Everyone said that General of the Nation Ling Chen had married an extraordinary princess consort.
She was a surviving scion of the former imperial house, a beauty whose looks could topple kingdoms. To the general, she was a delicate flower, so precious that he feared even touching her might break her.
The general once told the emperor, "My wife is a hothouse flower. She can't lift a shoulder or carry a hand."
At the time, his wife had just finished dealing with the rebels. She wiped beads of blood from her slender fingers as a heap of "bandits" lay at her feet. Her black iron whip dripped with blood in one hand, while the cold gleam of a long saber shone in the other.
The general also once sighed in court, "My wife only knows a little embroidery. She's refined and demure. How could she know anything about underhanded tricks?"
That night, a chill wind swept through the rear courtyard of the prince's residence. A century-old vengeful ghost was pierced through the bones by the princess consort's soul-tempering silver needles and made into a giant "kite." It drifted and wailed beneath the cold moonlight, becoming a terrifying sight in the capital.
The general often lamented to his colleagues, "My wife is timid as a sparrow. She faints at the sight of blood. Don't even mention catching ghosts, she's frightened by ghost stories."
Deep in Purgatory, a thousand-year-old Ghost King who had once been slapped by the princess consort until his spirit scattered and his teeth went flying heard these words and roared with grief and outrage, his voice echoing through the Underworld: "Ling Chen! Pluck out your eyes and let me kick them around like balls! Your wife's so wild she could dig a tunnel into the Underworld, and you still don't have a clue?!"
Until the day the immortals and demons descended and the cycle of reincarnation teetered on the verge of collapse. The beautiful princess consort, sickly as a flower, slowly shed her finery. Her ink-black hair whipped wildly, her eyes took on the hue of the Underworld, and the phantoms of a hundred thousand ghosts and gods appeared behind her. She glanced back at the general, whose face was frozen in "shock," and smiled sweetly:
"Husband, should we tear down the Southern Heavenly Gate first, or blow up the Demon Abyss?"
The general, who had always been "kept in the dark" by her, lightly brushed off his sleeve. "As you wish."
