Chapter 3
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: Flower of the Cold Palace
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Cold Palace.
True to its name, a palace that had grown cold and desolate. It was where concubines who had lost the emperor's favor or committed crimes were exiled, left to rot away their lives in lonely solitude. Among the eunuchs, there were sinister rumors of ghosts haunting the place, turning it into a forbidden zone that even in broad daylight no foot dared tread.
But to Cheonwi, it was nothing more than a treasure trove.
'Ghosts? What nonsense. Places with beautiful women always attract such idle rumors.'
Contrary to expectations of a chilling, eerie aura, the moment he stepped through the Cold Palace entrance, it wasn't the musty stench of dust that tickled Cheonwi's nose.
Whoosh—a sweet, dense fragrance wafted over.
Cheonwi leaped lightly onto the weathered walls and crouched low. The Cold Palace garden that filled his view was no abandoned ruin but a paradise nurtured by its owner's devoted touch.
Mocking any prejudice of rampant weeds, unnamed wildflowers bloomed in wild profusion under the moonlight. The heady scent of Night-Blooming Jasmine—which unfurled its petals only at night—seeped deep into his lungs.
"Sniff sniff."
Cheonwi wrinkled his nose like a hound.
"Hm, lavender? No. This is heavier, stickier. It's floral perfume mingled with... the scent of a woman's flesh."
The senses of the 'Emperor of the Night' from his previous life—who had embraced countless women—were sounding full alarms. This was top-grade pheromones. The poignant aroma of a flower wilting untended, all the more tantalizing in its pathos.
Cheonwi clicked his tongue and shook his head.
"The emperor's a fool, no doubt. Or maybe a eunuch himself. Letting prime real estate like this sit idle. He's got no eye for property at all."
He slipped silently deeper along the walls, tracking the fragrance to its source.
And at last, beyond a sagging tiled roof, a hidden sanctuary came into view.
A rustic yet poetic open-air bath carved from natural rock. Hot spring water bubbled up from crevices, sending curls of white steam rising.
And across that misty water surface unfolded a sight to stop Cheonwi's heart.
"......!"
Cheonwi's pupils dilated in an instant.
A lone woman soaked in the bath, utterly bare, without a thread upon her.
The empire's empress, now consigned to oblivion. Yeonhwa.
Moonlight cascaded over her wet shoulders. 'Milky white' was too trite a phrase. Like the finest porcelain glazed with moonglow, her nude form seemed to radiate its own light even amid the shadows.
Water droplets gleamed iridescent on her delicate collarbones rising above the surface, while below, the swelling upper curves of her full breasts traced a breathtaking arc before vanishing into the water.
Her jet-black hair, soaked, clung like serpents to her slender neck. Each time she tilted her head back, droplets from the tips trailed down her smooth back.
Cheonwi swallowed hard.
'Insane. This is foul play.'
No matter how he ransacked his previous life's database, nothing measured up. The so-called SSS-rank. No—'Mythic grade,' beyond even that. The male urges he'd suppressed for his eunuch act boiled hot from his gut.
It went beyond mere beauty. Seductive, heartrending, infused with overwhelming poise.
As Cheonwi watched, breath held, Yeonhwa slowly raised an arm to stroke her body.
Her wet hand glided over smooth shoulder, tapered waist, down to thigh. The gesture—like self-caress—was torment enough for any onlooker.
But from her lips escaped not a moan, but a sigh.
"Haa..."
A deep, heavy sigh mingled with the steam and faded. Yeonhwa scooped water and poured it over her collarbone. It trickled down into her cleavage.
"What's the use of this body..."
Her voice rang clear as jade beads on a salver, yet it carried a thick veil of gray melancholy.
"His Majesty hasn't come in over a year... No matter how I bathe and adorn myself each day, there's no one to behold it."
Yeonhwa stared at her reflection in the water.
"Such a pity. The moon shines so bright, yet this flower only withers."
Cheonwi, eavesdropping on her soliloquy, shook his head fiercely within.
'Pity? Hardly, Your Majesty. That's dereliction of duty. I could revive you fresh and dripping.'
Cheonwi's gaze blazed. Neglecting a national-treasure beauty like this warranted imperial punishment. If the emperor shirked, then a righteous citizen like himself had to intervene.
It was then.
The instant Cheonwi, mesmerized by her beauty, unconsciously leaned forward.
Clink.
A shard of old tile snagged underfoot and tumbled down. A small but piercing crack in the Cold Palace's hush.
"......!"
In that moment, the open-air bath's air froze solid.
Yeonhwa jolted, hunching into the water. Splash—she submerged to her shoulders. But the crystal-clear spring only warped her contours more sensually amid the ripples, veiling nothing.
Yeonhwa whipped her head toward the wall. The prior pathos vanished; her eyes burned with an empress's frosty majesty.
