"Qing Chen!"
For the first time, she addressed him directly by name.
"What do you want to do?"
"I merely wish to ask Your Highness to make up the last little bit of the price." Qing Chen stopped three feet in front of her.
At that distance, he was already close enough to smell the palace incense lingering at her collar.
It was nothing like the intense aphrodisiac fragrances of the Western Regions, carrying only a faint, cool trace of spirit orchid.
Consort Nian wore no makeup. Her skin was so fair it was almost translucent, and the exhaustion on her face instead lent her a dangerous sense of reality.
But the more openly Qing Chen displayed his desire, the deeper the disgust and humiliation in Consort Nian's heart grew.
She fully understood his meaning now.
"How dare you!"
The power of her Dharma Nascent Soul suddenly surged into the black jade hairpin. A layer of dim light spread over it, and a black phoenix with outstretched wings manifested from the depths of that radiance.
But before its wings could fully unfold, the surrounding space abruptly grew heavy.
Magnetic origin rule power closed in from every direction like an enormous invisible net, sealing off the Jade Desk behind her along with several yards of space.
Powerful Divine Sense at the half-Primordial Spirit level spread out at that same instant. Rather than striking her Sea of Consciousness directly, it precisely suppressed every spiritual energy node within the black jade hairpin.
The newly manifested black phoenix instantly froze and shattered.
Consort Nian's expression finally changed.
"Impudent!"
She stared at Qing Chen and said, enunciating every word:
"I am a noble consort personally appointed by His Majesty, ranked above a Five-Pearl Commandery Prince and second only to the empress, the crown prince, and