Chapter 100
Chapter 100
“Mingzhu, if you like this body, then tomorrow I will destroy that woman in Chenghua Hall!”
The dim, spacious secret chamber was thick with ghostly energy.
On the table, candle flames flickered with an eerie glow, illuminating the man’s face.
His features were clearly gentle and refined, yet his eyes were filled with malice and wickedness.
The woman beside him smiled faintly, her gaze tender as she said, “Ah Chen, I like this body very much. I want to use this body to stay by your side forever.”
But as she spoke, worry suddenly crept in. “But the soul inside this body is a little strange. It doesn’t seem like an ordinary person’s. I don’t know if I’m confident enough to…”
The man immediately frowned and cut her off. “Don’t be afraid.”
He pointed at the “Blood Array” not far away and said in a low, eerie voice, “It just so happens that we’re still missing the final wisp of a Supreme Yin Soul. Once this Yin-Yang Fiend is refined, I will take advantage of the chaos to kill the emperor of Great Qi and restore my Qi Kingdom.”
“When I ascend the throne as emperor, I will make you my Empress. By then, the entire mortal realm will be ours to command!”
“Our souls are undying and indestructible. For thousands upon thousands of years, we will enjoy the throne forever.”
He began to laugh wildly, his laughter echoing through the entire secret chamber.
The woman beside him leaned gently into his arms, her face full of attachment. “As long as I can stay by Ah Chen’s side, I don’t care whether I become Empress or not.”
But the man said solemnly, “You must be my Empress. This time, no one will be able to stop me!”
Listening to his words, the woman could not help reaching up to gently caress his brows and eyes. Those old memories, long sealed away, began to surge through her mind one after another.
Back then, the realm was called Qi, and the imperial clan bore the compound surname Murong.
As the Eldest Prince, Murong Chen had been burdened with high hopes since childhood.
His birth mother had died early, and he had been raised from a young age in the Empress’s palace.
But the Empress did not like him and treated him with great severity.
As a result, even though he was the only prince at the time, his days in the palace were far from happy.
From the moment he was barely old enough to remember things, the child had to study diligently every day and practice martial arts with equal rigor. He was not allowed a single moment of slackness or negligence.
Yet even when he gave it everything he had, the Empress never once praised him.
One after another, other consorts in the palace gave birth to princes, and Imperial Father gradually stopped focusing all his attention on him.
Then, in the year he turned seven, the Empress, who had not conceived for many years, actually gave birth to the Ninth Prince for the imperial family.
From then on, the Empress would not even look at him properly.
On Murong Chen’s seventh birthday, the Emperor and Empress were busy holding the Ninth Prince’s hundred-day celebration and first-grab ceremony.
None of the palace servants paid any attention to him. In the end, it was his wet nurse who personally brought him a bowl of longevity noodles.
It was a spring day. After finishing his longevity noodles, the Eldest Prince suddenly acted willful for once. He did not obediently remain in the study to read and practice calligraphy. Instead, he slipped away from the eunuchs and ran alone to the Imperial Garden.
He hid beneath a tree and poured out everything in his heart. He even prayed that the tree spirit might relay his words to his birth mother, who had died so young.
However, no sooner had he finished speaking than a voice came from behind the artificial rockery, asking him, “What birthday present does Your Highness want?”
The small child thought the tree spirit had manifested and hurriedly said, “I want a sachet embroidered by Mother Consort’s own hands.”
All his younger brothers could wear sachets personally embroidered by their mothers, but he had none.
The “spirit” behind the rockery readily agreed and told him to remember to come retrieve it at dusk two days later.
Murong Chen was overjoyed, and two days later at dusk, he arrived as promised.
Sure enough, on a stone behind the rockery lay a sachet with a distinctive fragrance.
This made the young Murong Chen believe that it truly was the spirit of his birth mother in heaven, offering him this gift to comfort him on his birthday.
Until not long after, during a family banquet, a young Talent whom Imperial Father had recently taken into the palace passed by him. Suddenly, he caught a familiar faint fragrance-the exact same scent as the sachet at his waist.
And so, he could not help stopping in his tracks and looking at that Talent a little longer.
As it happened, she sensed it too, and even turned back to smile at him.
They had never spoken face-to-face, but that smile and that fragrance began to appear often in his dreams.
