Chapter 3

The Empress clutched my sleeve, weeping. “Mother Empress, let us go back. I beg you…”

Everyone thought I had gone mad.

Two guards were gripping my arms so tightly I could barely move!

This body was old and frail. Because I was trapped in a human vessel, I could not unleash the Ghost King’s full power.

My ghostly shadow was frantic. “My liege, her life force is about to go out completely!”

Even if I forced my way out of this body right now and summoned my true Ghost King form, I still wouldn’t make it in time!

I burned with anxiety and struggled with all my might.

Just then, the corner of my eye caught the Consort’s expression.

She had collapsed to the ground. Everyone thought she was crying, but her gaze was locked on something—and she was afraid!

Like a flash of lightning, I finally understood everything.

“I know where the child is hidden!”

The Ghost King’s power erupted in an instant, sending the two guards flying several yards away!

Before anyone could react, I leapt onto the coffin and pointed my long sword straight at the late emperor’s chest.

The child was inside it!

The Emperor roared, “That is the late emperor’s remains! The Empress Dowager has gone mad! Seize her at all costs!”

The Imperial Guards rushed toward me.

But I was faster.

My sword tore through the dragon robe and cleaved into the late emperor’s chest!

As flesh split open, a tiny cry came from within the cavity.

The late emperor’s chest did not hold organs. It was an empty chamber covered in ghostly talismanic curses, and inside it lay a newborn, barely breathing!

It was my best friend!

The baby’s cries rang through the mourning hall.

Everyone froze.

The ministers who had just been shouting, “The Empress Dowager has gone mad!” now fell quieter than anyone. Some gaped, some stumbled back, and some had their knees buckle and dropped straight to the floor.

I lowered my head and looked at the child in my arms.

She was so tiny. Her skin was bluish-purple, and invisible strands of yin energy wrapped around her whole body, like a spider’s web around its prey. Her breath flickered like a candle in the wind, ready to go out at any moment.

I had come too late.

“Consort Wei.” I raised my head. My gaze passed over the horrified faces in the hall and settled precisely on Wei Changning.

She knelt on the floor, her face as pale as paper.

“I ask you,” I said, taking one step toward her. The baby’s cries in my arms grew weaker by the second. “Who used dark sorcery to switch the princess and hide her inside the late emperor’s corpse?”

“Your Majesty… I don’t know what you mean…” Her voice trembled, but she still tried to wriggle out of it.

I crouched down and looked straight into her face.

“I can see every trace of dark sorcery left on you.” My voice was so quiet that only she could hear me. “You tampered with the Book of Six Paths of Reincarnation and used a living newborn as a sacrifice, sealing her inside a corpse’s belly. That spell is called ‘Burying a Soul in a Borrowed Body.’ The Underworld has strictly forbidden it. Anyone who casts it will never be reincarnated.”

Wei Changning’s pupils shrank violently.

She knew I had seen through her.

“Empress Dowager, spare me!” She suddenly crawled forward and kowtowed. Her forehead struck the golden-tiled floor with a dull thud. “I know I’m guilty! I know I’m guilty! But—”

She jerked her head up. Her face was streaked with blood and tears, yet a smile suddenly spread across it.

That smile held despair, madness, and a strange glimmer of smugness.

“But I’m only a knife,” she stared at me and said, each word bitten off, “and the one wielding it is someone you, Empress Dowager… wouldn’t dare touch.”

The mourning hall fell silent.

Everyone’s expression shifted. Some looked at Wei Changning, some at me, and some… instinctively glanced toward the Emperor before quickly looking away.

“Who ordered you?” I asked.

“I won’t tell.” She lay prostrate on the floor, her shoulders shaking, but her mouth remained shut. “You can kill me and I still won’t speak. If you want to know… interrogate my soul.”

She was provoking me. And placing a bet—that I wouldn’t dare kill her on the spot.

I straightened. Ghost King power gathered at my fingertips, and the Netherworld’s cold wind swirled inside my sleeves.

“Mother Empress.”

The Emperor’s voice came from behind me.

I turned to look at him. Somehow, he had already come three steps closer. His face wore a perfectly measured expression of solemnity and concern.

“This matter is horrifying, and I am utterly enraged,” he said righteously. “But Consort Wei’s crimes should be tried by the Three Judicial Offices and punished under the law. If you take her life here and now… the people of the realm will say the imperial family has no regard for the law.”

What a perfectly respectable reason. What a perfect opportunity.