Chapter 7: The Imperial Consort Has Been Possessed by an Evil Spirit
A colorless, odorless powder.
It scattered forward amid the tea that flew through the air, scalding hot, along with shards of shattered porcelain.
Caught completely off guard, Noble Consort Jing, Nanny Gui, and the several fierce palace maids who had charged forward like wolves and tigers were engulfed by the dust.
The powder entered their open mouths and rushed through their nostrils with every rapid breath, dissolving into their bloodstream.
Noble Consort Jing flailed her arms in terror, trying to block the tea splashing toward her.
Fury blazed in her chest. She was just about to put on the full authority of a noble consort and order this ignorant little wretch beaten to death.
But before the vicious command could leave her lips, an eerie coolness shot straight through her nasal passages and into the crown of her head. An invisible hand seized control of her brain and nerves.
Noble Consort Jing felt a thunderous “buzz” explode inside her skull.
Her exquisite features, twisted by rage and terror, froze in place.
Then an impulse that reason could not suppress erupted from her organs like a volcano.
Her tightly pressed red lips began to twitch violently.
A moment later, against her will, the corners of her mouth shot upward at a bizarre angle, pulling wildly toward her ears!
“Geh... gehehehe...”
A deep, strange sound, like an old goose being strangled, rolled from Noble Consort Jing’s throat.
The laughter grew louder and more unrestrained, breaking completely through the confines of her throat.
Soon it became a barbell-like roar that echoed throughout the entire Zhaoyang Hall!
“Ha ha ha ha ha! Gehehehehe!”
Noble Consort Jing lowered the arms she had raised to shield her face while emitting ear-splitting, uncontrollable laughter.
It was not only her. Nanny Gui, who had charged at the very front moments ago in an attempt to restrain Su Yaoyao, as well as the broad-shouldered, fierce-looking palace maids, had all joined the mad chorus of laughter as if someone had struck their laughing pressure points.
Zhaoyang Hall filled with the demonic sounds of “gehehehe” and “ha ha ha ha,” drilling straight into the ears.
But this was only the first stage of the effects of Laughing Madness Powder.
As the most popular prank drug of the interstellar era, its most terrifying feature was its ability to control the body’s motor nerves!
“Ha ha ha... My legs... What’s wrong with my legs... Ha ha ha!”
Noble Consort Jing realized in utter horror that her body had stopped obeying her as well.
Her feet, clad in expensive Shu brocade platform shoes, took a large involuntary step forward, making the ornaments in her hair jingle wildly.
Then her left foot crossed over, followed by a slide of her right.
Her waist, cinched impossibly narrow by her corset, began twisting violently to an invisible, frenzied beat!
Two twists to the left, two twists to the right, followed by an exaggerated circle drawn with her hips.
Her arms, adorned with pure-gold hollowed-out nail guards, flailed in the air like seaweed whipping about in a gale.
What a pose! What footwork!
What a breathtakingly sultry rhythm!
Nanny Gui was not about to be outdone.
Normally, she wore the stern, expressionless face of a corpse. As the strict and hidebound nanny feared throughout the Six Palaces, she was now baring a huge mouth, laughing so hard that even her back teeth were visible.
With both hands planted on her barrel-thick waist, her enormous backside swayed wildly from side to side. She danced with ten times more enthusiasm than Noble Consort Jing!
“Ha ha ha ha ha! Your Ladyship... This old servant can’t stop... Ha ha ha ha ha!”
Still laughing maniacally, Nanny Gui advanced with a devilish dance step and slammed into Noble Consort Jing.
The second stage of the drug’s effects: the period of frenzied physical interaction!
Knocked off balance, Noble Consort Jing’s eyes turned bloodshot, and tears of humiliation streamed down her face.
Yet a bright, twisted grin remained plastered across her features.
“Gehehehe! You blind old hag, how dare you bump into me... Ha ha ha!”
Still producing uncontrollable barbell-like laughter, Noble Consort Jing reached out with both hands.
She seized Nanny Gui’s meticulously arranged, old-fashioned bun and yanked hard, tearing out a large handful of hair streaked with gray.
Nanny Gui cried out in pain, but the laughter spilling from her mouth only grew louder, tears and snot streaming down her face.
She refused to be outdone. Reaching back, she grabbed Noble Consort Jing by the collar of her splendid scarlet peony court robe.
“Ha ha ha! Your Ladyship, forgive me! This old servant can’t control these hands... Ha ha ha ha!”
In the very center of the main hall, on the golden brick floor, the two women danced an eye-searing square dance while beating each other without the slightest regard for their dignity!
The phoenix-gold hairpin worth a fortune was torn from Noble Consort Jing’s head, leaving her black hair in disarray.
Her expensive scarlet court robe was ripped open by Nanny Gui, exposing the white garment beneath.
Nanny Gui’s old face was scored by a long bloody scratch from Noble Consort Jing’s razor-sharp gold nail guards.
The several palace maids who had been caught in the powder could not control themselves either. They joined the melee, grabbing one another’s hair and tearing at each other’s clothes. They rolled together across the smooth golden bricks, laughing wildly as they thrashed about.
No matter how fiercely they struck one another, how painfully they pulled, or how badly they tore their clothes, every one of them wore a feverish smile while continuously shrieking the deranged laughter of “gehehehe.”
