Murim's Weakest Princess

Chapter 310: Godmother’s Gift

"Little Anji, it’s me. Are you busy?"Putting away her brushes and letting the ink dry, Anji opened the door to welcome her godmother. During her stay at the Red Palace, Hong Nian Niang had been a regular visitor. Even in the absence of her birth mother, the Vermillion Sect Leader always made sure to make Anji feel at home.

"I will never be too busy for you," she smiled and invited the lady in. "It’s very late now. Have all the customers gone home?"

Living at the Red Palace for a while meant Anji understood business operations better. Although Hong Nian Niang did not often appear in front of guests, she personally inspected everything behind the scenes and instructed staff. Her husband, managing the front desk, was capable, but nobody was more insightful than Hong Nian Niang. Not to mention, with her second brother in Luoyang, it was up to Hong Nian Niang to manage the information guild’s administrative matters.

"It was a slow night," the lady in red closed the door behind her. "More importantly, what have you been up to? You seemed very busy."

Hesitating, Anji glanced at her journal with the ink still drying. The observant Vermillion Sect Leader noticed with interest the notes Anji made.

"Is this why you’ve been asking about female cultivators and their monthly cycle?" she mused, picking up the journal to browse.

Anji did not stop her. It was not a true secret, and Hong Nian Niang did help her compile the research information as a subject. However, she had no idea what the Vermillion Sect Leader would do when she reached the topic about dual cultivators as an irregularity study.

Remaining as silent as a mouse, Anji waited with bated breath as Hong Nian Niang’s fingers stopped leafing through the freshly inked pages. Her eyes froze at the section that mentioned her name before continuing to read the rest of the page.

For a few minutes, the room was deathly still. Nobody moved a muscle. Not even Anji could tell if she was still breathing until Hong Niang Niang slowly turned towards her and pointed at the footnotes.

"Is this true? Can it really be cured?"

It was the mention of a hypothetical treatment for Hong Nian Niang’s dual-cultivation barren state and its causes. In theory, it was possible. However, nobody had attempted it before. The odds were slim.

"It’s mere speculation and theoretical," Anji explained calmly, not wanting to get Hong Nian Niang’s hopes up. "There is no long-lasting harm to try, but the payoff could take decades. Nobody knows if it would work, but you’d need a very skilled spell master like my shifu or the Elders of the Mystical Qilin Sect to implement the seal correctly and gradually to prevent causing damage."

Despite the cautionary advice, the sparkle of hope in Hong Nian Niang’s eyes never dimmed.

"It’s a good theory to test," she smiled. "There’s nothing to lose from trying, is there?"

Smiling in encouragement, not wanting to dampen that hope, Anji nodded.

"When the war concludes, you could definitely consider it!"

Chuckling, Hong Nian Niang closed the journal and hugged Anji.

"Thank you," she whispered. "You’d make a fine aunt for my future child."

Aunt? For some reason, that term felt foreign. Why would she become the aunt of her godmother’s child?

"In hierarchy, shouldn’t I become a big sister instead of an aunt?" Anji pouted.

Raising a brow, Hong Nian Niang hummed.

"Normally, yes. However, it would be weird to have my gynaecologist become my child’s sister, wouldn’t it?"

...

"You want me to do the seal for you?!"

Blinking innocently, Hong Nian Niang pulled her best kicked puppy look.

"Are you not going to take responsibility for your research? I thought you knew best how to treat such cases. Is there anyone else in the Mystical Qilin Sect who knows medicine and spells as well as you?"

Blackmail! Anji knew what it was. Yet, the emotional blackmail was super effective. There was no way to refuse or refute. Anji blamed her parents for being such righteous people. She could not even deny it with how Hong Nian Niang phrased things. Unlike her second brother, who was as twisted as a snake, Anji was too upright when bombarded with undeniable facts.

Squeezing her eyes shut in defeat, Anji groaned. Even without looking, she knew how those red painted lips would curl up in a smirk of victory. Her godmother was truly an opponent designed to seal Anji’s defeat.

"Anji will do it," she sighed with heavy drooping shoulders. "It’s a gift for my godmother, I’ll become an aunt even if I’m too young to be one."

Laughing aloud at the ridiculous comment, Hong Nian Niang had never seemed more amused. How could anyone be too young to be an aunt? Generational hierarchy was never defined by age. Even if a man of sixty has a daughter by a third wife, she is by default an aunt to existing grandchildren, even when she was still in her mother’s womb.

"I’m just teasing you," she pinched Anji’s cheeks lightly.

Lately, these dumpling cheeks have been getting leaner, a sign of Anji maturing into a teenager, even if nobody knew her first bleeding had arrived.

"Noble Consort Liu mentioned they had managed to use the gemstones to clear the outer area. You should be able to take a peek inside by the time you return. However, I have to update you about the strange movements ever since your second brother left for Luoyang."

According to Mingshen’s latest letter by pigeon, he found the missing link to how the demonic cult was slipping supplies into Chang’an.

"We thought it was through a merchant trail, but he discovered it was actually a travelling circus troupe. They wear skin masks, so identifying them would be difficult. In the worst-case scenario, they could have infiltrated the Red Palace as a performer or even the palace as a dancer. My sworn sister knows about this, but we have no way of identifying them as they are not cultivators, merely informants and distributors."

Performers?! Not even Anji could have thought about it. However, it made sense why nobody caught them yet. They were hiding in plain sight.

"We will catch them soon now that we know," Anji had faith. "But they might already know of my attempts to investigate the ancestral hall. My brother could be in danger in Luoyang because he is the only one behind enemy lines now. Is it possible for you to bring him back? We need another strategy meeting to approach cautiously."

Hong Nian Niang agreed with her. Now that they knew more, it was too risky to probe for more. Like how they knew their enemy’s weakness, the enemy might have theirs too. Mingshen had a reckless side to him and might venture too far out when he was locked onto a target. It would not be the first time he returned hanging on by the thread of his breath. Hong Nian Niang could never stop him, no matter how much she lectured him. It was exactly how Zhao Mingfeng was in the last murim war as well. Everyone thought Bai Dajin was reckless, but Zhao Mingfeng and Zhang Yi were no better.

"I’ll do that," she reassured Anji. "Don’t worry about it. In fact, I actually came to give you pocket money."

Pulling out a small but heavy pouch, Hong Nian Niang pushed it across the table and grinned.

"Thanks to your new monthly bandage-inspired underwear, sales are booming. As a shareholder, this is your portion. Our biggest customers are our dancers because their outerwear doesn’t stain easily and makes movement easy."

Anji opened the pouch, and her jaw fell. Normally, she would receive silver nuggets and copper coins as pocket money from her older brother. Even that was enough for Anji to buy snacks from the streets for weeks. However, it would be her first time seeing real gold ingots. She originally thought only imperial funding, banks and large merchants carried these around.

"I’m going to get robbed carrying this around," Anji concluded. Then, she removed two small gold ingots from the pouch and dropped them into Hong Nian Niang’s hands.

"These are for you, godmother. It’s the first money I made, so I want you to have it. As for the rest, could you help me send it to my parents and shifu?"

Not one to have ever received pocket money of any sort, Hong Nian Niang stared at the two small gold ingots. Her dress alone cost more than this paltry sum. However, receiving it from Anji made them worth more than a thousand gold ingots each.

Patting the child’s head fondly, she smiled and made a prayer to the heavens that night. If she ever had a child, she wished they would be as lovely as Anji.