The two master and servant were bickering over here, while over there, after wrestling with his conscience for a bit, the Elder was still beaten down by reality. Rather than letting his Master sneak into the Imperial Palace to steal treasure and take such a huge risk, it was better to grab what was right in front of them. So, forcing himself to endure his inner disgust, he took the Luminous Pearl out from the Empress Dowager’s ass.
Seeing this, the Weirdo’s body jolted; he sprang far away in one leap, looking utterly repulsed.
The Elder felt deeply wounded—his own Master actually despised him.
Everything he was doing, he was doing for the sake of rebuilding his Master’s power. Even though he no longer had hands or feet, in his heart his Master was still supreme and untouchable. He hoped his Master could return to the Imperial Family, instead of crawling on the ground all day like an animal, still selling his life for others.
Even with resentment in his heart, he couldn’t vent it on his Master. So the Elder turned on the Empress Dowager’s corpse, and gave it a vicious kick, cursing, "It’s all your fault, you Old Devout Woman. Of all the places you could’ve put the Luminous Pearl, you had to stuff it in such a filthy spot. Now even Master looks down on me because of you. Kick you to death!"
When the Weirdo saw the Elder abusing the Empress Dowager’s corpse, he was delighted, and actually started cheering him on from the side.
The two of them had been ruined by the Empress Dowager, suffering continuously for decades. Especially the Weirdo—his hands and feet had been cut off by the Empress Dowager herself; he’d been crawling on the ground like livestock for dozens of years. Naturally he hated the Empress Dowager to the bone, so doing something like whipping the corpse was entirely understandable to Xuexue.
All the gold and silver treasures inside the coffin were stuffed into one big sack. Xuexue set it aside, then went to look around other parts of the tomb chamber. She hadn’t known before, but once she looked, she got a real fright.
Next to the main hall were several small rooms. One of them was piled high with white bones; according to the Weirdo, these remains should be the craftsmen who built the tomb.
There was another room, and inside it were people who all looked like palace maids, probably chosen to be burial companions.
They were still barely alive, lying on the ground on their last breaths. When they saw Xuexue come in, their eyes lit up; all of them stretched out pairs of withered, skinny hands toward her, feebly waving, their mouths making faint sounds: "Save me, save me, save us!"
It had already been six or seven days since the Empress Dowager was buried. By that count, these people hadn’t had a single drop of water for six or seven days. Judging from their condition, another two days of hunger and they’d starve to death.
Xuexue took out water from her space and fed it to them.
They were both starving and parched, the skin on their lips completely dried and cracked, too weak to even talk properly. Of course they had no idea Xuexue carried a space on her; they only saw her take out a bamboo tube of water from her sleeve and thought she’d just produced it from her clothing.
In this kind of tense situation, nobody had the mind to overthink it. All they could focus on was staying alive; they didn’t care in the slightest where Xuexue’s water came from.
The palace maids chosen to be buried with the dead drank their fill of water, finally regaining a bit of strength. Struggling up from the ground, they knelt before Xuexue. "Bodhisattva, Goddess of Mercy, we beg you, show great compassion and save us. We’re still young, we don’t want to die yet."
Most of them had just been selected this year as potential consorts, and then were suddenly picked as burial offerings. Their families didn’t even know the news yet!
Most likely, no one would ever know, because the current Emperor would never allow this kind of affair to leak out. Even if some message were sent home, it would say they’d fallen ill in the palace and unfortunately passed away; as for the body and such, that would all be "taken care of."
In the Imperial Palace, whenever a palace maid died unjustly, the news sent home was always exactly the same. The Emperor would not permit anyone to smear the Royal Family; anything unpleasant, of course, would be sealed off and buried.
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