It was ten thousand times more terrifying than a horde of demons dancing in the underworld!
Inside Zhaoyang Hall, the palace maids and eunuchs who had avoided the powder were utterly stunned.
Everyone stood rooted to the spot as if frozen by a spell, their bodies cold from head to toe.
One young eunuch dropped the horsetail whisk in his hand and did not even notice.
Some of the palace maids clapped both hands tightly over their mouths, their eyeballs nearly bulging from their sockets.
This...
Was this really Noble Consort Jing, who stood high above them all, dignified and imposing, wielding authority over the Six Palaces?!
Was this really Nanny Gui, who beat and berated servants at the slightest provocation and constantly lectured everyone about rules and propriety?!
The way they looked now—with their hair disheveled, clothes in disarray, rolling around on the floor and laughing hysterically—
They were even more disgraceful than common thugs throwing a tantrum!
“Riiip!”
The sharp sound of tearing fabric suddenly rang out.
In the midst of her fierce struggle with Nanny Gui, Noble Consort Jing’s body sank downward.
Her two legs, which had never undergone any flexibility training, were forcibly driven by the drug’s effects.
On the hard, icy golden brick floor, they actually split into a perfect straight line!
“Ha ha ha ha ha! It hurts so much! My inner thighs are going to snap... Gehehehehe!”
Noble Consort Jing’s tears shot out from the pain. Her face contorted, yet the brilliant smile remained fixed in place, and the laughter would not stop.
She sat on the floor in a brutally painful split, waving her arms to the rhythm.
The physical damage was immense. The humiliation was even worse.
The mastermind behind this earth-shaking farce was the eight-year-old Her Highness Crown Princess Su Yaoyao.
She clung to one of the golden nanmu pillars in the center of the hall, trembling from head to toe.
Her delicate, doll-like face was hidden behind the pillar, revealing only a pair of clear, bright eyes.
The mischief and glee in them were practically overflowing.
[Tsk, tsk, tsk. Their square dancing has absolutely no sense of rhythm, and their arms and legs are completely out of sync.]
[Though I have to admit, that split was impressive. This enhanced Frenzied Dance formula really is something else!]
[Old witch, this is what you get for lecturing me about rules. Today, I’ll teach you what “rules” really mean!]
Su Yaoyao savagely critiqued the scene in her mind. But on the surface, she was nothing more than a frightened little victim.
She drew in a deep breath and summoned two crystal-clear tears.
Her eyes reddened, and she threw back her head, unleashing a shriek a hundred times more piercing than the one before.
“There’s a ghost!!!”
The child’s sharp, sobbing cry pierced through the chaos of Zhaoyang Palace and soared into the heavens.
While pretending to be utterly terrified and shrinking behind a pillar, Su Yaoyao pointed with a trembling little finger at Noble Consort Jing, who was doing the splits on the floor and laughing hysterically.
“Waaah! Her Ladyship Noble Consort Jing has been possessed by an evil ghost!”
“She’s gone mad! She’s going to eat people! She’s been possessed!”
“Help! Somebody save me! Father, save me!”
Su Yaoyao cried as though her heart were breaking, tears streaming down her face like pear blossoms in the rain. She looked as if she had truly been scared witless by some evil spirit.
Her expression of utter terror, combined with the madwoman in the center of the hall who was laughing wildly while fighting with someone else, made the resplendent Zhaoyang Palace look like a living hell.
The palace maids and eunuchs who had been scared stiff shuddered when they heard Su Yaoyao cry out that Noble Consort Jing had been possessed by an evil ghost.
That was right!
If she hadn’t been possessed—if she hadn’t been taken over by an evil ghost—how could the noble consort, who had always cared most about preserving her dignity, possibly do something so outrageously absurd?!
“There are ghosts! Her Ladyship has been possessed!”
Several of the younger palace servants could take no more. They screamed in terror and collapsed to the floor.
Zhaoyang Palace descended into unparalleled chaos and panic.
Wild laughter, the sound of clothes being torn, the palace servants’ cries of alarm, and a little girl’s heart-wrenching sobs all blended together in a racket that set everyone’s nerves on edge.
While wiping away tears that did not exist, Su Yaoyao pricked up her ears and listened to the commotion outside.
That should be enough.
The atmosphere had been built up to just the right point.
The spectator outside, who had been watching the show for so long, ought to make his grand entrance now and bring everything to a perfect close.
Just as the lingering echo of Su Yaoyao’s cry of “Father, save me!” was still circling beneath the rafters of the great hall—
“Bang!!!”
The extraordinarily thick, bronze-plated doors of Zhaoyang Palace were kicked open from outside with tremendous force!
The impact sent both door panels crashing against the walls with a deafening boom.
The cold wind outside, carrying the bone-chilling majesty of an emperor, swept through the hall.
Su Zhen strode across the high threshold.
Dressed in a dark-black dragon robe, with the Longquan sword at his waist, he was tall and imposing, as though a god had descended from the heavens.
Yet this ruler of Dayuan, who had just been poking a hole through the window and enthusiastically watching the entire spectacle from outside—
had a handsome, peerless face so dark it seemed capable of dripping black water.
His eyes burned with blazing fury as he stared at the painfully absurd scene in the middle of the hall.
But upon closer inspection, one would notice that the lips of this Tyrant, pressed into a straight line, were twitching violently.