The Princess Returns - Chapter 1

The night breeze whispered through the air, the full moon was shining brightly above.

The magnificent palace doors stood wide open and their fiery redwood hue so vivid that it glowed with an almost sinister crimson even under the moonlight. Honey-colored candlelight spilled through the intricately carved lily-patterned windows.

No guards stood outside the doors. Only the occasional insect song mingled with the restrained, labored breathing echoing from within.

Another fierce gust of wind swept through, creaking the ancient wooden doors. Behind the groan of the wood, the rustling of silk fabric could be heard.

Swish, swish. 

The crimson curtains hanging from the ceiling to the floor billowed in the wind, lifting halfway up a person’s height. Through the layered folds, faintly visible were overlapping figures deep within.

Cinnabar walls and crimson curtains. Everywhere was the color of cinnabar, an atmosphere of extreme sensuality.

A woman’s voice broke the rustling of the curtains, low and husky, tinged with the mockery of one toying with a plaything.

“Do you know why I insist on filling the room with red when I favor you?”

The vermilion bedding resembled a dense sunset enveloping the ocean, its waves merging with the sky, a forceful crimson that engulfed everything, dyeing all in scarlet.

This extreme red served to highlight the extreme white especially the delicate, porcelain-like skin of the beauty. When slender, jade-like fingers casually rested against the red fabric, they resembled exquisitely carved pieces of white jade preserved in brocade boxes.

The woman continued, “Because you’re fair… fair-skinned people should wear red robes and rouge. It looks more pleasing that way.”

She leaned closer to the woman beneath her, her voice dropping to a husky whisper:

“This palace sleeps comfortably.”

Beneath her lay another woman. Her hair cascaded like ink, her skin glistened with fragrant sweat, and her face bore the delicate features of a Jiangnan woman: a slender nose, pale lips, and eyes as clear and pure as mountain springs in secluded valleys, untouched by impurities.

Her otherworldly tranquility stood out even more amidst the room’s carnal atmosphere and the overwhelming scent of huanhui flowers, like a sharp needle piercing through the dust-sealed heart.

No wonder Ji Rong insisted on filling the room with red on this day.

“Ugh!”

The woman struggled out from under the bed curtains but collapsed to the floor, her legs weak. Clutching the smooth silk quilt in one hand and bracing herself against the crimson bricks with the other, she strained to rise. But Ji Rong yanked the quilt back, pulling both woman and bedding back into the bed.

“Trying to escape?”

Ji Rong lazily lifted her eyelids, brushing a stray strand of hair from the woman’s cheek and tucking it behind her ear. The gesture carried both tenderness and a hint of morbidity. “You know you can’t outrun this palace’s palm.”

She stared into the woman’s eyes, searching for a trace of despair, but found none. Even imprisoned, even reduced to a mere object, her eyes remained utterly devoid of defeat.

Ji Rong knew that even if she conquered kingdoms, ruled the world, and possessed everyone, this woman would still look down on her with the same aloof disdain, contempt, and utter contempt.

“Rebellion against authority, disrupting the state order.”

The woman finally spoke, her voice slow and soft, yet devoid of any kindness. “Princess Ji Rong, if you persist in such wickedness, aren’t you afraid that retribution will come? That you’ll one day become a corpse under the righteous army’s blade, your infamy lasting through the ages?”

“Retribution?”

The word pierced Ji Rong’s heart, but instead of fear, it ignited her fury and stirred her desire to dominate. She sat on the edge of the bed. “I am their retribution. Their greatest mistake was not poisoning me back then. The Arbiter of Fate decreed that I am the Star of Calamity, a millennia-spanning scourge. As long as I live, the imperial family will never know peace!”

As her words faded, a sharp, piercing light flashed through the steam-filled Erotic Chamber. With a sickening thud, a dagger plunged into Ji Rong’s chest. The wielder of the blade was the woman kneeling before her, her eyes clear and utterly devoid of emotion.

******

“Ah!”

Zhang Jirong jolted upright from the mattress, her nightmare-induced scream activating the voice-activated wall lights, which silently illuminated both sides of the room.

