Chapter 6: Fuck Your Palace Rules
The heavy, bronze-clad wooden doors of Zhaoyang Hall were only inches away.
A murderous intent surged through Su Zhen’s deep-set eyes.
He raised his right leg, clad in black dragon boots, as the true qi in his dantian began circulating at full force.
He was ready to kick the doors to pieces, storm inside, and chop that old witch who didn’t know her place into minced meat.
How dare she bully the precious daughter he had only just reclaimed?
She was clearly tired of living!
But just as the sole of his boot was half an inch from the door—
A familiar, crisp voice filled with barely restrained excitement exploded in his mind.
[Well, well? The old witch has come to deliver her own head!]
[I was just worrying about where to find a suitable test subject for the Smiling Half-Step Madness I concocted in my space!]
[And now someone has actually come running to offer herself up? What a saintly benefactor!]
Su Zhen’s right leg, which had been poised to strike with the force of thunder, froze in midair.
Smiling Half-Step Madness?
What strange and unusual poison was this—something he had never heard of or even seen before?
He silently withdrew his foot and placed it back on the ground.
The overwhelming fury and icy killing intent on Su Zhen’s face vanished in the blink of an eye.
In their place was an indescribable anticipation, mixed with the eager delight of someone ready to watch a good show.
He turned around and glared fiercely at the hidden guards behind him, who were just preparing to draw their blades.
“Go. Bring me a little stool. And keep your movements light. Anyone who makes a sound will be executed.”
The newly appointed chief eunuch was so shocked that his jaw nearly hit the floor. He didn’t dare utter a single word.
He scrambled to a corner, brought back an exquisitely crafted wooden folding stool, and set it down.
The tyrant of the ages, the iron-fisted emperor of the Great Yuan Empire, the man whose name struck terror into the hearts of all beneath heaven—
sat obediently beneath the window of his daughter’s bedchamber.
He carefully poked a hole in the expensive Korean paper covering the window.
Squinting one eye, Su Zhen leaned toward the opening, eagerly preparing to enjoy the spectacle.
Inside Zhaoyang Hall, the atmosphere had dropped to freezing point.
Nanny Gui’s rough hands were clamped tightly around Su Yaoyao’s tender shoulders.
Noble Consort Jing sat gracefully to one side in a carved huanghuali-wood chair.
She held a cup of freshly brewed pre-Qingming Longjing tea, gently blowing away the rising steam.
“Your Highness, you mustn’t blame this palace for being too strict with you.”
Noble Consort Jing’s voice was soft and melodious.
“The imperial family values rules and decorum above all else. You grew up wandering among commoners and have picked up all the crude habits of the streets.”
“If you don’t properly learn the etiquette of kneeling and kowtowing, how will you face the ancestors of the Great Yuan Empire in the future?”
“And how will you ever repay His Majesty’s boundless grace in bringing you back to the palace?”
“This palace is doing all of this for your own good. You must understand my painstaking concern for you.”
Noble Consort Jing took a delicate sip of tea, the corners of her lips curling into a mocking, triumphant smile.
The palace maids and eunuchs around them exchanged looks, each determined to protect themselves by staying out of trouble.
In the inner palace, moral coercion was always the sharpest blade—a weapon that killed without spilling blood.
Once rules and the ancestors were invoked as two towering mountains, even the emperor had to give way.
Let alone a country girl with no roots or backing.
At this, Nanny Gui’s arm muscles tensed. She increased the pressure of her grip, intending to force the little girl’s knees onto the golden-brick floor.
But who could have imagined that Su Yaoyao’s seemingly delicate body would writhe like a slippery loach?
Using the most advanced close-combat footwork of the interstellar age, she slipped free from Nanny Gui’s grasp.
Nanny Gui had put too much force into it and suddenly lost her balance.
Her fat, heavy body pitched straight forward, nearly sending her sprawling face-first onto the floor.
“How dare you! You actually dodged!”
Seeing this, Noble Consort Jing slammed her teacup onto the table, her expression darkening.
“You have no respect for your elders! Nanny Gui, teach her a proper lesson!”
Su Yaoyao stood all alone in the middle of the hall, her little head lowered.
Her thin shoulders began to tremble faintly.
Everyone assumed that she had finally been frightened into tears by the consort’s thunderous fury.
Su Yaoyao lifted her head, sending her long black hair whipping wildly around her face.
Her round, innocent features twisted out of shape!
She rolled her eyes upward, revealing a large expanse of terrifying white, and stared fixedly at the ceiling.
Then she opened her mouth and unleashed a sharp, ear-piercing shriek devoid of all reason.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
It was like the mournful wail of a ghost in the dead of night.
Nanny Gui, who had only just regained her footing, was so startled by the sudden scream that she staggered back three steps.
Noble Consort Jing’s hand shook, and scalding tea splashed across her luxurious peony-embroidered palace gown.
“You want to morally blackmail me?!”
Su Yaoyao screamed at the top of her lungs, the muscles in her face twitching grotesquely from the effort.
She thrust both hands into her hair and clawed at it wildly, turning it into a tangled bird’s nest.
“Ah! I have no morals! You can’t blackmail me!!!”
She hopped and leaped around like a madwoman, stomping both feet against the golden bricks until the entire hall seemed to shake.
“Rules? What the hell are rules? I am the rules!”
“You want me to kneel? Believe me, I’ll kneel at your family’s ancestral grave right now!”
“Ahhhhh! There are ghosts! I saw the late emperor coming with the Black and White Impermanence to claim your lives!”
She flailed her arms and legs, every movement exaggerated to the extreme. She looked exactly like a madwoman possessed by an evil spirit.
Zhaoyang Hall fell into deathly silence.
Ahhhhh! This was like the scene of a high-security psychiatric patient escaping from an asylum!
The carefully maintained complexion of Noble Consort Jing turned as pale as paper.
All the dignity and nobility she had worked so hard to preserve shattered into pieces before Su Yaoyao’s madness.
“She’s insane! This bastard is completely insane!”
Noble Consort Jing pointed at Su Yaoyao. The finger bearing a pure-gold nail guard trembled violently, and her voice was filled with panic.
“Quick! Restrain her! Gag her! Don’t let her keep shouting like this!”
Nanny Gui and several broad-shouldered, burly palace maids gritted their teeth and charged forward.
They spread their arms, attempting to subdue the crazed little girl through sheer numbers.
But instead of retreating even half a step, Su Yaoyao abruptly stopped screaming.
She lowered her head and let out a deep, chilling laugh.
As the palace maids rushed toward her, Su Yaoyao charged straight at them like a frenzied young beast.
Her formidable physique erupted with speed that did not belong to a child.
Like a gust of wind, she slipped around Nanny Gui and dashed to the seat in front of Noble Consort Jing.
Su Yaoyao reached out with both little hands and gripped the edge of the heavy rosewood tea table before Noble Consort Jing.
“To hell with your palace rules!”
With a furious roar, terrifying strength exploded from her slender arms.
She heaved upward and sent the entire heavy tea table flying into the air!
Crash!
Scalding tea, delicate white porcelain, and several plates of exquisite pastries scattered overhead, transforming into a chaotic downpour that rained straight down upon Noble Consort Jing.
Noble Consort Jing shrieked in terror and hurriedly raised both arms to shield her face.
Amid the tea and shards of broken porcelain swirling through the air—
the little hand hidden inside Su Yaoyao’s oversized sleeve flicked inconspicuously.
A fine, colorless, odorless powder dissolved into the air.
Carried by the gust stirred up when the table was overturned, it drifted toward Noble Consort Jing, Nanny Gui, and the palace maids around them.
The poison took effect instantly!