I Have a Date with a Thousand-year-old Female Corpse
Chapter 252 Empress and Zhao’er_1

Chapter 252: Chapter 252 Empress and Zhao’er_1

As you were still digesting the scene you’d just witnessed, Wu Qiyi suddenly patted your shoulder.

"What’s wrong?"

You turned to look at her.

Wu Qiyi didn’t speak but stretched out her hand and pointed straight ahead. Only then did you turn around and discover that the scene behind you had once again transformed.

By now, you were standing inside a similarly towering and majestic palace. What differed this time was that there were eight women of various statures and ages lined up in a row in front of the palace, all with their hands tied.

Behind each of these eight women stood a column of young ladies, led by a woman of distinction, all uniformly dressed.

In the exact center of the palace, an enormous golden Dragon Throne was placed, astonishingly with nine steps leading up to it!

Although you had never been to Yenjing and had never seen the Dragon Throne where the Manchu Emperor sat in the Forbidden City, you wholly believed that the size of this throne was at least three to four times larger than that of the Manchu Emperor’s!

"The Empress has arrived——"

Accompanied by a resonant chant, a group of people emerged from outside the main hall. The one leading was clad in a golden dragon robe and wearing a golden crown adorned with dragons, majestically appearing amidst a bevy of beautiful maids.

"We greet the Empress! Longevity and prosperity to the Empress!"

Everyone in the great hall bowed uniformly, their voices ringing loud and in unison from within the hall. (Note: In the many dynasties of China, officials and the common people generally did not need to kneel and kowtow when seeing the Emperor; a mere formal bow was sufficient; kneeling and kowtowing three times were customs of the nomadic tribes, starting from the Mongol Yuan invasion and continuing until the Manchu period. To enslave the Han People, the People of Manchu ensured imperial power reached an unparalleled level, thus officials and the common people had to kneel and kowtow upon seeing the Emperor.)

Wu Qiyi and you were standing on the open ground directly opposite the Dragon Throne, looking straight at the Empress, who was approaching in her dazzling dragon robe.

At that moment, you could clearly see that the peerless Empress dominating the world was not Zhao’er, but Fan Yi!

As you watched the Empress slowly take her seat on the Dragon Throne, you became puzzled.

If the Empress’s original body was Fan Yi, then why did it later transform into Zhao’er?

Meanwhile, your gaze swept over the eight women, but you did not find Wu Qiuyue among them.

Just as you were pondering, a clear voice of a court lady came from outside the main hall, "Your Majesty, Commander Wu requests an audience!"

The Empress gestured with her hand, and her attendant relayed the message with inner strength, the sound projecting out like a loudspeaker, "Let her in!"

Before long, Wu Qiuyue entered with a group of Shadow Guards, among them, four Shadow Guards were carrying a Crystal Coffin.

"We greet the Empress, long life, and prosperity to the Empress!"

The Empress looked at Wu Qiuyue with cold eyes and asked, "Have you found it?"

"This servant has not failed Your Majesty!"

With that, the four Shadow Guards carrying the Crystal Coffin passed straight through your bodies and placed the coffin in front of the Empress’s Dragon Throne.

The surface of the Crystal Coffin was transparent, and when Wu Qiyi looked down into the coffin, she couldn’t help but exclaim in shock!

It was rare to see such an expression on Wu Qiyi’s face, which made you curiously cast your gaze towards the Crystal Coffin. Taking a look inside, you blurted out without thinking, "Zhao’er!"

You had never expected to find Zhao’er lying in the Crystal Coffin, coupled with your confusion just a moment ago, you immediately raised your head to look at the Empress seated high upon the Dragon Throne.

The Empress slowly stood up and descended from the nine golden steps; she walked up to the Crystal Coffin, looked down at Zhao’er inside, who bore an eight or nine points resemblance to herself.

Afterward, the scene shifted and you, along with Wu Qiyi, found yourselves in the Secret Room of the Underground Palace beneath the Wordless Monument.

At that time, Wu Qiuyue and another eight exceptionally poised women were standing at nine very peculiar positions. They were chanting incessantly, and the entire secret chamber was enveloped in a rather sinister atmosphere.

In the center of them, a coffin was placed. Inside the coffin was Zhao’er, her eyes closed, her complexion serene, as if she had been slumbering for thousands, possibly tens of thousands of years—never aging, never perishing, never living, never dying.

Empress stood beside the coffin, and as she slowly opened her hands, her body floated up into the air and gradually hovered above the coffin.

At this time, the pace at which Wu Qiuyue and the nine women pronounced the incantations became even faster.

With the Sen Luo Eye activated, you noticed that apart from Wu Qiuyue, the remaining eight women had a glow of the soul emanating from their bodies. Upon witnessing this, you couldn’t help but exclaim in shock, "They’re burning their souls!"

The soul is the very foundation; if one were to burn their soul completely, that person would vanish forever, and their entire existence would be erased, not even recorded in the Book of Life and Death.

To start an array that you couldn’t understand or discern clearly, at the cost of burning the souls of eight women, once the array was initiated, it seemed as though an invisible and intangible hand within the Five Elements slowly reached out to Empress.

Immediately after, you witnessed with your own eyes Empress’ soul being extracted from her body and that hand unceremoniously placed Empress’ soul into Zhao’er’s body!

At that moment, you finally understood why, after merging with Goddess and Fan Yi, Empress chose to abandon Zhao’er’s body and picked Fan Yi—it was because it was her, her most primitive and original appearance.

However, the questions arose again—who is Zhao’er?

Where did Wu Qiuyue find Zhao’er? And who really is Zhao’er?

"So you were here, it took me quite a while to find you!"

Just as the scene before your eyes gradually returned to its original state, you heard Saintess’ angry and flustered voice.

Turning your head, you saw the Saintess walking in with Little Tian and Huang Mao. Holding a general figurine’s head in her hand, she threw it towards you and sneered with a cold laugh, "Did you think those clay figures could stop me? Ridiculous! Now, you must all die here!"

As she spoke, Saintess raised her hands, and a fast-moving mist quickly enveloped the entire hall.

"How dare you!"

With a light rebuke from Shangguan Wan’er, the spreading mist suddenly receded, and the Saintess staggered with a jolt, spitting out blood, her face full of horror as she looked at Shangguan Wan’er.

"Daring to attack the Saintess, seeking death!"

Little Tian barked out loud and immediately charged towards Shangguan Wan’er!

His body swiftly gained momentum and disappeared from your sight; all you could hear was his seemingly disordered footsteps echoing around you.

Right as you prepared to intervene, Shangguan Wan’er slowly extended her slender hand toward the air in front of her and lightly grasped. Inexplicably, she caught Little Tian by the neck!

"Let... Let go..."

"Crack!"

Before Little Tian could finish, his neck was twisted and broken by Shangguan Wan’er!

It didn’t end there. As if deeming that Little Tian’s blood would defile the hall’s floor tiles, she casually tossed his lifeless body out of the hall.

Seeing Shangguan Wan’er wield such terrifying power, you couldn’t help but inwardly sigh in relief that your enemy wasn’t her. Otherwise, all four of you might have been effortlessly crushed to death just like Little Tian.