Chapter 74 Seventy-Four Slashes "Wake up, will you?"...
Once the experience officially began, Luo Mingshu and Xie Changming first arrived at the entrance of Yingtian Palace. Disguised as a palace maid and a guard, they took disguise pills and blended into the crowd, unnoticed by anyone.
New cultivators arriving at Yingtian Palace must first draw lots at the initial formation to determine their initial identity. Some are unlucky enough to only receive the identity of a lowly palace maid and must rely on the favor of important figures to improve their status.
Luo Mingshu hid among the palace maids, tiptoed, and looked out. She seemed to see a familiar figure among the participating cultivators.
It's not surprising that Meng Weifang and Xu Qian were invited by her, but Luo Mingshu felt as if she saw those two unfortunate sisters from the Demon Realm. Luo Mingshu couldn't say whether meeting Shui Qingnian or Shui Qingsi was unlucky, but she was certain that meeting both of them at once would be adding misfortune upon misfortune.
Shui Qingnian and Shui Qingsi went to draw lots, and both of them drew the lower-ranking concubine status. Having experienced the tragic fate of being exploited by Consort Ya when she was a royal physician, Shui Qingnian was very satisfied with her current role.
Shui Qingsi threw down the token in front of her and said to the demon in charge of registration, "I don't like this status. It's too low. Give me the position of Empress. My sister will be the First Empress, and I will be the Second Empress."
Upon hearing this, Luo Mingshu realized that Shui Qingsi had indeed not been severely beaten in Fengshadu.
However, Shui Qingsi and the others only have special privileges in the Demon Realm. The demons are not afraid of their identities. Moreover, these two demon princesses came disguised as humans.
"It's good enough to have a concubine, and there are also palace maids. There are many cultivators waiting outside to come in and experience this role. If you don't accept this identity, then go out and find someone else." The demon waved to them.
"Do you know who we are?" Shui Qingsi raised an eyebrow and said sharply.
"Whoever it is, even if it's a celestial lord from heaven, they must abide by the rules here." The demons of the Demon Realm knew that Xie Changming was behind them, so they spoke with exceptional confidence.
Indeed, even if the Four Immortal Lords came, they would still have to maintain a facade of respect when they saw Xie Changming, since Xie Changming truly had the ability to kill an Immortal Lord whose strength had reached its peak.
"You—" Shui Qingsi's eyes widened, "I'll call my servant, my father—"
Shui Qingnian quickly covered her mouth. Shui Qingnian had asked for the right to browse Yingtian Palace mainly because she wanted to see Wen Yu, so she couldn't cause a conflict here.
Shui Qingsi was covered in the mouth and pulled away by Shui Qingnian. Shui Qingsi made several "woo woo woo" sounds, but was still ruthlessly dragged away by Shui Qingnian.
"Sister, what right do they have?!" Shui Qingsi shouted from the corner. "I've never suffered such injustice in the Demon Realm."
“In the Demon Realm, we are naturally the ones who have the final say, but this place is also half of the Demon Realm’s territory.” Shui Qingnian secretly showed off the silver silk soft armor she was wearing. “Look, this is a new one that my father made for me, because the last one was destroyed by a demon cultivator.”
"This...is that powerful?" Shui Qingsi had never seen the wickedness of the world. The most wicked person she had ever met was Luo Mingshu. "But I have Ziyun. If he were here, we should be able to beat him, right?"
"What is Zhou Ziyun?" Shui Qingnian said disdainfully. "Shui Qingsi, you can't be this stupid."
“I’m not going to inherit my father’s position, so what if I’m a little stupid?” Shui Qingsi said matter-of-factly.
"Do you think I want to inherit my father's position and have to deal with government affairs every day? It's too terrible. I don't want that," Shui Qingnian said indignantly. "Alright, let's go back to our palaces and do our own tasks. Don't bother me."
The two parted ways, while Luo Mingshu, who remained at the lottery draw, watched the spectacle. She saw several familiar faces, including, of course, Fan Qing, whom she disliked the most.
Fan Qingsu picked up her lottery card with her bare hand, opened it, glanced at it, and feigned surprise, covering her mouth as she exclaimed, "Oh my, it's the Imperial Concubine!"
The rank of Imperial Concubine is second only to the Empress, so Fan Qing seems to have gotten off to a very good start.
As soon as he finished speaking, the people around him cast envious glances at Fan Qing. At this moment, Xie Changming gripped his sword tightly, turned to the side, and said to his clansmen, "She used magic to disrupt the randomness of the lottery draw. I will fix this loophole in the array. You can let her draw again."
