Su Qing'er knelt on the ground, her shoulders hunched as if weighed down by an invisible force from above, preventing her from raising her head.
Lin Zhiyue watched her for a moment, not waiting for her to speak first.
Her voice drifted over steadily from the table. It was not loud, yet every word was crystal clear, like stones cast into water, sending ripple after ripple outward in front of Su Qing'er. “Does Noble Consort Su often find herself plagued by nightmares at night, waking up cold all over? Even under the blazing sun of day, do you still feel a chill seeping through your entire body?”
“You have been in the palace for over a decade, yet you have never borne a single child. Does Your Highness believe all of this is merely a coincidence?”
Su Qing'er abruptly lifted her head, her expression in the dim light a mix of sheer terror and disbelief.
Her lips parted and trembled, her voice choked as if something were blocking her throat. It took several breaths before she managed to squeeze out a response, her voice laced with the panic and helplessness of someone who had just been completely exposed. “How... how did the Immortals know...?”
Lin Zhiyue took in her suddenly widened eyes and rigid shoulders, the corner of her lips twitching slightly. “There is a ghost haunting you. Surely Noble Consort Su must have felt it? After all, you know best just how many lives are on your hands.”
In the dim light, Su Qing'er's face paled visibly. She seemed pinned to the spot by those words, and even her shoulders stopped trembling.
Cen Xi'er chimed in from where she leaned against the wall, her tone even more direct than Lin Zhiyue's. “You and your mother conspired to murder your elder sister, Su Jinyu. You locked her in a side room for over a decade, thinking that as long as you suppressed her corpse, she would never come back to claim your life.”
Lin Zhiyue took over. “Did Noble Consort Su truly believe that locking up Su Jinyu's corpse would stop her from seeking vengeance? Since breaking free, she has devoured most of the national fortune, and her cultivation is already nearing the Soul Transformation Stage. The resentful energy on your body is merely the tip of the iceberg she has attached to you. She could kill you at any moment.”
Chu Zhixun frowned, unable to hold back his disgust. “Lady Su, how venomous your heart is.”
The room fell silent for several breaths. Su Qing'er's shoulders began to shake uncontrollably, her knuckles turning white as she clutched her sleeves.
She suddenly looked up, her voice cracking as if pushed to the absolute brink. “Immortals... kill her! You must kill her! Su Jinyu deserves to die—she is a ghost! Aren't Immortals supposed to be unable to tolerate demons and monsters? It's not my fault! It's not my fault! Why was she born a legitimate daughter, blessed with wealth and splendor, and even a marriage alliance with a Marquis's manor? She was the one blocking my path! She was the one blocking my path!”
By the end, her voice had completely warped, as if she were pouring out over a decade of suppressed resentment all at once. Her final words echoed in the room for a brief moment before fading back into silence.
Lin Zhiyue listened quietly, waiting for her to stop gasping for breath before speaking. Her tone was completely flat, as if stating a foregone conclusion. “Su Jinyu has indeed become a vengeful spirit, and she is indeed seeking your life. If you want us to settle this matter for you, then tell us everything that happened between the two of you in exact detail. Which year, which day, what you did, how she died, and who that bracelet belongs to. Once you have finished speaking, we will decide how to deal with her.”
After Lin Zhiyue finished speaking, she fell silent and waited, the eyes of everyone else in the room also resting on Su Qing'er.
Su Qing'er knelt on the floor, catching her breath for a few moments, before looking down at the faint indentation pressed into her wrist beneath her sleeve by the bracelet.
Her voice grew faint, shifting from a hoarse rasp to a dry, hollow tone as the words spilled from her lips in fits and starts.
The candlelight cast flickering shadows across the side of her face, stretching and shrinking her silhouette like a string being repeatedly tightened and released, vibrating endlessly in the dark.
Kneeling on the floor, Su Qing'er squeezed the words out of her throat in halting fragments.
Her gaze was fixed on the floor, unfocused, as if she were looking at a distant scene from long ago—one she had buried deep within herself.
“Fifteen years ago... Su Jinyu had just turned eighteen. Xie Tianci came to call off the engagement, declaring in front of a room full of guests that Su Jinyu was not worthy of him...” Su Qing'er paused, her lips twitching, her expression contorting for a brief moment. “At that time, Xie Tianci was already completely infatuated with me. He had sought me out several times, saying he didn't want to marry Su Jinyu and wanted to marry me instead. I didn't agree back then, but I didn't refuse him either.”
Lin Zhiyue remained silent, quietly waiting for her to finish.
Frankly, she had read plenty of plots like this in novels in her past life—the conflict between legitimate and concubine-born daughters, marriage swaps, and identity theft. Though the tropes were old, seeing it play out in front of her eyes still felt far more melodramatic than anything written in a book.
“After her engagement was annulled, Su Jinyu's reputation was ruined. She spent her days in deep depression, locking herself in her room. I was incredibly smug back then—so what if she was the legitimate daughter? In the end, she was still trampled beneath my feet.”
“But in truth, I didn't want to marry Xie Tianci either. Others might not have known, but I knew all too well that Xie Tianci was a useless fool who excelled at neither scholar-studies nor martial arts. Count Jing'an's Manor had been in decline since his father's generation. I wasn't willing to marry into a fading house and become a mere countess of a declining family.”
At this point, she clutched her sleeves, her voice dropping even lower. “But back then, I truly had no intention of killing her. Until one day, I saw her crying in the courtyard. She was holding a jade bracelet, speaking to it and saying how much she missed her mother. She wept so bitterly, her tears dripping onto the bracelet, and then... she suddenly vanished.”
The room fell silent for a moment. Cen Xi'er and Chu Zhixun exchanged a glance.
Su Qing'er did not look up to see their expressions, simply continuing to speak, her pace slightly faster than before. “I hid behind a pillar and didn't dare make a sound. After about fifteen minutes, Su Jinyu reappeared in the same spot. She held a few round, plump fruits in her hands that clearly weren't ordinary items. After she ate them, her entire state changed—her complexion improved, her energy returned, and she looked... as if she had been nourished by something extraordinary.”
She fell silent for a moment after speaking, then suddenly looked up at Lin Zhiyue, her voice carrying a trace of jealousy and resentment. “I knew right then that the bracelet was an extraordinary treasure. My mother, Madam Wu, realized it too. She said the bracelet was a relic left behind by the former first wife, originally intended to be part of Su Jinyu's dowry when she married. But since Su Jinyu's engagement was called off and her reputation was ruined, I... I began to covet it.”
Su Qing'er lowered her head once more.
Lin Zhiyue's gaze landed on the jade bracelet resting against the woman's wrist. Su Qing'er said that after Su Jinyu's tears dripped onto it, she had vanished for a moment and returned with several extraordinary spiritual fruits... Could this be... a pocket dimension?
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