Isn’t a Delicate, Supple Beauty a Dream Come True? - Chapter 2

Chu Gui: “Er Hei.”

“…Er Hei?” Chu Wan completely failed to remember any relative who went by that name.

“The black dog at Third Uncle’s house,” Chu Gui clarified.

Chu Wan was somewhat speechless. After holding it in for a while, she couldn’t help but scold him: “Is carrying the weight of human lives not hard enough for you that you have to count a dog as well?”

Chu Gui gave a smirk: “What’s wrong with a dog? In this world, some people are probably worse than dogs. At least a dog is loyal to its master and understands emotions. Have you forgotten? Er Hei saved Dou Dou. That year she was playing outside the courtyard and almost got carried off by a wild wolf; it was Er Hei who bit the wolf and chased it away.

…That night, I also saw with my own eyes how it bit down on the enemy and wouldn’t let go, finally dying under the tip of a spear. Speaking of which, using Lu Meng to trade for it is actually letting him off easy. How could he possibly compare to Er Hei?”

The events were from too long ago. Chu Wan reminisced for a good while before finally remembering such an incident. She said in surprise: “Chasing a wolf away… was that when Dou Dou was three years old? You were barely over four yourself. How can you remember it so clearly?”

Chu Gui gave his cousin a faint smile but was unable to answer.

Not just four years old—even the events of his first day of birth were something he could remember crystal clear now.

He was not a person of this era. In his previous life, he was also named Chu Gui, a national first-class acrobat. After twenty-six years of hard work, he had just won the world’s top Monte Carlo Golden Clown Award when he died suddenly on the plane returning home.

When his eyes opened again, he had already landed in this world with a cry.

Having been influenced by various web novels, he immediately understood that he had transmigrated. Fortunately, it was a fetal transmigration where his soul entered a newborn, giving him a legal and reasonable identity to start anew, to be human once more.

In his previous life, Chu Gui was an orphan. In his short twenty-odd years of life, he had never tasted the flavor of family affection. For the sake of survival, he had thrown himself into the acrobatics trade since childhood, practicing desperately day after day, year after year, only waiting for the day he achieved fame and fortune. He didn’t expect that just as he reached it and shone brightly for a fleeting moment, everything would return to zero.

In this life, as if to make up for previous debts, the moment he landed, he had a house full of various relatives—from great-great-grandparents down to grandparents and parents, several large families. The entire clan formed its own village, living a paradise-like life at the foot of Mount Ya in Zhaoyang Prefecture, Yunzhou.

A childhood he only obtained after two lifetimes—he enjoyed the feeling of being loved by his parents and family very happily, being a lighthearted and silly child all day long. He had originally planned that living his life as this mountain boy wouldn’t be bad; after all, this was a picked-up life, so being happy was enough.

Everything stopped at age seven…

As his thoughts reached this point, familiar voices seemed to be calling him in his ear. Chu Gui shook his head, struggled to break free from his thoughts, and glanced at his cousin. The clan members who could once crowd a whole village were now down to just the two of them.

It was best if she didn’t keep questioning him. The matter of transmigration was too bizarre for an ancient person; he couldn’t tell the truth, yet he really didn’t want to deal with her using a mouth full of lies.

He could only avoid the subject.

Fortunately, Chu Wan had only mentioned it casually and immediately found an answer for herself. Her cousin had been different since childhood, incredibly precocious. Back when she had eloped with that bastard and was caught and brought back to the clan, he was only six years old when he picked the lock at midnight to let her go, even providing travel expenses.

She didn’t dwell on it further, but looking at the last four horizontal marks on her brother’s arm, she let out a deep sigh: “Eleven, it’s been nine years, and countless lives have been lost at your hands. Sister naturally knows they were all people who deserved their fate, but the sin of killing has been committed after all. Your illness… how about these last four? Why don’t you let them fend for themselves? Heaven will eventually take them.”

The last four people: one was the supreme Emperor of the Great Ding Kingdom; one was the Chancellor of the State and head of the Jiang Clan; and slightly lower in rank were the Minister of the Imperial Stud, one of the Nine Ministers, and a General of the Household Cavalry who commanded over ten thousand troops.

Any one of them, if brought up, was a colossus capable of shaking the heavens and earth. Yet they had ended up on her cousin’s soul-chasing list, as he dreamed of wiping them out with nothing but a single man and a single sword.

Is this something a human can accomplish?

Forget doing it—just thinking about it was enough to make one’s liver and gall split with fear.

Even if he had refined himself into a wild ghost, the “Willow Camp Wild Ghost” known as the world’s number one assassin, it was still a path of certain death, as difficult as ascending to heaven.

After Chu Wan finished her persuasion without much hope, she couldn’t help but fantasize about whether she could move him this time.

