After transmigrating into the book, I helped my mother reconcile with her divorced husband.

Lu Zhiyuan smiled and took Princess Ping Le's hand: "No one is threatening me. It's just that I can't enter the palace at will. Even if I enter the palace by imperial decree, I can't move around in the palace as freely as Your Highness does, and I can't send messages to Your Highness at will."

Princess Ping Le sighed, "I misunderstood you. I didn't think of these things."

She glanced at the dilapidated palace before her and said, “Your mother knows you’ve entered the palace, but she doesn’t know you’re living in this one. To be honest, your mother doesn’t care much about things in the palace anymore. If she knew they’d put you here, she would definitely scold them. Come live with me! My palace is huge; it could fit ten of you and Liuying.”

"Thank you, Your Highness. I like it here."

"Are you unwilling to trouble this princess? You still don't consider me your friend." Princess Ping Le pouted, "How could you possibly like this palace? Do you even know where this is? This is the Yan Hua Palace!"

"Yanhua Palace? Isn't this Ronghua Palace?" Liuying pointed to the words on the palace gate: "This servant wouldn't mistake even these three words, would she?"

“That’s right, it’s called Ronghua Palace. Yanhua Palace is what people in the palace call it privately.” Princess Pingle waved her hand, and Lu Zhiyuan and Liuying stepped forward, forming a circle. “Don’t you think this palace is a bit strange? It’s smaller than the other palaces, and it’s not square. It’s like it was added to the palace. That’s right, it was added. It was built by my grandfather for his beloved Consort Ronghua when he was in power. It’s the farthest from the Empress’s palace and the closest to the Emperor’s Hall of State Affairs. You can also take a shortcut to the Imperial Garden. Look, just a hundred steps from the back gate of Ronghua Palace, you’ll reach the most beautiful garden in the palace.”

"Is Your Highness referring to Consort Rong?" Liu Ying's eyes gleamed with gossip.

“That’s her. I’ve heard she’s incredibly beautiful.” Princess Ping Le reached out and touched Lu Zhiyuan’s face. “She looks about the same as Yuan’er. She’s very pretty. Like Yuan’er, she was born with an illness. I heard she had a lung disease. After entering the palace, my grandfather had the imperial physicians treat her for a long time. She only became pregnant after three years in the palace, but she died in childbirth.”

"Is it because of a lung ailment?" Lu Zhiyuan pondered. "With the imperial physicians treating him with fine medicine, he should be fine."

"I asked my mother the same question, and she replied that childbirth is a life-or-death situation for women. It's normal for Consort Rong to have complications during childbirth given her poor health." Princess Ping Le looked up at the sky. "In his later years, my grandfather took in a concubine who looked remarkably like Consort Rong, and he favored her even more than Consort Rong had. She also became pregnant, and her child also had complications during childbirth. Unlike Consort Rong, her child was born a girl who looked exactly like her."

Liu Ying leaned closer: "What does this have to do with the Flower-Sore Palace?"

"After my father ascended the throne, five imperial concubines lived in Ronghua Palace. One of them was my mother. However, apart from me, they were all buried in Ronghua Palace like Consort Rong. People often compare women to flowers, and the palace where flowers wither is naturally called the Palace of Withered Flowers."

"Princess……"

“My mother and I survived because of the Empress Dowager.” Princess Ping Le’s innocence vanished. “After the late Empress passed away, the position of Empress was vacant for many years until the Empress Dowager entered the palace and succeeded to the throne. Although the Empress Dowager did not say it explicitly, Ping Le understood that what killed them was not this Yan Hua Palace, but the power struggles within this palace.”

After saying this, Ping Le reverted to her usual arrogant demeanor: "This palace is unlucky. Yuan'er, come with me to live elsewhere."

"Your Highness, you may not know this, but I have a fondness for this inauspicious place." Lu Zhiyuan looked around the Ronghua Palace.

Everyone dies, yet the living fear the dead, believing them to be unlucky. Little do they know that the dead are the most reliable people in the world. They speak little, never betray you, and never sell you out. Where there are dead, there is often no one to approach; and where no one approaches is the quietest and safest place.

