wrist was a bracelet of fine, creamy white jade beads.

“I had no idea Cui You bought you a bracelet to match the one he gave me.”

“When did you start sneaking around with him behind my back?”

She dropped to her knees, tears spilling down her face.

“I didn’t, miss! I’ve done no such thing!”

“You’ve served me for ten years. Have you ever known me to make a baseless accusation?”

She knelt with her head bowed and said nothing more.

“You were born into this household, Cuiliu.”

“Your mother and father both belong to the Xie family. And if I remember correctly, your younger brother serves my elder brother.”

Only then did she understand enough to be afraid.

For a servant born into the household, punishment did not stop with her. Her family would be implicated too.

“Miss, I lost my head! Please spare me. I’ll keep far away from Young Master Cui from now on!”

Before she finished, Hongyu rushed forward and slapped her.

“Hasn’t our mistress treated us well enough? How could you go behind her back and seduce her fiancé?”

“You shameless slut!”

I stopped Hongyu and said coldly, “Cuiliu, Cui You asked me on an outing today.”

“Is that really all it was?”

Her face went utterly white.

She stared at me, her lips trembling.

“Tell me the truth and save me the trouble of investigating. I’ll let you live.”