Chu Gui naturally knew his sister’s thoughts—it was nothing more than the gap between their strength and the enemy’s being too vast, to the point she had no confidence and worried he would lose his life instead of getting revenge.

His view, however, was the complete opposite; he was entirely optimistic.

If there was one greatest benefit his two lifetimes of experience had brought him, it was a resilient character. No matter how bitter or difficult, he had never retreated. It was true in his previous life when he endured sharp pain to stretch and do the splits every day, and it was true in this life as he tirelessly hunted down enemies alone.

In Chu Gui’s dictionary, there was ultimately no such thing as impossible.

Having no intention of increasing his relative’s worries, he comforted her softly: “Second Sister, I cherish my life very much. I will never act blindly or do anything I am not sure of. Rest assured.”

Chu Wan had heard this sentence countless times. Every time she tried to persuade him, he would avoid her with such perfunctory words. But what could she do? She could only sigh inwardly and pray sincerely once more.

Praying that the gods and buddhas in the sky would protect the only male of the Chu family, so that everything would go smoothly for him and he would live a long life.

Late at night, in the palace wall alleyway beside the Hall of Great Prosperity, several Imperial Guards who had just finished their shift had relaxed a lot. They were exchanging various bits of gossip in low voices as they walked toward the Four Gates Guard Station.

One of them lightly poked the shoulder of the person in front, teasing: “Big Li, I heard you just married a beautiful concubine, only twelve years old? You’re quite lucky indeed.”

The one being poked turned around. Before he could respond, another tall and sturdy man on the left interjected: “Ha, at that age, her figure probably hasn’t even filled out. No chest, no butt—what fun is there to speak of? You should let the little girl go.”

The guard called Big Li sneered: “What do you know? If you want someone to your liking, don’t you have to train them according to your own taste? These two words, ‘tender and young’—a crude fellow like you probably won’t taste the flavor of them in a lifetime.”

Being mocked like this, the tall and sturdy one felt a bit unhappy and retorted: “I certainly can’t taste it. The former Weiyang Order, Lu Meng, should have shared your interests.”

As soon as these words came out, the squad leader at the front of the line couldn’t help but turn back and bark: “Silence! It’s the middle of the night—why mention a dead man? Don’t you find it eerie?”

Being yelled at by their superior, the three of them quieted down for a good while. After walking a bit further, the one who first spoke couldn’t help but inquire: “What happened to Lu Meng? Such an arrogant person, and he actually died? How did he die?”

The tall guard clicked his tongue: “You actually don’t know about such a big event? They say he publicly beat the old housekeeper of his residence, and in a rage, the housekeeper drugged the wine banquet. While he couldn’t move, he was flayed alive, stroke by stroke!”

“Good Heavens, when did this happen? And… that housekeeper? Was he caught?”

“Catch my foot. When they found him, he had already hanged himself in his own room. He surely knew he couldn’t escape, so he went to the Yellow Springs with his master. They can keep killing each other in the underworld.”

“How was he flayed alive? How great must the hatred be? Quick, tell the details!”

The tall one was just about to start speaking with spit flying when the leader in front suddenly shouted: “Stop!”

The eight-man squad behind him immediately stopped their chatter, halted in formation, and began to look around alertly.

This was already the intersection of the inner court and the outer court. The road and square paved with green bricks could be seen to the end, with no anomalies. Only the jade railings and carved pillars on the corridors of the palaces on both sides flickered with blurred shadows under the light of the bright wind lamps.

It was frighteningly quiet all around. The leader also began to wonder if the black shadow he had caught out of the corner of his eye just now was merely a hallucination.

After scanning for a moment, he still couldn’t let go of the strange feeling in his heart and ordered: “Within twenty zhang, Swallow Return Formation—search!”

Behind a corridor pillar ten paces away from him, Chu Gui quickly melted into the darkness.

This was his first time exploring the Imperial Palace at night; he had originally only wanted to scout a path.

The residence of the Emperor of the Great Ding Kingdom was collectively known as the Dingding City. This city within a city sat majestically beneath the Huai Mountain range to the north of the Upper Capital, occupying nearly half the size of the capital. It was a place of vast pavilions and heavy fortifications.

According to the successive emperors’ obsession with the ultimate number nine—from dividing the world into nine provinces down to the military using nine as a base unit—Dingding City was also divided into nine layers of palace walls.

The first three layers were considered the outer court, a place of sacrifice; the middle three were the Emperor’s imperial audience halls; and further in, the final three were the inner court, where his and his concubines’ sleeping quarters were located.

Chu Gui could still come and go freely in these first few layers by relying on his light-footwork and stealth techniques. But by the sixth layer, the vast open spaces offered no cover. Patrols of Imperial Guards flowed incessantly for twelve hours, and the number of archers atop the high buildings was countless. There was simply no possibility of a stealthy infiltration.

