Chapter 15: The Sacred Body of the Begonia Bloom

Around the end of the early morning hour, when the sky just began to lighten with a pale fish-belly white, many palace maids were already bustling back and forth along the alley, carrying breakfast and hot water.

Inside the Brocade Elegance Pavilion, Ting Mei poured hot water into a copper basin, then quietly approached the bedside and whispered, “Young Mistress, it’s time to get up.”

As usual, He Yushan was the first to rise, followed closely by Zhong Miaozhen. Only after hearing Pan Yulian’s faint reply did Ting Mei leave the courtyard to fetch breakfast from the small kitchen.

Still groggy, Pan Yulian didn’t rush to lift the bed curtain but habitually activated the system first.

[Beep—!]
[Check-in successful]
[You have received a voucher *1]

Having completed the check-in, Pan Yulian slowly sat up, shaking off her drowsiness. Just as she was about to close the system, a sudden exclamation mark popped up on the screen—a sharp contrast to the silent, lifeless page she’d seen since entering the palace, where she had been ignored and unable to afford any favor-seeking tools.

Clicking on the exclamation mark, a line of coral-red letters edged with gold appeared:

“Dear one, are you still suffering because you blend into the crowd unnoticed after entering the palace, neglected and unable to afford tools to vie for favor?”
“Dear one, are you still troubled by not having enough gold leaves to purchase palace intrigue packs in the game?”
“The selection is near; activate the exclusive welfare recharge event now. The more you recharge, the more you earn. Enjoy freedom with packs and tools, and experience worry-free palace intrigue.”

Pan Yulian quickly read through the brief message.

Her only thought afterward:
Money!! Money!!! Give me money!!!!!

However... all her assets had already been thrown into the initial recharge, and without the “angel investor” she’d hoped for, Pan Yulian simply couldn’t afford to recharge again.

After all, one yuan recharged gave 100 gold leaves—equivalent to 100 taels of gold or 1,000 taels of silver now.

Frankly, if this were modern times and she were recharging with RMB, getting 100 gold leaves for just one yuan would feel great.

But staring at the recharge page now, Pan Yulian could only curse the game’s currency designers, wondering if they had secretly added two extra zeros behind the scenes!

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she reminded herself that a magical game costing a fortune was somewhat understandable.

She examined the golden-glowing prize wheel densely marked with multipliers:

1.5x, 2x, 2.5x... the highest was 15x.

Any recharge would activate the wheel, and wherever it landed, the gold leaves gained from that recharge would multiply accordingly.

Looking at it this way, the game’s claim of guaranteed profit wasn’t a lie—since the minimum multiplier was 1.5x, any spin would increase the amount, and the voucher counted as a real recharge too.

Seeing the 44 one-yuan vouchers in her inventory, Pan Yulian hesitated not a moment before clicking to use them for recharge.

“Dear Young Mistress, please confirm using 44 yuan in vouchers for recharge?”

Silently mouthing “Confirm,” Pan Yulian agreed.

With a clatter, the money landed in her account.

“Recharge successful. Thank you, Young Mistress, for your strong support. Please participate promptly in the welfare event.”

Her previously empty account instantly gained 4,400 gold leaves.

Just a glance at the hundreds and thousands of golden leaves was far more satisfying than a few or a dozen.

After a quick look at the newly arrived gold leaves, Pan Yulian calmly clicked to spin the prize wheel.

What? You say Pan Yulian was too calm?

Ha, if luck were on her side, she would have been kneeling, banging the floor to pray for blessings. But Pan Yulian knew herself well—the game’s guaranteed minimum draw was designed specifically for people like her.

Looking at the wheel stopping at 1.5x, she calculated silently: 4,400 gold leaves would become 6,600 gold leaves.

After the selection ended and she returned to the Pan estate, she planned to shamelessly beg and plead for a bit more, enough to buy a 68-yuan pack (6,800 gold leaves) when officially entering the palace.

If she failed to enter?

Then naturally, there would be no future, so there was nothing more to say.

“Luck doesn’t change fate, but spending money does,” Pan Yulian murmured softly, clicking to start the wheel.

As the wheel spun rapidly, she casually tapped the screen—

Soon, the wheel stopped...

