She Was Only Overstepping Her Station

Four hundred years ago, the imperial palace was filled with corpses.

Dark blood soaked the luxurious carpets, and a rusty, metallic stench filled the hall.

A seven-year-old child crawled out from under the pile of bodies.

Her hair was disheveled, her pale cheeks stained with blood, and her eyes, shrouded in gloom, were cold and lifeless.

Just as she was about to pick up a dagger and take her own life, the clear sound of a bell stopped her.

A woman in red approached with light steps, her bare feet crossing the bloodstained floor. A red cord around her ankle set off her pale skin.

At last, she stopped before Shen Rongji. Her cool, willow-leaf eyes were half-lidded.

"Would you come back with me?"

The vivid crimson reflected in her eyes. In that moment, life returned to Shen Rongji's gaze.

From then on, Shen Rongji became Rongji, standing with one foot in the gates of death.

She gave up her surname and kept only her given name, no longer belonging to the world of the living.

"..."

An underground corridor circled by the dead led to the underworld, and also to the human realm. It was the underworld's passageway into the world of the living.

For tens of thousands of years, the Soul-Returning Corridor had served no purpose of its own, but only to convey the unspoken words and fulfill the uncompleted wishes of the dead, so that wandering souls might pass on in peace.

Lou Yizhi brought Rongji back to the corridor, where Rongji stayed and learned how to care for the dead.

For more than three hundred years in the Soul-Returning Corridor, Rongji was by Lou Yizhi's side day and night. She practiced the art of returning souls by day and served Lou Yizhi at bedtime by night.

She applied medicine to her wounds, bathed her, and kept watch through the night...

The little ghosts in the corridor all said the current master was exceedingly strict with her successor: the slightest mistake meant kneeling beside the bed all night without sleep. She would use every means at her disposal to mold her into someone worthy.

Only Rongji knew for herself what a gift it was to kneel by her bed at night and serve her as she settled in.

Seven hundred years later, the successor to the Soul-Returning Corridor seized power, and the vast underworld was thrown into chaos in an instant.

Everyone outside knew that the white-eyed wolf Lou Yizhi had taken in had repaid her kindness with betrayal, and was utterly deranged. To seize control, she had imprisoned the woman who raised her in the palace and subjected her to humiliation day and night.

"You ungrateful child."

On the night desire took hold, Rongji pinned her down on the desk. Her hand coiled around the woman's waist like a venomous snake and slipped into a warm, wet place.

"Mother has always doted on Aji. You'll put up with everything Aji does, won't you?"

"Shen Rongji, you've gone too far."

Lou Yizhi's body had gone limp, and even her voice had lost its authority, trembling beyond her control.

"You're mistaken, Mother." Rongji's gaze was unfocused, as if she were lost in a beautiful piece of porcelain.

"How could there be a mother who doesn't love her child? So Mother loves Aji. And if that's true, how can you call what we're doing an outrage?"

Rongji curled her bloodied lips into a smile. Her fingertips loosened the red cord tied around Lou Yizhi's ankle, then traced a path upward from her ankle.

"Don't tremble, Mother..."

"..."

An ambitious orphan who dares to defy her superiors x a beautiful, powerful, and ill-fated adoptive mother

Set in an alternate world, with plenty of original details still to be developed~

There will be plenty of misunderstandings and differences in how they see things~

Synopsis screenshotted in February 2024.

This is part of my wild fantasy series, and I really want to write it! If you like it, please add it to your favorites! The more favorites it gets, the sooner I'll start writing, okay? qwq

Theme: None for now.