Tonight, he had returned in defeat from before the sixth gate, not expecting that after returning near the four gates, he would encounter these off-duty guards who were actually so alert.

It wasn’t that he was afraid, but he secretly found it troublesome. He lightly pinched the short thorn in his sleeve; once his tracks were discovered, he would just fight his way out.

Just at this moment, the sound of carriage wheels and footsteps mingled together from near to far, as a convoy of carriages drove from the direction of the inner court toward this spot.

Anyone who could still move freely in the deep palace at this hour must be a person of high rank and great power. The leader immediately changed his order, having his men line up to welcome the newcomers on both sides of the road.

When the convoy drew near, he let out a huge sigh of relief, and the expression on his face couldn’t help but turn lewd.

The “An” character emblem on the front of the carriage showed that this belonged to Prince An, yet it was not the Prince’s own carriage.

Since it was not the Prince himself visiting and they were leaving the palace at this hour, it must be the famous dance troupe of the Prince An Mansion that was renowned throughout the nine provinces.

Who didn’t know that Prince An regarded beauty as his life? He gathered all kinds of beauties from across the world in his mansion. In addition, since the Emperor and Empress were as close as gold and jade and had not accepted any other concubines since their marriage, any beauties gifted by other countries were all given to this younger brother. This caused the Prince An Mansion to have a resounding name among the people: “The Kingdom of Ten Thousand Flowers.”

Opportunity was rare today; he wanted to see if the name “Kingdom of Ten Thousand Flowers” was actually true.

“Stop! What are you doing? Leaving the palace only now?”

The lead carriage stopped, and the row behind it all came to a halt. Looking from front to back, one couldn’t see the end at a glance.

Zhao Yu, the external manager of the Prince An Mansion, was the nephew of the General Manager Zhao Cheng. Having mingled with various nobles daily, he had long developed a backbone of pride. He now lifted the carriage curtain, took a brief look, and gave a sneer.

He had wondered who would dare to block the mansion’s carriage at will—it was merely an Imperial Guard leader, far too overconfident.

“Family members of the Prince An Mansion, invited to attend a night banquet at the Cihui Palace, are now returning to the mansion. Leader… what advice do you have?”

Invited to a night banquet? It was merely serving others with beauty, providing song and dance for entertainment—yet he spoke so grandiously. The leader thought contemptuously.

However, he didn’t dare do too much; he just wanted to feast his eyes.

He said in a deep voice: “Suspicious persons were discovered nearby. We are searching and capturing. Since you are family members of the Prince’s mansion, we won’t search the carriages. You only need to lift all the curtains and pass through slowly one by one.”

Zhao Yu was as sharp as a spirit; he understood immediately upon hearing this. It wasn’t about making things difficult; he just wanted a thrill.

After a “tch,” he had the servants pass the order back, then said to the leader: “Twenty-three carriages. Except for the last three, which are for maidservants and miscellaneous items, the rest are all nobles of the mansion. Look if you must, but be sure to control the claws of your subordinates. If anything untoward happens, it will be hard for me to explain to the Prince.”

After his words fell, he didn’t bother with the man anymore. With a wave of his finger, the carriages started moving.

The lead carriage passed, and the second carriage went by. The leader and his eight subordinates stared so hard their eyes almost popped out.

Inside the carriage were two beauties: one with golden hair and blue eyes, skin like curdled fat; the other was the complete opposite, like a black pearl, her face as smooth as brocade.

Seeing the group of “dumb geese” outside the carriage, the two beauties covered their lips and smiled, their charm so profound it made one’s hands and feet grow weak.

In the subsequent carriages, all kinds of beauties passed by with a fragrant breeze one by one. By the time the convoy had long since left the four gates and even the sound of the wheels could no longer be heard, the leader and his men finally snapped out of it.

Damn it, possessing so many beauties—the Prince must be living the life of an immortal, the leader thought enviously.

Especially that last one—he said it was a maidservant, yet the pair of narrow phoenix eyes outside the veil, with spirit flowing between them like spring mountains and autumn waters, gave him a soul-shattering feeling with just one glance. Beneath that veil, what kind of world-toppling beauty must there be?

Not to mention these commoners who felt as though they had seen a celestial being, after the Prince An Mansion convoy completely exited the palace gates, Chu Gui, who had taken the opportunity to blend in, quickly vanished without a trace.

Returning to the small room in the West Courtyard of Ruyi Pavilion, he sat quietly in the dark. He didn’t know how long he sat before he finally rose and lit the lamp.

Half an incense stick later, Chu Wan knocked and entered.

Chu Gui turned to look at his cousin and asked: “Second Sister, Prince An—do you know of this person?”