Chapter 23: Sneaking Into the Palace (1/2)
Bai Luochu woke up with a start and abruptly sat up from her bed.
Bai Luochu felt that her back was drenched in cold sweat. The feeling of doubt in her heart was so great her face distorted. She didn’t know why the image of the person popped up in her head.
No matter how much she thought about it, nothing would change. In the end, Bai Luochu simply decided to forget about it. Before long, Bai Luochu calmed down the waves in her heart as she raised her head to look at the sky where the first rays of sunlight broke through the screen of night. Her cultivation session started once again.
Her cultivation session lasted all the way till Zi Su entered to help her freshen up. After she ate, Bai Luochu wrote down the names of several poisonous plants and tools she required for tempering poison before passing them all to Zi Su.
Taking the list from Bai Luochu, Zi Su realized that the name of each item was stranger than the last. She didn’t understand what she was looking at and a feeling of doubt formed in her heart. She hurriedly asked, “Young Lady, why do you need these things? All of these items look extremely strange. Don’t use them just because you want to speed up your cultivation, alright? What if you fall sick after eating them?”
Looking at Zi Su who had a frown on her face as she struggled to persuade her, Bai Luochu helplessly laughed and explained, “I didn’t get the names of these items from some random unknown doctor.... These items are all poison herbs and tools for tempering them. Now that I can venture out of the residence, I have to prepare some items to protect myself. With my current strength, there is obviously no way for me to protect myself from the experts located in the capital city. However, even if I can’t defeat them, I can still make use of these items to escape, right? Little lass, don’t worry!”
In fact, Bai Luochu was speaking the truth… Or it would be more appropriate to say that half of it was true. She might have been an evil dao witch in her past life, but she had always acted with the policy of ‘if no one offends me, I won’t offend others’. As of now, her strength was insufficient to protect herself and the idea of provoking others didn’t even make itself into her mind. Obtaining these items to make something to protect herself wasn’t really a lie.
As for the part where she lied, it was naturally about the part about where she was going. The reason why she needed to protect herself from experts was something she cooked up on the spot as well. Sensitive information shouldn’t be shared with Zi Su.
She couldn’t possibly tell Zi Su that she was going to sneak into the palace to attend the Empress Dowager’s birthday banquet...
If that were to happen, Bai Luochu wouldn’t be able to think of anymore reasons she could use. Curiosity wasn’t a compelling enough reason and if she really were to say that she wanted to take a look at an enemy she made in her past life, Zi Su would definitely think that Bai Luochu had cultivated herself into a retard.
After all, reincarnation was a foreign concept and no one would believe her.
Maybe it was because Bai Luochu had been behaving herself for this period of time. Zi Su simply took her word for it and she even praised Bai Luochu. “Young Lady is truly meticulous. Our First Prince’s residence is a huge target for people with malicious intent. If someone truly had intentions to harm the Young Lady, things would really become troublesome. Young Lady’s plan is rather good in this case...”
Zi Su kept the list after singing her praises. She then bid farewell to Bai Luochu and quickly went out to prepare the items requested by the Young Lady.
When Bai Luochu saw how happily Zi Su left, she couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty. Bai Luochu felt that she had let down the little lady’s trust. At the same time, she had secretly decided that if her infiltration into the palace wasn’t successful, she would bear all the responsibility in order to protect Zi Su.