Clatter, clatter—the sound of countless gold leaves falling resonated back and forth.

[Bang!]

The entire screen exploded in fireworks.

“Congratulations, Young Mistress! Your luck is overflowing—you’ve drawn the highest multiplier, 15x!!!”
“You truly are a person of destiny!”

Pan Yulian’s eyes widened—

“Ah!!!”

At the dressing table, He Yushan, who was just shaping her eyebrows before the mirror, was so startled by the sudden scream that her hand trembled, and her eyebrow drawing went askew.

“Smack!”

She threw down her eyebrow pencil angrily and turned to scold, “Pan Yulian, what curse have you caught? What’s with the yelling this early in the morning!”

Behind a bed curtain, Pan Yulian knelt on the bed, tightly covering her mouth, her heart pounding and dizziness swirling as her whole body trembled with excitement.

At that moment, she could hear nothing else.

“One, ten, hundred...”

She trembled as she counted over and over.

Exactly 66,000 gold leaves!

If taken out, that was a full 66,000 taels of gold—660,000 taels of silver!

So much money, such an enormous sum—if she truly had this much... even without the system, it would be enough to change her fate!

Kneeling on the bed, Pan Yulian pressed her head against it, eyes closed, forcing herself to calm down.

Inside the room, after hearing no response from Pan Yulian for a long while, He Yushan’s irritated hand paused wiping her brows. She hesitated, then glanced over at Zhong Miaozhen.

Zhong Miaozhen, washing her face, also stopped and looked toward Pan Yulian’s bed, then back at He Yushan.

They exchanged a glance, and Zhong Miaozhen sighed softly.

Wiping her face with a handkerchief, she gracefully moved with He Yushan to Pan Yulian’s bedside.

“Pan Yulian?”

He Yushan called out, still no sound.

Just as she hesitated whether to lift the bed curtain, the pale blue curtain fluttered, and Pan Yulian, cheeks flushed, peeked her head out.

At this moment, Pan Yulian’s mind was filled with thoughts of her gold leaves; she just wanted to get rid of the others quickly, so she softly said, “Sorry, sorry, I slept with my leg pinned all night. I wasn’t prepared to move and made a sound.”

“I need to rest a bit before I can get up. You two sisters go ahead and have breakfast.”

Hearing this, Zhong Miaozhen relaxed, nodded at Pan Yulian, silently reciting a few Buddhist prayers before turning back to wash her face.

He Yushan also breathed out, grumbling under her breath about Pan Yulian’s sudden fright but resumed shaping her eyebrows.

Once Pan Yulian put down the bed curtain, the interruption settled her nerves.

She quickly browsed the in-game store items. Although not many items were unlocked before officially entering the palace, the grand selection was in two days—every point mattered.

Store:
[Cloud Dress Feather Garment Card*1 — 100 gold leaves, Talent Gathering Card*1 — 100 gold leaves, Beauty Portrait*1 — 1000 gold leaves, Quality Seeds*10 — 1000 gold leaves, Silver Leaves*100 — 10 gold leaves, Upgrade Books*10 — 2000 silver leaves, Rumor Bird*1 — 10,000 silver leaves (VIP Level 1 unlock)]...

The prices in this store made Pan Yulian gape.

What was more terrifying was that neither clothing nor character draws had any guarantee.

Take the clothing for example—

The Cloud Dress Feather Pavilion contained 200 sets of attire, each divided into makeup or hairstyle, clothes, shoes, earrings, headwear, hand accessories or handheld items, and necklaces.

A single outfit required 20 shards to piece together.

With so many outfits, without any guarantee, the worst luck could mean drawing a huge number of shards but never completing a full outfit.

Even if she managed to piece together a few items like accessories, she wouldn’t complete a full set.

Without a complete set, there was no set bonus—a complete waste of effort.

Character draws were just as harsh. The Talent Gathering Pavilion had 150 characters, each requiring 100 shards to assemble, with the added frustration of duplicate shards.

“A zero-spending version of ‘Favor of the Six Palaces’.”

Tsk tsk, as expected, the so-called free version was the most expensive—first unleashing a bunch of flashy benefits just to lure people in for slaughter.

