A lone figure dressed in all white and hair covering her face walked into a grandly decorated bed chamber of the Duke's household upon entering she encountered an erotic scene of two people wrapped around each other, the sight enough to make a maiden blush but Sun Mei wasn't a maiden neither did she have the ability to blush as she was a ghost who was dead for the past three months.
The scene before her was one that she was used to, just two cheating murderers in bed huffing and puffing over each other. Mei rolled her eyes at the predictable situation. It was very clear those two couldn't keep their private parts off each other.
She stood at the corner of the room, staring at the couple making love.
She was nauseous, her fingers curling with disgust, embarrassed, not by the scene she was seeing in front of her but by how she was once head over heels in love with the man before her death.
Now that she was just a spectator, she discovered another side to her former husband she had never seen when she was alive.
She shook her head in disappointment as she looked at the man who had been the love of her life and was now buried deep in the arms of his little concubine.
It was very clear to Mei the concubine was faking her moans and exaggerated sighs because she was once in the concubine's shoes, and she, too, was forced to fake her moans all the time just to stroke the ego of that pathetic man whose only source of pride was the women he bedded.
She failed to understand how the two of them could be at peace after taking her life. She at least expected them to be guilty or regret it, but she had been watching them for three months, and not one of them showed any remorse.
She had prayed every day for lighting to strike them; with her experience, it was clear to her that evil people did not experience any karma and doubted whether it even existed.
For the past three months, she had been floating through the capital as a ghost, and now, with her newfound perspective, she realized how foolish she had been and how the man she fell in love with was a loser in every sense possible.
Each day she existed as a ghost, and every encounter she witnessed only deepened her deep disdain for him.
Everything about him was mediocre: his work, his personal life and, most importantly, his efforts in bed. He got breathless in mere minutes, and she wondered why she ever saw him as a prized treasure.
She looked at them in bed, cuddling, and wished she possessed a minor power as a ghost to torture them, but she could only watch, which infuriated her daily because she felt despair with each passing day.
Sun Mei had once had the opportunity of becoming the emperor's consort, but she declined to be the "Madam of the duke's household", and she regretted that decision every waking day of her miserable life.
At least the emperor had ambition, unlike the man in front of her.
The realization hit her every time that she had rejected a far better option of marriage just because all she heard was how the women in the palace spend all their lives vying for the favour of the emperor but once she stepped in the gates of the duke's household she realized vying for favours was in every household and by choosing that man she unintentionally gave her half-sister a good opportunity.
If only she had taken the opportunity to enter the palace, at least she would have been alive.
The emperor was popular with the female ghosts, although she had never been to the palace before she heard about his prowess in bed, and with the pitiful display before her, she felt cheated.
This was something she would have never admitted to herself when she was alive as she was raised to be a proper miss, but now that she was a ghost and could see all the hidden actions of people, her views changed completely.
She was influenced by Ling'er, a fellow ghost who died a virgin and spent almost every moment roaming around ranking men as per their capability in bed.
At first, she didn't want to listen to her, but with nothing to do as a ghost, she found herself listening more to Ling'er gossip, and as per the rankings of all the men in the capital, her former husband was the second last on the list.
She was tired of looking at them as the scene before her same every single time she saw them, and she left, vanishing into the darkness with a promise to hunt them as long as she existed.
She wandered aimlessly, feeling restless and bored as the last three months had numbed all her other feelings, except for boredom.
She heard a soft voice with traces of laughter inquiring whether she was from watching her husband and his concubine in bed, and not wanting to deal with her, Mei increased her pace, but she could feel the other ghost fast on her heels catching up with her.
She knew it was hard to get rid of Ling'er, so she turned to ask her what she wanted. On any other good day, she would have ignored this dirty-minded ghost, but boredom, especially after her ex-husband's boring show, made her slow down, letting Ling'er catch up.
Ling'er, being the nosy ghost that she was, blabbered about how the emperor was supposed to visit the empress tonight, but Mei's half-sister stole him right under the Empress's nose.
Linger suggested that they should go to the palace to watch another show.
This was not the first time Ling'er invited her to the palace as she had always invited Mei to accompany her to watch the palace drama but Mei always rejected every time not because she didn't want to see the drama but because she just didn't want to see her half-sister thriving as it would just be a painful reminder of the bad decisions she made.
But tonight, needing a distraction, she accepted the invitation and started floating to the palace with Ling'er.
Little did she know that was the start of her ties to the palace, which would last a long time, and her life in the palace narrated by generations to come.