"Lian'er, didn't Aunt say that Yunyao Palace is short of people? Could you please tell her to arrange for me to go there?"
"Pei Nian, are you crazy? That's the Cold Palace! If you go there, do you think you can ever make a comeback?" Yulian exclaimed.
Pei Nian gave a bitter smile. "Going to the Cold Palace is still better than being tormented to death here."
"If Mistress Zhen wants me dead, it's just a matter of one sentence."
Yulian looked at Pei Nian's knee, now a mottled shade of blue and purple from kneeling, and sighed heavily.
"Mistress Zhen is really heartless. Look at your knees! They're bruised from kneeling as punishment!"
Pei Nian just gave a wry smile. "It's okay. It just looks severe. But it's not a big deal."
"How can it not be a big deal?! You've been kneeling for two hours! If you keep on kneeling, you'll ruin your knees!"
Yulian and Pei Nian entered the palace at the same time, both of them assigned to Liuli Palace, where no concubines lived, to be sweeper maidens.
Yulian was lively and cheerful, while Pei Nian was reserved and composed. After a year of coexistence, the two were as close as sisters.
She carefully applied some ointment to Pei Nian, her heart aching. "You're usually so careful. How did you offend her? Everyone in the palace knows that she's the most difficult to serve."
Pei Nian gave a bitter smile and said nothing.
She didn't want to provoke anyone, but if someone insists on not letting her be, what could she do?
She was born in a marquis' manor, as a legitimate daughter of the marquis. She entered the palace and took part in the selection process along with her legitimate sister and Mistress Zhen. However, because she was too beautiful, she offended Concubine Meng, had her jade token secretly replaced, and was demoted to a sweeper maiden.
While Mistress Zhen wasn't favored, she did have a cousin who was a concubine.
With Precious Person having her sister as a backer, who was naive and petty at heart, what else could she do upon seeing Pei Nian being more beautiful than herself but to torment her incessantly?
She almost lost her life at the hands of Precious Person in her previous life!
If it hadn't been for Aunt Ping, who was in charge, seeing her plight and transferring her to the Cold Palace, she might not have made it out alive.
It was also in the Cold Palace that she met...that man.
Thinking back on her previous life, Pei Nian clenched her lips tightly, held her chest, and pressed her hands slowly, feeling the vibrant heartbeat within her chest.
Yes, she has been reborn!
She was brought back to the time when she had been demoted to a palace maid after a selection process!
In her last life, she didn't want to stay in the palace, she just wanted to leave the palace and marry a good man. Despite the incident with that man, she never considered standing up for herself, instead suffering greatly within the palace.
Little did she know, the man she held dear in her heart, married again less than three months after her entry into the palace, and the one he took in as his wife was her half-sister.
Later on, she gave birth to an illegitimate son of the Royal family in the Cold Palace, but that man never once came to see her.
And even in death, she was unable to grant her son a place on the royal jade records.
She failed her Qi'er, it was she who had ruined his life.
Thinking of all that happened in her previous world, Pei Nian could only feel an intense pain in her chest!
However, after her death in her previous life, she met a mysterious person. This mysterious person gave her an exceptional object.
This object was a space, and within this space was a spiritual spring. Regular consumption of the spring water from this spiritual spring would make her even healthier and more beautiful, it could even neutralize poisons.
This was simply a great thing for her!
From now on, she had something to depend on and confidence in her survival within this harem.
Now that she had returned, she would never walk the old path of her past life!
She needed to take advantage of the fact that the respected one had not noticed her yet; she would volunteer to go to the Cold Palace, avoiding the torture that the respected one had inflicted on her in her previous life.
From this point onwards, she would no longer think about leaving the palace.
She planned to stay in the palace for the rest of her life, properly bringing up Qi'er and never allowing him to suffer again!
