Chapter 11: To seduce someone and die beneath the peony blossoms, even as a ghost, one will be romantic.
Hearing her words, Su Panyue rolled her eyes so hard they almost reached the sky. Why would the Empress Dowager think that she could seduce that tyrant?
She was racking her brains trying to figure out a way to refuse when suddenly an idea struck her, and she remembered the Vice Minister of Revenue from yesterday.
"Your Majesty, I am merely a palace maid who serves others; how could I possibly possess such abilities?"
"However, I heard that the daughter of the Vice Minister of Revenue has won His Majesty's favor and will be entering the palace today."
Her words successfully diverted the Empress Dowager's attention.
The Empress Dowager asked, "Oh? Is this true?"
Su Panyue said respectfully, "This servant heard it with my own ears. Your Majesty, you should make plans as soon as possible."
The Empress Dowager glanced at Su Panyue, whose bright eyes and white teeth revealed her graceful figure even as she knelt on the ground.
With a change of heart, the Empress Dowager said, "I have my own plans for this matter. This is a gift of rouge and face powder that I have bestowed upon you. When you go to see the Emperor, you must use it so that you may gain his favor as soon as possible and be able to do things for me sooner."
A young palace maid responded and brought over a tray with two boxes of rouge and face powder, a gold ingot, and a cup of tea.
Upon seeing the tea, Su Panyue's heart skipped a beat, and then she heard the Empress Dowager continue:
"This is just the beginning. I will have no shortage of benefits for you in the future. If you are willing, then drink this cup of tea."
Su Panyue was naturally unwilling and kowtowed in refusal: "This servant is afraid that it will be difficult to accomplish this."
Empress Dowager: "How dare you refuse my orders!"
The palace maid immediately came up and pulled Su Panyue, trying to force her to drink the tea that had been laced with unknown substances.
Seeing that she couldn't avoid it any longer, Su Panyue quickly compromised: "I'll drink it myself!"
He then picked up his teacup, closed his eyes, and drank it all in one gulp.
The Empress Dowager smiled: "You do have some insight. The poison in this tea will take seven days to take effect. I will give you seven days. Go."
Su Panyue took the things given to her by the Empress Dowager and left Cining Palace. She returned to her maid's room in a daze, completely unaware that a new woman had moved into the room next door.
She gulped down two glasses of water, then started gagging herself to induce vomiting. Finally, after vomiting up all the bile, she collapsed onto the bed, utterly exhausted.
Although I don't know if the poison has been expelled, nothing is more important than getting some sleep.
But not long after Su Panyue closed her eyes, someone knocked on the door.
She buried her head in the blanket, ignoring everything.
But the knocking on the door grew louder and louder, and the woman's shouts could also be heard.
Su Panyue was so annoyed by the noise that she threw off the covers, stared at her messy hair, and went to open the door.
A woman dressed in fine clothes, clearly meticulously made up, stood outside the door.
Upon seeing Su Panyue emerge, the woman's gaze swept over her, pausing for a moment when she saw her face, but reverting to her imperious demeanor upon noticing her palace maid attire.
She put her hands on her hips and said, "Go and clean up next door for me."
Su Panyue looked puzzled. This woman's attire didn't seem to belong to a palace mistress, so she asked, "May I ask who you are?"
The woman glanced at her sideways and said loudly, "I am Lu Tingyu, and my father is the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue."
Su Panyue remembered that it was the daughter of the Vice Minister of Revenue who had been scolded by Xie Lanzhou yesterday. But wasn't this woman taken into Xie Lanzhou's harem? How could she be here?
She kindly reminded her, "Miss Lu, you seem to have gone to the wrong place. This is where the servants live."
Upon hearing this, Lu Tingyu's face flushed red and then turned pale. After stammering for a while, she finally said, "Your Majesty...you are the one who wants me to stay here!"
Su Panyue understood and tentatively asked, "Does His Majesty want you to serve as a palace maid?"
