Chapter 3
Chapter 3
“So let me make sure I understand. If I keep the main plot on track, I earn Contribution Points. Once I have enough, I unlock a reward called *Reborn as a Rich Beauty*. Then I’ll be free of this identity, gain control of my own life, and finally rise up from slavery?”
Hidden in Shengsheng’s hair, A-Pang clamped both hands over their nose and nodded furiously. Then they remembered she could not see them and pinched their voice into a nasal, “Mmm-hmm.”
Shengsheng had wrapped a cloth over her own nose. Her eyes lit up. “Wonderful. Given the choice between farming and winning without lifting a finger, I much prefer the latter.”
The overseer matron of the Palace Labor Bureau saw the new maid gazing dreamily into the air with a foolish smile, her hands perfectly idle.
She strode over and lashed Shengsheng once with her whip, then struck her again.
Servants sent to the Palace Labor Bureau stood at the very bottom of the palace hierarchy. It did not matter whose favor they had once enjoyed.
After the two lashes, Shengsheng apologized at once and did not dare slack off again. The moment the matron walked away, however, her eyes turned icy. Beneath the cloth, she bared her teeth in a sinister grin.
She swallowed Fusheng Duan’s temper and that mangy emperor’s abuse every day because, at the very least, they were named characters with actual roles in the book.
That did not mean she would quietly let some nameless NPC beat her.
***
On the day of the Spring Banquet, A-Pang reminded Shengsheng that she had to protect the plot.
But the story was only just beginning. Surely it did not need her intervention yet. In the original novel, Fusheng had agreed to attend because someone had uncovered his secret. Although that person had died, the incident had put him in such a foul mood that he accepted the emperor’s invitation for a change of scenery.
Shengsheng was still alive now, but Fusheng had agreed to go anyway. Most likely, nothing would go wrong.
Fusheng Duan might be lazy, unreliable, and impossibly difficult, but he never went back on his word.
At Qianyi Palace, Fusheng sneezed violently.
Shenglan, who was arranging his hair, flinched and pulled it hard enough to hurt him.
“Get out!”
The frost in his voice struck her like a blade. Shenglan dropped to her knees and began kowtowing for mercy.
Her wailing made his head throb. Fusheng was about to lose his temper when the scene stirred a sense of déjà vu. His blank face abruptly came alive, and his voice turned warm as a spring breeze.
“Rise. I have a task for you.”
Shenglan looked up through her tears and studied him cautiously. She could hardly believe this smiling, tender Noble Consort was the same person who had snapped at her a moment ago.
“Go to the Palace Labor Bureau. See whether Tail has been shirking her work.”
It took Shenglan a moment to realize who *Tail* was. Concealing the jealousy raging in her eyes, she withdrew.
That maid had been sent to the Palace Labor Bureau for an offense, yet their master had personally bestowed a name on her!
No matter. It would end there.
The matron who oversaw the Palace Labor Bureau was Shenglan’s own aunt. Three months or no three months, that wretch Shengsheng Zhou would never leave the place alive.
The fresh-faced girl smiled dreamily, then beckoned to a young eunuch.
“You. Come here.”
She lowered her voice. “Go to the Palace Labor Bureau and see how that wretch Shengsheng Zhou is doing.”
***
Crouched in the bushes, Shengsheng was so tired of waiting that she nearly fell asleep.
The emperors, princes, and princesses of the other two kingdoms–each as powerful as the Zhu Kingdom–would attend the Spring Banquet. It was an event of enormous importance.
Naturally, every palace servant was run off their feet.
The people of the Palace Labor Bureau, however, had unexpectedly little to do. Shengsheng had bribed a palace maid and learned that the overseer matron would visit her eunuch lover in the imperial garden at this hour. After calculating the route in advance, Shengsheng had come here to lie in wait.
A gentleman might consider revenge beneath him. Shengsheng Zhou, happily, was no gentleman.
Little people ought to have the backbone of little people. Just because heaven declared someone a lowborn creature anyone could trample did not mean she had to accept it.
More importantly, heaven did not care whether nameless NPCs lived or died.
The round little red panda flew toward her from a distance.
[Shengsheng, Shengsheng! She’s coming!]
Shengsheng scrambled upright.
Sure enough, a familiar figure approached with a smile.
Shengsheng waited for the perfect moment, then burst from hiding. Before the matron could react, one kick sent her tumbling into the lake.
The place was secluded. Apart from a pavilion in the distance, there was nothing nearby, and few people ever came this way. It was the ideal scene for a crime.
The matron knew how to swim. After one startled moment, instinct took over and she stroked toward the surface. The instant her head emerged and she saw the ill intent on Shengsheng’s face, the matron’s many years of survival in the palace told her exactly what the girl meant to do.
Her expression hardened.
“You insolent wretch! How dare you attack me!”
Shengsheng gave a cold laugh. “You are the insolent one. Everyone at the Palace Labor Bureau knows I was sent there for only three months and will soon return to Qianyi Palace. Yet you still dared beat and curse me whenever you pleased.”
“Let me guess.” She crouched at the water’s edge, her tone careless. “Someone put you up to it…”
Then she planted one foot on the matron’s head and shoved her back beneath the water.
The matron thrashed in panic as suffocation closed around her.
Just before the woman ran out of air, Shengsheng lifted her foot.
The matron broke the surface and gulped down the precious air.
At last, she understood. This girl was nothing like the meek, defenseless fool her niece had described. She was a fiend.
If Shenglan had not repeatedly sworn that Shengsheng was a coward, the matron would never have dared lay a hand on Qianyi Palace’s chief palace maid.
The Noble Consort was notoriously ill-tempered, but everyone in the palace knew he was fiercely protective of his own people.
After coughing up several mouthfuls of water, the matron prepared to humble herself and apologize.
Before she could speak, horror swept across Shengsheng’s previously expressionless face, as though she had heard something terrifying. Grabbing the matron by the collar, she hauled the woman out of the lake.
The matron was still reeling from the girl’s astonishing strength when the fiend bellowed at her in a voice sharp with urgency.
“Quick! Push me in!”
The matron froze.
What… in the world?
“Hurry! If you don’t, I’ll report you to the Noble Consort!”
At the thought of the Noble Consort’s methods, the matron shuddered. Without another moment’s hesitation, she shoved Shengsheng into the lake.
She pushed so hard that every feature on her weathered face contorted with effort.
To anyone arriving at that moment, however, the scene looked entirely different.
“Stop! How can you bully her like that?”
Even after a lifetime of witnessing absurdities, the matron jumped at that righteous cry.
A breathtaking young woman in a moon-blue gown came down the path. Indignation animated her elegant, lovely face. Anyone who saw her would have found themselves swept up in her outrage.
Unfortunately, the two men who had witnessed everything were both extraordinary in their own, very different ways–and neither was looking at her.
Their gazes rested on the girl who had been “pushed” into the lake and was now struggling in the water.
“Interesting,” one of them murmured with a breathy laugh.