Volume 5, Chapter 324 – You Act Too Poorly, Let Me Do It (Part 5)

When Qi Huang returned to her bedroom, her roommates were preparing to go bathe, carrying basins in their hands.

Qi Huang didn’t move. For one, as a cultivator, skipping a bath for a couple of days wasn’t a big deal. Secondly, her identity was too sensitive, she preferred to avoid going out unless absolutely necessary.

“Huh? Aren’t you going to bathe? I remember you didn’t wash last night either?”

Huang Min frowned as she asked. After all, she slept right next to Qi Huang, they practically shared the same bed.

“What? She didn’t bathe last night?”

The other girls nearby shuddered, especially since they had been sniffing around Qi Huang earlier.

“I washed right before entering the palace yesterday, so I skipped last night,” Qi Huang quickly explained.

The girls looked skeptical but didn’t press further, carrying their wooden basins out the door.

After some consideration, Qi Huang decided she should still go wash. A person’s reputation was everything, if she ended up being despised by these girls over something so trivial, it wouldn’t be worth it.

Having made up her mind, she grabbed her own small wooden basin and clean clothes, following behind her roommates. These items had all been uniformly distributed by the Office of Palace Ceremonies.

‘What does the Imperial Palace’s bathing area look like, I wonder?’

As she walked, Qi Huang couldn’t help but imagine, was it a communal bathhouse? Or individual luxurious stalls? Ultimately, she figured the latter was more likely. After all, this was the imperial palace, it wouldn’t be as casual as the outside world.

Soon, Qi Huang arrived at the bathhouse. The moment she stepped inside, thick clouds of steam rolled over her, reducing visibility drastically.

Pushing through the mist, her vision suddenly cleared, revealing an expansive bathing pool before her. Within the hazy vapor, faint silhouettes of pale figures flickered in and out of sight.

“Cough, cough…”

Qi Huang froze on the spot, only snapping out of it when she choked on her own saliva. She guiltily averted her gaze like a thief caught red-handed.

Carefully glancing around to ensure no one had noticed her reaction, she feigned composure and strode toward the pool, inwardly sneering:

‘And this is the Imperial Palace? They use a communal bathhouse?’

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The reason for her naivety was simple, while imperial life was indeed luxurious, that privilege was reserved for the royal family. The Office of Palace Ceremonies was where palace maids lived, how could it possibly be extravagant? No matter where you went, people were always divided into hierarchies.

Faced with such a “paradise”, Qi Huang had no real intention of bathing. She pretended to wander around the pool with her basin, but her eyes gleamed with a rather shameless gaze, sweeping over the girls in the water.

Some quickly noticed Qi Huang’s blatant staring. If not for her conspicuously large chest, they might’ve suspected she was a man in disguise, sneaking in to leer at them.

“What are you looking at? Think having big boobs makes you special?”

“Ugh, look at her—strutting around like she owns the place.”

“Who is this little bitch? Remember her faces, sisters. If any of us gets lucky enough to enter the imperial harem, we’ll make sure to ruin her.”

Some girls clearly misunderstood Qi Huang’s intentions, hostility rising in their eyes.

“What are you doing? If you’re here to bathe, then bathe! Why are you pacing around? You’re not seriously showing off your chest, are you?”

Yaoyao couldn’t take it anymore and snapped at her.

“It’s nothing. I’m just shy, so I wanted to find a more secluded spot,” Qi Huang awkwardly explained. Sensing the risk of being ganged up on, she reluctantly stopped her peeping.

Finding a hidden corner, she released her divine sense to gather some mist as a natural barrier before finally undressing to bathe.

“Are you serious right now? We’re all girls here—why be so prudish?”

Yaoyao, who had been placed in the basin, was utterly speechless.

“Obviously. If I weren’t conservative, what right would I have to judge them?”

Qi Huang smirked triumphantly, then stepped into the pool like an ethereal fairy, shrouded in mist. At the same time, she extended her divine sense, taking in every detail of the bathhouse.

Who needs eyes when I have plenty of other ways to see?

“Have any of you seen that Imperial Consort chosen by decree?”

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“Nope! Ever since she entered the Office of Palace Ceremonies, I haven’t caught a glimpse of her. The rumors are getting wilder, though.”

“Just like your chest, huh? Everyone talks about it, but no one’s actually seen it.”

“You looking to die?!”

“Jokes aside, she really did enter the Office of Palace Ceremonies. The stewards gave her a private room, the innermost one in the west wing.”

“Her own room? Hmph. Must be nice being the emperor’s handpicked woman.”