Lu Tingyu's eyes reddened, but she didn't lower her head: "So what? This is only temporary. I won't be a palace maid like you for the rest of my life, waiting for His Majesty to discover my worth."
Su Panyue nodded: "Yes, yes, you're right. If there's nothing else, I'll go back to sleep now."
Lu Tingyu reached out to grab her: "You have to clean the house for me!"
Su Panyue reacted quickly, flashing back into the room and leaning against the doorway, saying, "Sorry, I only serve His Majesty."
After saying that, he closed the door and lay back down on the bed. The woman outside made a fuss for a while, then left reluctantly.
Once she calmed down, Su Panyue began to think about what to do next.
When the Empress Dowager came to see her today, she thought His Majesty was going to take the daughter of the Vice Minister of Revenue into the harem, but she turned out to be a palace maid.
I don't know what bad luck I've offended His Majesty, but it seems I can't count on him now.
The Empress Dowager's poison only lasted seven days. If she were to seduce His Majesty, she might die on the spot.
He sighed sadly; it seemed he was destined to die this time.
As for seducing His Majesty? That was a thought she had never entertained since her rebirth.
With nowhere else to turn, she actually fell asleep.
When she woke up again, it was already noon, which was about the time when His Majesty would have his meal. She got up, casually combed her hair, and went to the Hall of Mental Cultivation to prepare to serve the meal.
As she walked outside the hall, she was stopped by Eunuch Fu, who looked somewhat troubled: "Miss Su, His Majesty does not need you to serve him meals right now. You may go back."
Su Panyue paused for a moment before slowly nodding, "I understand, Eunuch Fu."
On the way back, Su Panyue kicked pebbles while cursing Xie Lanzhou in her heart: "He's got a new one and he doesn't care about the old one anymore. He doesn't want to serve her anymore."
Lost in thought, she walked back to the Imperial Kitchen without realizing it.
Aunt Cui was directing the palace maids and eunuchs as they worked. When she saw her return, Aunt Cui put down her work and came up to her, asking, "It's time to be on duty, why are you back now?"
Su Panyue pouted and said sullenly, "Your Majesty doesn't need me to serve you. I came back to see you."
Aunt Cui could tell at a glance that she was in a bad mood.
He pulled her to a small room and brought over two more dishes. "Eat up. What could be more important than eating?"
Su Panyue then realized that her stomach was empty, even though she had eaten something in the morning, she had just vomited it all up.
Thinking of this, she felt wronged again. The Empress Dowager poisoned her to get close to the Emperor, but now she can't even see the Emperor. Even if she mustered up the courage to seduce the Emperor, she would only end up with the same fate as in her previous life.
Su Panyue felt increasingly distressed as she thought about it, and secretly shed tears. Not wanting Aunt Cui to notice, she quickly pretended to lower her head and eat, swallowing her tears along with the rice in her hand.
Aunt Cui didn't say anything, she just put food on her plate.
After Su Panyue finished eating, her tears stopped. She hugged Aunt Cui's arm and whispered, "My life is so bitter."
She couldn't say any more; telling anyone about her experiences would only harm him.
Aunt Cui didn't ask any questions, but just patted her hand: "Don't make things difficult for yourself. Just follow your heart, and things will work themselves out."
Su Panyue nodded thoughtfully. She spent the afternoon in the Imperial Kitchen, doing odd jobs and chatting, as if she had returned to the days when she first entered the palace.
She suddenly felt that if she only had seven days left to live, she should not think about anything and just live however she wanted to be happy.
So when the little eunuch beside His Majesty came to the Imperial Kitchen to collect dinner that evening, he happened to see Su Panyue and asked her in surprise why she was there and why she wasn't back in the Hall of Mental Cultivation to serve.
Su Panyue made a wild statement: "If Your Majesty doesn't need me to serve you, then I won't go back."
The young eunuch gave her a strange look and then hurried away.
After Su Panyue said this, she breathed a sigh of relief. In the final days, she didn't want to live a life where she had to get up earlier than the chickens every day and live in constant fear.