As an assassin, she liked places like this.

Princess Ping Le couldn't refuse Lu Zhiyuan's request, so she had the palace servants help her pull weeds and clear away clutter. Since the head maid wouldn't allow anything to be brought in from outside the palace, she brought things in from inside, since every palace had unused items anyway. She would talk to her mother; as the most spoiled princess in the palace, it was normal for her to do even the most outrageous things.

The first day in the palace ended in a flurry of activity.

After dinner, Liuying brought over a reclining chair, and the young lady leisurely crossed her legs and admired the moonlight in the palace. Liuying sat beside her, gazing at the moon and then at the young lady lying there, sighing repeatedly: "Why doesn't the young lady go and stay with the princess? That old nanny came with ill intentions today. With the princess here, she certainly wouldn't dare to act recklessly."

Lu Zhiyuan shook her arm with her eyes closed and said in a muffled voice, "First, the princess is too noisy, and I find her annoying. Second, we're not staying in the palace temporarily, so we can't always be crammed together with the princess. It's inconvenient for the princess, inconvenient for us, and inconvenient for those who want to harm us. It wouldn't be good if we dragged the princess down with us. Third, I have my own things to do, and the princess's place is crowded and noisy, which would be troublesome for me. It's good here, quiet."

Liu Ying pouted, thinking to herself, "It's so quiet, just like the cold palace in the storybooks where abandoned concubines are kept."

A rustling sound came from outside the palace walls. Liu Ying got up and looked over, and saw a ghostly figure flash by. She was so frightened that she covered her mouth.

"It's not a ghost, it's a person."

Lu Zhiyuan stood up, gesturing for Liuying to remain seated, and quietly moved to the foot of the palace wall. A person was crouching there; from behind, it appeared to be a woman. She held a handful of dry grass, occasionally blowing on a tinderbox. Perhaps the wind in Ronghua Palace was too cold, for she couldn't get it to light despite her efforts.

Lu Zhiyuan peeked out with her hands folded: "You're too small for that. You need to be sheltered from the wind, and it's best to cover yourself with your hands."

The woman was startled and turned around to meet Lu Zhiyuan's gaze.

Lu Zhiyuan blinked and gestured with her lips: "Sister, your tinderbox is about to go out."

The woman threw the hay in her hand to the ground and looked at Lu Zhiyuan warily: "Which palace maid are you from? How did you end up here?"

Lu Zhiyuan casually pointed to the palace next door, and the woman breathed a sigh of relief: "You're also from the Empress's palace? Hurry back, or you'll be punished by the Empress!"

Next to Ronghua Palace is Jinxiu Palace, where Consort Jin resides. Consort Jin comes from the Fang family and, by seniority, should be Fang Zhi's aunt. Consort Jin is of average appearance and was not favored after entering the palace, having been favored by the Emperor a dozen times in total. However, her womb was fortunate enough to bear her twins, a boy and a girl, for the royal family, thus earning her the rank of Consort.

Consort Jin's two children were both mediocre, and since Consort Jin herself was out of favor, her daughter was married off to consolidate her power within the imperial court, and her son, not yet seven years old, was sent to Southern Chu as a hostage. Speaking of hostages, it seems there was also a hostage in the Northern Liang palace in Southern Chu.

It is said that she was raised under the care of Consort Jin.

Consort Jin had no grudge against her, so there was only one reason for her setting fire to the palace: to vent her anger on behalf of her niece, Fang Zhi.

Thinking of this, he took the tinderbox from the woman's hand and, in front of her, lit all the dry firewood at the foot of the palace wall. Not only did he light it, but he also threw some of it over the wall in front of her.

Inside the walls lay piles of withered grass that had been cleared away during the day, along with broken furniture that had been shoveled out of various rooms but hadn't yet been thrown away. Flames ignited the withered grass, which in turn set the broken furniture ablaze, and with a crackling sound, the fire grew increasingly intense.

Seeing that the fire was almost extinguished, Lu Zhiyuan grabbed the woman and shouted, "Fire! Ronghua Palace has been set on fire!"