The demon on the other side nodded and immediately said to Fan Qing, "Miss, cheating is prohibited in this lottery. We have detected that you are disrupting the randomness of the lottery formation, so we are issuing you this warning. Please draw lots again."
The spell that disrupts the fairness of the lottery was provided to Fan Qing by the system. She was thinking that if she could successfully use it in Yingtian Palace, she could sell it to other cultivators who had the same need. Such a fair-fair item could easily make this exploration project lose its fun.
After being exposed, she wanted to ask the system for help, but the system remained silent as before. Fan Qing guessed that the mysterious black-clad cultivator was nearby. She looked around but did not see any familiar faces.
So, she could only nervously draw lots again. This time, she actually managed to get the status of an ordinary concubine, which was even higher than that of Shui Qingnian and Shui Qingsi.
"See, I told you it was just luck just now. I was lucky again after drawing the token." Fan Qing said with a smile. She took the identity token and walked into the palace.
Originally, Xie Changming had already told Luo Mingshu when she cheated. Xie Changming's original intention was to just kick her out of Yingtian Palace, but sometimes, Luo Mingshu's intentions were much more sinister than his.
"Xie Changming, I think we should keep her here." Luo Mingshu stood at the very end of the crowd and whispered to Xie Changming, "Since she's here, she must have prepared a variety of ways to cause trouble. Our formation has just started operating, and there are some details that neither of us have considered. Let's just let her find a loophole and cause trouble. We'll keep an eye on her, and if anything goes wrong, we'll deal with it immediately. We can also use her to check for loopholes and reinforce the formation."
Xie Changming thought Luo Mingshu's words made sense, so he saw Fan Qing stay.
At this moment, Fan Qing was unaware that she had been targeted by Luo Mingshu. She went to her own palace.
Luo Mingshu was mainly keeping an eye on her this time, so she called Xie Changming, and the two of them followed.
Xie Changming's concealment magic was very powerful. After he hid himself, even the system on Fan Qing's body could not detect his presence.
Luo Mingshu and Xie Changming squeezed onto the roof of Fan Qing's room and used physical peeping to lift an inconspicuous tile and look inside.
Fan Qing sat upright in the room as a palace maid carefully served her tea, and the storyline began.
"Your Highness Consort Gen, you have just entered the palace today. Would you like to pay your respects to the Empress, or perhaps take a stroll in the Imperial Garden to familiarize yourself with the surroundings?" the palace maid asked respectfully.
Upon hearing the words "Genfei," Luo Mingshu slipped and nearly fell off the roof, but Xie Changming caught her in time.
Fortunately, she didn't randomly get that name in the Misty Star Sea. Luo Mingshu was still shaken, otherwise she would never forget that humiliating time.
Fan Qing should have noticed her movements, but at the same time, Fan Qing's brain deliberately went blank.
"Pfft—" She spat out a mouthful of tea. "Genfei, can you name me based on my name?"
At this moment, a formation of light appeared around her, with text appearing on it, which was the beginner's guide: "Hello, esteemed visitor, this formation shares a database with the Spirit Network, so your code name in this experience project is generated based on the Spirit Network name."
Fan Qing's spiritual network name has been changed to "Two Roots" by Luo Mingshu, so it's not entirely that Luo Mingshu is targeting her, but rather that the word "root" was likely randomly selected.
"My online name was changed by someone else—" Fan Qing was furious, but she had no time to think about her name anymore, because the newbie guide had already started.
"The options given by the characters in the experience are the routes you can choose. Each choice you make will affect your ending, so please choose carefully." These words appeared on the array.
This means that Fan Qing now has to choose between two options: "to visit the Empress" and "to go to the Imperial Garden to familiarize herself with the inner palace".
Fan Qing didn't want to follow the formation, but she found herself locked in the room by it. She could only leave after answering the palace maid's questions and making a choice.
True fans of palace intrigue literature would welcome this kind of task process, but for Fan Qing, who was only there to cause trouble, it made her feel like she was sitting on pins and needles.
The palace maid waiting for her reply was a cultivator hired by the demon race. She was getting impatient and even sat down at the table, picked up the melon seed plate in Fan Qing's room, and started eating melon seeds.
“This person is unprofessional. We’ll fire them and replace them with someone more diligent.” Luo Mingshu wrote this down in her notebook.
"What are you going to eat? Do you think I can't leave without answering your question?" Fan Qing glared at the demon cultivator.
"Crunch." The crisp sound of cracking sunflower seeds rang out. "Yes, Consort Gen, have you made your choice yet?"