“Don’t be jealous. A tall tree catches the wind, plenty of people want to ruin her.”

“Who’d dare mess with an Imperial Consort chosen by decree?”

“You think everyone’s as brainless as you? If they can’t act openly, they’ll just do it in secret.”

“Is that why she’s been hiding in her room? Afraid of being targeted?”

“Probably. Even though she’s a cultivator’s doppelgänger, she’s lost her cultivation now. She’s barely stronger than an ordinary person.”

Whispers drifted into Qi Huang’s ears.

‘Right. These women wouldn’t dare target Ouyang Tong openly, but who’s to say they won’t act in secret?’

Finally realizing the danger, Qi Huang didn’t linger. She quickly dried herself and left the bathhouse.

That night, Qi Huang didn’t sleep. Instead, she kept watch over Ouyang Tong’s room.

Sure enough, deep into the night, a palace maid—likely acting on someone’s orders—crept up to Ouyang Tong’s door. She poked a hole in the window paper and tossed in a small jade vial.

Crack!

The vial shattered upon hitting the floor, and a female wraith wreathed in sinister energy emerged.

The ghost immediately spotted Ouyang Tong lying on the bed and lunged at her, claws outstretched.

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Ouyang Tong woke in terror, trying to sit up, but a bone-chilling wind slammed into her, paralyzing her body. Her breathing grew labored, her consciousness fading rapidly from lack of oxygen.

It felt exactly like sleep paralysis, only a hundred times worse.

She wanted to scream, but not even a finger would move. Straining to open her eyes, she vaguely made out a shadow looming over her, a ghastly pale face with blood-red eyes burning into her soul.

Terror gripped her heart, but no matter how hard she struggled, her body refused to obey.

Just then, Qi Huang struck.

Her divine sense manifested as a giant hand that shot into the room, seizing the wraith and crushing it to nothingness.

Poof!

The pressure on Ouyang Tong vanished instantly. Gasping for air, she cautiously opened her eyes and scanned the room, but there was nothing there.

“Was… was it a hallucination?”

Wiping cold sweat from her brow, she muttered to herself. After all, sleep paralysis wasn’t new to her.

“Probably just my imagination.”

She tried to reassure herself, but the experience had been too vivid. Too real. Unable to calm down, she lay awake, waiting for dawn.

‘What a vicious trick—using a ghost to kill someone. If I really were just at the Spirit Gathering Realm and lying in Ouyang Tong’s place tonight, I’d be dead. And no one would even know why.’

Qi Huang shuddered at the thought. Now, she finally understood just how treacherous the imperial harem could be.

The next morning, Qi Huang got up as usual. But as she stepped into the courtyard, her divine sense accidentally picked up a familiar figure, a maid from the Imperial Consort’s Guard.

‘Damn it, why is she here?!’

Qi Huang immediately retreated. This maid had shadowed her for days, a mere veil wouldn’t be enough to fool her.

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Back in her room, Qi Huang used her divine sense to observe the woman and soon uncovered the truth: the maid had been temporarily reassigned here by the Empress Zheng.

‘Great. Now not only is Ouyang Tong trapped inside, but so am I.’

She almost laughed at the absurdity.

From then on, Qi Huang feigned illness. After all, she’d told the steward upon arrival that she’d caught a cold, now was the perfect time to use that excuse.

At noon, Chief Steward Zhou personally came to check on her. A Consort was, after all, a future woman of the emperor, neglect was not an option.

With Qi Huang confined indoors, Ouyang Tong spent another day tormented by hunger and thirst. Meanwhile, the maid kept a constant watch outside her door.

That night, Ouyang Tong, unable to bear it any longer, sneaked out for water, only for the maid to catch a glimpse of her face.

Qi Huang witnessed everything. Unsure of the maid’s motives, she didn’t intervene. Instead, she used her divine sense to track the woman.

The next day, the maid left the Office of Palace Ceremonies and headed straight for the empress’s palace.

“Your Majesty, that Imperial Consort is an impostor. She’s not the real Qi Huang.”

Xiao Huan reported her findings.

“Oh? Is that so? How unfortunate. It seems Qi Huang truly is gone.”

Empress Zheng feigned sorrow, her tone dripping with false pity.

“Congratulations, Your Majesty! You’ve successfully eliminated a thorn in your side.”

An older maid nearby hurriedly offered her felicitations.

‘So it was you behind this. But don’t celebrate too soon, the real surprise is yet to come.’

A faint smirk curled Qi Huang’s lips.