Carved railings and ornate windows, birch candles blazing high, embroidered curtains and gauze drapes, multicolored woolen rugs.
A mirror and lacquered boxes rested on the table. Everything used here was exquisite and splendid, delicately beautiful, unlike ordinary wares.
And now, within the quiet chamber.
A muffled groan sounded faintly from behind the bed curtains.
A yaksha-like maid started in alarm and cried out. Without waiting for instructions, she hurriedly swept aside a prayer cushion with her huge hand and thrust her large head inside the curtains.
When she saw Gu Yi lying pale-faced on the Jade Couch, traces of blood at the corner of her mouth, she received another shock.
Her brows bristled and her eyes bulged. She could not stop cursing, leaping with thunderous fury.
"Miss, you coughed up blood? What blind fool dared hurt you? The heavens damn him!
Tell me his name! I'll fetch my armor and weapons at once and mince that scoundrel into fine meat to avenge you!"
This maid belonged to the Flying Yaksha race. She was not human, but a demon from beyond the civilized lands.
She was hideous, her eyes and nose jutting sharply, her thighs like bronze pillars straddling the seas, her coarse hide like dragon scales.
As she grew angry, killing intent seethed across her face, adding several degrees of sinister demonic ferocity, terrifying to behold.
"There's no need to make a fuss. It's nothing serious. That Emanation merely died."
Gu Yi shook her head slightly and reached into her sleeve. First, she produced a glossy blue-jade porcelain bottle and pulled out its stopper. Then she tipped a longan-sized pill, wreathed in spiritual clouds and auspicious mist, into her palm and swallowed it.
Only after she had assimilated the pill,
And regulated her breathing through several complete circulations.
Did Gu