It was her again, the deranged woman Ji Rong. This time, the dream was clearer: she could hear Ji Rong’s words and see the face of the woman pinned beneath her. The woman’s eyes were clear, her brows delicate, yet her gaze seemed capable of piercing through the vast expanse of the cosmos. She resembled a scroll emitting the scent of wood—calm, unassuming, yet possessing an uncommon wisdom.

It was this very scroll who raised her blade and stabbed Ji Rong to death.

“Write it down…”

In a daze, Zhang Jirong heard Ji Rong’s voice by her ear.

“Write about me…”

It was Ji Rong. Zhang Jirong recognized her voice unlike the softness of most women, it carried a steel-like firmness, a domineering tone that could belong to no one else.

Write about you? Why should I?

Zhang Jirong wiped her sweat with a piece of paper. Why should I write about why you raised an army in rebellion? Why you oppressed a defenseless woman? Why you imprisoned her only to be killed yourself?

It’s laughable.

Zhang Jirong went to the bathroom to wash the sweat from her face. She splashed water on her face several times before her racing heart finally slowed. Leaning against the sink, she slowly raised her head to look in the mirror, and what she saw made her heart stop dead in her chest.

The reflection wasn’t of someone in silk pajamas, but of a figure clad in bloodstained armor. Her shoulder-length hair had grown longer and was neatly tied back with two crimson ribbons. Her brow, cheeks, and chin were covered in ragged cuts and scrapes.

Her eyes mirrored Zhang Jirong’s—shocked and terrified. But the moment their gazes met, the figure’s expression hardened. Her eyebrows furrowed, and a fierce, predatory intensity surfaced on her face.

It was Ji Rong!

Zhang Jirong recoiled, but the figure in the mirror stepped forward, reached out, gripped her by the throat, and dragged her into the mirror.

“Ah!!!”

Zhang Jirong screamed, but no sound escaped from her lips. Her vision swam—spinning, darkening, lightening, images blurring and overlapping. Her body felt as if it had been hurled into the stratosphere, only to plummet back down in free fall. Just as she thought her soul was about to tear from her body, a bell rang in her mind.

Buzz…

A deep, ponderous sound resonated from her chest, reverberating through her brain. Zhang Jirong felt a suffocating blockage in her chest. When she violently retched it up, she discovered it was thick, black, coagulated blood. Then, a powerful surge of heat erupted within her. True Qi surged wildly through her Energy Gates, rampant and defiant, bursting out of her body.

Thud!

As the True Qi erupted, a poisoned arrow shot from the wound in her shoulder, embedding itself in the nearby sand. The arrow’s shaft was stained with black blood—poisonous.

“Cough… cough… cough…”

Zhang Jirong propped herself up, gasping for breath. Only after a long while, when she finally caught her breath, did she raise her eyes and realize the world before her had been utterly transformed.

The endless yellow sand of the canyon, the hazy dust swirling in the air, all testified to the desolation and bleakness of this land.

Further away, jagged, fang-like rocks rose from the sand, their sharp points piercing the sky. Around them lay broken banners and weapons, while at their base piled the remains of dozens of ancient soldiers and horses. Some have missing limbs, some were half-intact and mostly incomplete, as if they were gnawed by wild beasts.

Zhang Jirong stared in shock at the scene. She rose and walked to the blood-stained riverbank, gazing at her reflection in the water.

Blood-soaked armor, a torn crimson cloak, a high ponytail, a disheveled face. This was the crazed woman she had seen in the mirror: Ji Rong.

Drip, drip…

The black poison blood at the corner of her mouth hadn’t been wiped clean. Two drops fell into the river, darkening the water’s color. A line from her dream flashed through her mind:

Their greatest mistake was not poisoning me back then.

She couldn’t see Ji Rong’s expression, but she remembered it vividly. When she spoke those words, the invincible Ji Rong had shown a fleeting vulnerability, like a fine white porcelain vase cracking along a jagged seam; thin, tiny, yet fatally compromised.

She was almost certain the poisoner was someone Ji Rong trusted completely.

That’s right. She had transmigrated into the body of a so-called “princess”: a woman infamous for her debauchery and tyranny, ultimately betrayed by her closest confidant and corrupted. And it was this princess who had nearly been poisoned to death “back then.”

Zhang Jirong smirked coldly. 

“Ji Rong, let me teach you the proper way to turn the tables.”

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