So the next day she simply slept in and woke up naturally, completely forgetting about the task of serving at dawn.
His Majesty did not send anyone to find her, and Su Panyue could not say whether she was happy or disappointed.
His Majesty is busy with countless affairs of state, and has many servants around him, so how could he possibly pay attention to such trivial matters?
Su Panyue slept soundly every day, and after waking up, she would go to the Imperial Kitchen to eat and drink for free, and she spent another three days in comfort.
But a string in her heart kept tightening, until the penultimate day of the seven-day deadline.
Su Panyue finally became a little anxious. She took out the rouge and face powder given to her by the Empress Dowager and placed them on the table.
Upon opening, all you can smell is an overpowering, pungent scent of cosmetics; otherwise, there seems to be nothing unusual.
Su Panyue stared blankly at the two boxes of cosmetics for a while, gradually feeling dizzy.
The image of Xie Lanzhou's noble and unworldly face involuntarily surfaced in my mind. I recalled the broad shoulders and narrow waist I saw when I helped him change his clothes, and the bulging muscles in his arms when he nocked an arrow and drew his bow.
Su Panyue inexplicably felt a dry mouth and throat, and gradually a sense of malice arose within her. She felt it was a pity that she had never tasted the pleasures of a man before she died.
Let's go with him.
As night deepened, a slender figure flashed past, heading straight for the Hall of Mental Cultivation.
*Inside the Hall of Mental Cultivation.
The candlelight was dim and flickering, constantly changing due to the wind blowing outside the window.
Su Panyue was already very close, and her journey was almost unimpeded. She only slowed down when she reached the palace gate.
Slowly push open the palace door, and find it empty.
The summer night breeze had sobered Su Panyue up a bit, and now, standing in the hall, she suddenly felt a pang of regret.
My legs felt like they were filled with lead, so heavy I couldn't take another step forward, but in my head, two little voices were engaged in a fierce battle:
A little man said, "I'm going to die tomorrow, so why not seize the moment and have my fill of pleasure, and devour the most noble man in the world!"
Another little figure said, "You were supposed to die tomorrow, but if you go in now, you'll be dead the next second!"
Su Panyue shook her head, but still couldn't clear her mind. In the end, impulse overcame reason, and she took a deep breath and entered the inner palace.
She walked around the familiar screen and saw the man lying on the bed with his eyes closed.
She whispered "Your Majesty," then staggered toward the bedside, completely unaware that the man's hand twitched and a dark figure vanished without a trace.
When she reached the bedside and smelled the faint scent of ambergris on the man, Su Panyue felt a little calmer and slowly sat down on the footstool as if she had lost all her strength.
Am I going to die here again?
Overwhelmed with sorrow, Su Panyue slowly hugged her knees, buried her head in her lap, and tears streamed down her face.
[Born unloved by my parents, I'm always at the mercy of others. Having barely survived, I'm then subjected to the emperor's wrath and the empress dowager's manipulation. Are the lives of servants not even worth anything? Waaaaah!]
She was so focused on crying that she didn't notice the man on the bed had already opened his eyes and was looking at her with deep, intense gaze.
From Xie Lanzhou's perspective, all he could see was her slender neck and her trembling shoulders.
He listened silently to the woman's intermittent heartfelt words, mostly lamenting the injustice of fate, mixed with her dissatisfaction with him and the Empress Dowager.
But the bastards she cursed in her heart were nothing to Xie Lanzhou. He had heard far more insults and curses a hundred times harsher than that.
Fifteen minutes later, Su Panyue finished crying, grabbed the back of the brocade hanging from the side of the bed, wiped her tears, and remembered the purpose of her visit.
[Since I'm already here, I'm going to devour him completely today. To die beneath the peony blossoms, even as a ghost, is to have a romantic death!]
A note from the author:
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Su Panyue: I must devour you completely today!
Xie Lanzhou: Family members, do you think she can succeed?
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