Chapter 65
Chapter 65
This was a world where a daughter of destiny had been reborn.
The daughter of destiny was one of the palace candidates in this selection, a daughter born to a concubine of a vice minister in the Ministry of Revenue. Her status was unremarkable among the many formidable candidates whose true abilities were not readily apparent.
In her previous life, she entered the palace and enjoyed the emperor’s favor briefly before he forgot her. Later, she misplaced her trust in her supposed “sisters of the harem,” became entangled in the scandal surrounding the empress’s miscarriage, and was implicated and killed.
Heaven took pity on her. After her death, rather than passing into the next life, she began again, returning to the time when the current emperor was selecting palace women. She also gained a special advantage: a spirit-spring realm!
Consuming the spirit dew from the spring could strengthen the body and preserve health while enhancing beauty. When refined into pills, its effects became several times stronger.
With the advantage of foreknowledge from her rebirth and the aid of the spirit-spring realm, the daughter of destiny maneuvered carefully through the harem. Beginning as a low-ranking Attendant, she climbed one step at a time until she reached the supreme seat of empress.
After the female lead’s rebirth, the original owner of this body became the first little follower she won over through calculated means.
She came from a good family, was beautiful, not especially clever, and enjoyed the emperor’s favor for some time.
This first follower was utterly devoted to the daughter of destiny and held nothing back. Early on, she did many things for her. In fact, the female lead initially caught the emperor’s eye only because her first follower spared no effort to help her.
This tool’s body might have been beautiful, but its mind was truly not very useful. After enjoying a proud period, she was framed and incurred the emperor’s displeasure.
By then, the female lead had already been granted the rank of Noble Lady and enjoyed considerable imperial favor.
The original owner’s maid urged her to ask Her Ladyship the Noble Lady for help regaining the emperor’s favor. But the original owner was stubbornly single-minded and absolutely refused to implicate the female lead. She waited alone in a palace that resembled the cold palace, until winter came. Her charcoal allotment was withheld, she caught a chill, and died in the cold.
Only after her death did the female lead finally learn the news, and she grieved deeply for a time.
Years later, after the female lead rose to a lofty position, she still reminisced about the good elder sister who had helped her so much when she was insignificant.
Everyone praised Her Ladyship’s benevolent heart. They said Lady Yu was fortunate to be remembered by her for so long.
Only at the end of the plot, when the female lead looked back on the past in old age, did she reveal her true thoughts. In her previous life, Lady Yu had been a favored imperial consort, while the female lead had been out of favor and often had her allotted provisions withheld.
Once, a servant from her palace went to collect their meal, only for a eunuch in the imperial kitchen to mock them to their face, saying he was busy and had no time.
Just then, a maid from Lady Yu’s palace arrived and asked whether the meal for Miss Bao in their palace was ready.
Miss Bao was Lady Yu’s cat, Ah Bao!
So when they said they were busy, they meant they were busy preparing food for an animal!
The maid returned and angrily told the female lead what had happened. The female lead engraved the incident in her memory.
After her rebirth, every encounter between them and every act of assistance had been deliberately engineered by the female lead using her foreknowledge.
She could never forget the humiliation of being considered inferior to an animal.
She wanted to see how well Lady Yu would fare compared with her past-life self once she no longer had the title of favored consort.
Zhu Yin finished reading the plot.
Fortunately, this world looked fairly normal.
From the original owner’s perspective, what the female lead did was certainly underhanded. Then again, the female lead had never been written as a kind person.
To put it plainly, Lady Yu in the previous life might not even have known the female lead existed. She would certainly have paid silver to have the imperial kitchen prepare extra food for her cat.
The kitchen staff were clearly the ones who flattered those above and trampled those below. It would have been understandable for the female lead to resent them. Resenting Lady Yu was pure pettiness.
What a coincidence. I’m petty too.
Zhu Yin extracted the key information. “So my task as a supporting character has little to do with whether I become the female lead’s follower. The main point is that I have to do what a supporting character should–help the female lead succeed by making the emperor remember her. Right?”
Looking across the whole plot, that was this body’s primary function.
Barbara examined it carefully and nodded. “That’s right.”
Zhu Yin said, “Understood. Barbara, pull up the Great Yong emperor’s genealogy for me.”
Barbara said, “Huh?”
It was baffled. “Host, why do you want to see the emperor’s genealogy?”
Of course, despite its confusion, the dutiful system immediately fulfilled its host’s request.
Two hundred years had passed since Great Yong was founded. The imperial clan had produced many descendants, and its genealogy now unrolled into an extremely, extremely, extremely long page.
Zhu Yin went straight to the very top and had Barbara pull up the biographies of several particularly renowned figures along the way.
“Good. Her.”
The founding Emperor Gaozu’s wife was the only empress to receive “Wu,” meaning martial, as her posthumous title.
Among all the posthumous titles using characters such as “benevolent,” “filial,” “compassionate,” “respectful,” “harmonious,” and “virtuous,” Empress Wu’s title stood entirely apart and was exceptionally conspicuous.
One glance at her life story made Zhu Yin even more satisfied.
A small question mark appeared over Barbara’s head. “Host, what do you mean, her? What are you planning to do?”
Zhu Yin rose from the fragrant bath. The palace attendants immediately dried her body and draped her in soft cloth. Then they helped her sit and squeezed the water from her wet hair.
Zhu Yin said, “Barbara, look at me. You know what night this is, don’t you?”
Barbara seemed to understand. Oh, this was the night the body was scheduled to attend the emperor in bed.
Thinking its host was unwilling, it hurriedly raised its head and explained, “Host, this mission uses mental-body transmigration. If you don’t want to have relations with someone from a small world, we can withdraw your mental body at the appropriate time. Barbara can control the character and complete those censored scenes.”
Zhu Yin said, “We could, but there’s no need.”
The identity of a consort in an ancient feudal dynasty was simply too passive.
Besides, she still had her supporting-role task to perform.
So she decided to exchange it for an identity that would let her act more conveniently.
As for Barbara’s words about not wanting relations with people from a small world, Zhu Yin truly had never considered it.
In her eyes, humans were no different from a little butterfly or a tiny ant.
Oh, there was still a slight difference.
Attractive humans were pretty little butterflies.
Unattractive ones could only count as big fluttering moths.
From a human perspective, no matter how exquisitely beautiful a butterfly might be, it was still only a lovely butterfly.
Could a human ever fall in love with a butterfly?