"What kind of lousy experience is this? The freedom is so low. Can't I go and kill all my competitors right now?" Fan Qing thought the demon cultivator in front of her wasn't a real person, so she started spouting nonsense.
"Please, Consort Gen, wake up! This is a 'palace intrigue story experience project,' prioritizing realism. According to our plot director Yu Hanlu, once you enter the palace, you must abide by these rules. Only then will it feel immersive enough." The demon cultivator said arrogantly while cracking melon seeds.
She was not far from being fired. Luo Mingshu squatted on the roof, diligently recording the precautions in a booklet: "Pay attention to the average quality of the cultivators you recruit. Don't hire cultivators who are too arrogant."
"Can your formation stop me?" Fan Qing began searching for loopholes in the formation and attempted to attack the formation that controlled her movements.
The formation here was designed entirely by Xie Changming, and Fan Qing couldn't find any weaknesses. At this moment, the system, which had been silent all along, spoke up and instructed her in her mind: "Host, I can help break it. Please let me communicate with the higher-ups. This formation requires a higher-level cultivator to open it."
“Yes, these formations are interconnected and influence each other. If one part is affected, the whole thing will be affected. It would be best to destroy the whole thing as well.” Fan Qing was very excited when the system finally spoke up, as if she had found a backer.
Because Xie Changming deliberately concealed himself, the system did not detect him. He called upon the cultivators in the celestial realm, and Xie Changming quickly caught this divine thought.
"Shushu, I'll go up and take a look." Xie Changming patted Luo Mingshu's shoulder and flew towards the endpoint of the system's divine sense.
But because he had escaped the range of the concealment spell, the system's divine sense seemed to be retracted as if a snail had been touched by its antennae, shrinking back into the ruby carrier, as quiet as a chicken, not daring to make a sound again.
The divine sense came and went without a trace; Xie Changming could only sense that it had returned to Fan Qing's body.
"She possesses a divine sense similar to a system," Xie Changming reminded Luo Mingshu as he returned to her side.
"So, they sent Lu Yaoyao to deal with me, but she failed, so they brought in a new one?" Luo Mingshu pondered, stroking his chin. "Don't they get tired? No wonder Fan Qing is always targeting me, I see."
Xie Changming nodded, but he did not intend to find the system on Fan Qing's body immediately.
Because the previous system alerted the enemy, the upper realm abandoned this one and stopped trying to contact the system on Lu Yaoyao. Now that a new one has finally appeared, he wants to observe it carefully and find out which celestial forces are in contact with it.
He told Luo Mingshu about his idea, which earned her praise: "Well done, Xie Changming, you are indeed more cunning than me."
Xie Changming nodded and then reinforced the array controlling the cultivator's actions. Meanwhile, Fan Qing waited for a long time in the room, only to receive a blank check from the system. The system was so frightened by Xie Changming that it shrank back into its shell and dared not speak again.
Helpless, Fan Qing, who had to continue the storyline, could only randomly select an option: "I'll go see the Empress."
As soon as she finished speaking, the tightly closed door opened, and the palace maid immediately returned to work: "Yes, Consort Gen, may I ask which dress you would like to wear?"
In the imperial harem, there are specific rules for all kinds of attire, which is another small detail that increases the sense of immersion.
"What can I choose?" Without the system's help, Fan Qing could only temporarily follow the palace maid's wishes.
"There are light yellow long dresses with a Jiangnan style, elegant and luxurious gowns, and graceful dancer dresses..." the little palace maid excitedly introduced, "Your Highness, after you level up, you can choose more outfits."
"Just a simple pale yellow dress will do." Fan Qing wasn't stupid; she couldn't dress too conspicuously when meeting the Empress.
"Alright, Consort Gen, this light yellow long dress with a Jiangnan style made of silk costs 8,888,888,888 spirit stones. Since you are a new cultivator just starting out, you get a newcomer discount. You only need to pay 10% of the price, which is 880,000 spirit stones, to get this dress. We also have a first-time recharge bonus..." the little palace maid replied quickly.
“Yes, this is another way to make money.” Luo Mingshu revealed a shrewd businessman’s smile. “Luring in newbies to fleece them is such a tempting offer that most cultivators will be tempted.”
Fan Qing had no intention of spending money. She stared intently at the little palace maid and sneered, "Do you think I would give your master money?"
"Give it to me." She snatched the pale yellow dress from the little palace maid's hands.
Xie Changming used magic to snatch the long dress back, and quickly modified the array parameters, adding a rule that forcibly taking it would be punished by the system.
The long dress in Fan Qing's hand disappeared and returned to the wardrobe. The little palace maid asked her with a smile, "Consort Gen, are you still going to recharge?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