"Who's there!"
Her shout rent the night sky.
"How dare a rat slink into this place! Show yourself at once!"
Killing intent laced her voice. Any ordinary eunuch or maid would've soiled themselves on the spot, begging mercy.
"Reveal yourself before I summon the Imperial Guard!"
But Cheonwi stayed cool. Fleeing? Amateur hour. True pros thrived when exposed.
He curled a lip and rose slowly. Then hopped lightly down from the wall.
Tap.
Flawless lightness skill—not a whisper of landing.
Stepping from shadow, Cheonwi strode boldly to the bath's edge. Moonlight lit his face. Eunuch garb, yet no servile hunch. Back ramrod straight, shoulders squared. Eyes gleaming like a beast scenting prey.
Yeonhwa faltered, stunned by the intruder's identity.
"You—you're... a eunuch?"
A eunuch invading the empress's bath. Beheading on sight. Yet this one showed no fear; he brazenly raked her nakedness top to bottom with a thick, lascivious stare.
Cheonwi grinned.
"Your Majesty, what a fine voice. Thought you were serenading the night."
"W-what? You cur! You're deranged! Think you can ogle the empress's jade body and live?"
Shame and fury flushed Yeonhwa crimson. She crossed arms over her chest in haste, but voluptuous swells bulged between, stoking baser fancies.
Cheonwi donned a mock-worried look and stepped nearer.
"Summon the Imperial Guard? They're too far off, and my eyes too close."
"Stay back! One more step, and I'll have your tongue!"
Yeonhwa tried retreating, but the bath cramped her. Water sloshed past pale thighs.
Cheonwi snickered, savoring even that.
"I've seen it all. Why cover now?"
"Y-you insolent wretch...!"
"Covering just makes it... er, more beautiful. Fuels the imagination, you might say."
Yeonhwa's eyes widened in horror at Cheonwi's sly quip. A eunuch calling her 'lewd'? High treason. Yet a queer shiver traced her spine. No man—not even the emperor—had eyed her as 'woman' in a full year.
Cheonwi squatted at the bath's rim, chin propped. Mere arm's reach to the empress.
"Rest easy, though. I'm discreet. And..."
Cheonwi's gaze drifted downward. Past shrouded bosom, swaying waist beneath water, to the submerged crux of her intimacy.
Every spot his eyes touched burned. Invisible underwater by rights, yet his stare pierced like clairvoyance, pinning it dead-on.
"The price for forbidden sights? You're primed to settle in flesh."
As Cheonwi's gaze lanced her hidden depths, Yeonhwa's pupils quivered.
No simple rage. Primal dread, instinctive yield to raw male dominance. Fleeing reason warred with buckling limbs.
The cornered rat was not Cheonwi.
It was the stripped empress, trapped in water. Yeonhwa.
Splash.
The hushed Cold Palace night shattered with fierce water spray.
Against chill night air, dreamy steam hazed above the bath. Yet the scene unfolding was anything but romantic.
"Out of my way! Do you truly court death, you eunuch scum!"
A sharp bark rang out. Empress Yeonhwa. She faced her life's direst peril—or deepest humiliation.
Stark naked.
Instinct drove arms crossed over chest, feet shuffling backward in water. Limpid depths failed to cloak her alabaster skin; moonlight mercilessly danced along her curves.
And there before her, atop a flat stone outside the bath, stood a man.
Cheonwi.
The enigmatic eunuch who entered the Cold Palace to attend the empress.
No trace of fluster on his face; arms folded, he leisurely overlooked Yeonhwa like a predator eyeing a caged hare.
"Court death? Your Majesty, I'm merely standing guard lest you slip while bathing."
"Standing guard? Gaping at my naked form? Turn away now!"
"Eunuch, remember? Nothing down there. Why so abashed before a gelding?"
Cheonwi chuckled and advanced another pace. At each footfall, Yeonhwa flinched deeper. But the bath hemmed her in; her back pressed cold stone. No escape.
Yeonhwa's face scorched crimson with shame and wrath. She, heaven's empress, toyed by eunuch riffraff.
"Don't dream of dodging my eyes. Your only exit? Crawl between my legs."
"Y-you base cur...!"
"Lucky for you I'm castrated. Were I a man, you'd be atop my bed by now."
Cheonwi's lip curled wolfishly. No jest—that stare burned not with eunuch cringe, but feral claim.
Yeonhwa bit her lip. Linger in water, and she'd drown in his rhythm. Better brave the indignity, step out, and dress.
'Yes. Just a eunuch. No man.'
She chanted it like mantra. Yeonhwa steeled herself, cleaved the water, and strode from the bath. Wet tresses streamed over shoulders; droplet-kissed nudity gleamed brazen under moonlight.