In the blink of an eye, three years passed. During those three years, on every birthday, Murong Chen would go to that same tree and ask for a birthday present.
And the “god” hiding behind the rockery would always appear as promised and grant his wish.
At last, on his tenth birthday, the wish he made was to meet her.
But the “god” behind the rockery fell silent.
Unable to hold himself back, Murong Chen rushed behind the rockery-and nearly collided with her.
In that moment, his wish was granted.
It turned out that the person who had been quietly hiding behind the scenes and fulfilling his wishes all along was one of his Imperial Father’s consorts-Consort Ruan.
Only later did Murong Chen learn that on his birthday when he was seven, Ruan Mingzhu had only just entered the palace. Unwilling to serve an Old Emperor nearly the same age as her own father, she had been secretly crying in the Imperial Garden as well.
Then she saw a little boy hiding beneath a tree, talking to himself. His figure and silhouette looked so much like her own younger brother.
After hearing what he said, Ruan Mingzhu missed her parents and little brother at home even more. Pity stirred in her heart, and that was why she agreed to give him a birthday gift.
The years in the palace were long. Brought together by chance, the two began meeting often in the Imperial Garden.
Ruan Mingzhu practically doted on him as if he were her own younger brother. She would give him pastries she had made herself, sachets, and even clothes and shoes.
Murong Chen grew older day by day as well. When he was fifteen, he was officially invested as Crown Prince.
On the day of his investiture, the first person he wanted to see was Ruan Mingzhu.
Ruan Mingzhu was happy for him too, but before she could say her congratulations, the young man pulled her into his arms.
After years of close contact, a different kind of feeling had already grown between them.
But Murong Chen knew very well that as long as he was not yet emperor, he could never be openly and honorably together with Mingzhu.
Yet as the years passed, Murong Chen, though Crown Prince, ultimately proved far too mediocre.
In the years he held the position, even though he was diligent in governance, he failed to accomplish anything truly presentable.
By contrast, each of the younger brothers behind him had the potential to surpass him.
Especially the youngest, who was not only the Empress’s son, but also exceptionally intelligent.
To secure his position in the Eastern Palace, Murong Chen used every means at his disposal-even going so far as to secretly harm his own brothers.
Not only that, he also set up a private secret chamber in the Eastern Palace, bribed palace maids and guards, and repeatedly brought Ruan Mingzhu to the Eastern Palace for secret trysts.
As the saying went, paper could not wrap up fire. In the end, the emperor still learned of everything he had done.
After the palace upheaval, it was the emperor who issued a secret order to lock him inside that sealed chamber where the Vengeful Ghost was confined, leaving him trapped there until he died.
Afterward, the emperor ordered a thorough search of the Eastern Palace to find the missing consort. In the end, they discovered Ruan Mingzhu’s body inside a secret chamber.
She had hanged herself there.
They thought that was the end of their story.
But after Ruan Mingzhu died, her obsession with waiting for Murong Chen’s return was too deep, and her soul remained trapped in the secret chamber.
No one knew how long had passed before the door of the long-sealed chamber was suddenly opened, and a man with unfamiliar features walked in.
Not only could he see Mingzhu’s ghost, he even opened his arms and said to her,
“Mingzhu, I’m back.”
These old memories left Ruan Mingzhu filled with emotion.
The Murong Chen of today had already borrowed the current Crown Prince’s body to return to the mortal world. Naturally, he hoped that the lover he had once been unable to reveal to the world could be with him as well.
No one knew where he had obtained the method, but he used the Soul-Nurturing Pearl to nourish Ruan Mingzhu’s soul.
Murdering people and craving blood, feeding on resentment.
Only by becoming a “Vengeful Ghost” would she gain the power to devour souls.
Only by using Body Snatching to take over a living person’s body could she move beneath the sun without revealing any flaws, no different from an ordinary person.
Originally, she had almost succeeded in using Body Snatching on the Crown Princess’s body, only to be interfered with by a Vengeful Spirit.
However, that body had always been ruining itself, and Ruan Mingzhu had already begun to faintly dislike it.
Fortunately, now she had found a body she liked even more, one that suited her even better…
Looking at the Blood Array, Ruan Mingzhu could hardly wait to return to the mortal world.
But just then, she heard a voice inside the body say coldly, “My body isn’t something you can have just because you want it.”