Pan Yulian muttered a few complaints before adjusting her mindset.

She comforted herself that spending money to change fate wasn’t the worst.

If she were truly left alone in this world, facing the disgraceful unlucky storyline, that would be the real nightmare.

After much deliberation, Pan Yulian opted to purchase a pack, since it had a guarantee.

For example, the super-value 648-yuan pack was the most expensive in the store, guaranteeing a five-star outfit, an SSR character card, a character upgrade card to ‘Kingmaker Talent,’ a rare dreamlike piece of furniture, and a special item.

Less but better was far superior to more but miscellaneous.

“Dear Young Mistress, you will use 64,800 gold leaves to purchase the 648-yuan super-value pack. Please confirm your purchase. Once sold, this pack is non-refundable.”

“Confirm.”

Her newly replenished account instantly dropped to just 1,200 gold leaves.

Pan Yulian’s fingers trembled as she opened the pack.

First, two glowing golden cards appeared—random SSR character cards.

Fortunately, one more than the guaranteed one.

Kingmaker Talent Upgrade Card*3: can upgrade character cards to Kingmaker Talent.

(Note: initial character card levels start at Good Historian and require books and silver leaves for upgrades, in this order: Good Historian Talent, Extraordinary Talent, Worldly Talent, Supreme Talent, Rare Talent, Kingmaker Talent.)

Oh, so characters needed upgrading?

Pan Yulian glanced at Ting Mei on the system page, trying to apply the Kingmaker Talent card, but the system popped a message—

Due to the special environment of the Young Mistress, only SSR character cards are eligible for upgrades.

After the prompt, a golden compass icon appeared.

Guiding Compass (One-time timed item): The Young Mistress can mentally recite the target character’s name, and the compass will indicate their location in real time for twelve hours, allowing for encounters.

Another magical item.

Pan Yulian wondered if it could be useful before the selection, when suddenly the entire screen erupted in a dazzling burst of pink and gold light.

“Congratulations, Young Mistress, for drawing the six-star outfit, Langyuan Begonia (Pastel Limited Edition)!!!”
“Congratulations, Young Mistress, for drawing the six-star outfit, Langyuan Begonia (Pastel Limited Edition)!!!”
“Congratulations, Young Mistress, for drawing the six-star outfit, Langyuan Begonia (Pastel Limited Edition)!!!”

Almost blinded by the radiance, Pan Yulian stared at the screen in astonishment—

Out of the 200 sets in the Cloud Dress Feather Pavilion, which she had examined thoroughly many times, the highest was only five stars. Where had this six-star come from?

The screen’s extravagant golden-pink glow continued flashing:

“Six-star outfit (Pastel Limited Edition) — Langyuan Begonia.”
“Set effect: Begonia Sacred Body.”
(Note: This limited edition set is unique. Due to the Young Mistress’s special environment, once worn it cannot be removed or transferred. Please wear with caution.)

No scores, no attributes, no flashy explanations—so simple it was almost perplexing.

But who in the world could resist the allure of a limited edition?

Pan Yulian, uninterested in the bundle of materials, furniture, and silver leaves that followed, didn’t hesitate for a moment and chose to wear it immediately.

“Please confirm wearing the outfit. Note: Once worn, it cannot be removed, and the set effect will take effect immediately.”

Pan Yulian happily and decisively confirmed, “Confirm.”

The garment, top in the wardrobe and shimmering with golden-pink light, permanently turned gray.

Was it done?

Pan Yulian tugged at her sleeve and looked—still the same plain pale blue undergarment.

Quietly pondering the words ‘Sacred Body,’ Pan Yulian solemnly raised her hand and performed a gesture, “Sacred Body, manifest!”

...

Well, palace intrigue was palace intrigue; she wasn’t going to become an immortal.

Pan Yulian nonchalantly lowered her hand but couldn’t help thinking she should have downloaded an immortal cultivation game before dying.

Lifting the bed curtain, Pan Yulian swung her legs down and got up. She appeared casual but purposely made an arc in front of the others.

After all, a six-star limited edition outfit should have some obvious special effect, right?

Sure enough, He Yushan’s gaze burned as she looked up at her.

Pan Yulian almost held her breath, looking at He Yushan intently—