Rebirth: So what if my husband is a little crazy? He loves me.

Chapter 36 Ruthless Killing

Shen Li was still looking at the painting Gu Chang'an had sent her after getting into bed. Behind the two tigers facing off, an inconspicuous flower was quietly blooming. The flower was called night-blooming jasmine.

This flower is mostly kept in mansions. It blooms during the day, but at night it produces poisonous gas in enclosed rooms. It is extremely dangerous to have this flower in the bedroom.

He was warning her that she was in a dangerous situation and to be careful of what was happening in the shadows.

"Miss, I'd better go sleep in the outer room. It's not proper for me to sleep here." Peony looked at the bedding she had made on the couch and felt uncomfortable no matter how she looked at it.

She didn't know why the young lady suddenly let her sleep in the inner room; she wasn't used to it at all.

"There might be danger tonight, so it'll be easier for you to protect me if you live nearby." Shen Li said, carefully putting away the painting, and then said, "Turn off the lights and go to sleep."

"Oh," Peony replied. Since that's how it is, she'll have to get used to it, even if she's not used to it.

Shen Li slept soundly. Shaoyao was alert at first, but she also started to doze off in the middle of the night.

A dark, triangular snake head slipped in through the crack under the door, silently crawled across the bed in the outer room, and then quickly crawled into the inner room toward the large bed.

Shen Li lay on the bed with her eyes closed, her neck exposed above the blanket.

"Hiss~"

The snake suddenly sprang up and opened its mouth towards Shen Li's neck. In the dim light of the inner room, its silvery-white fangs could even be seen.

Peony was startled awake by the sound. What she saw was the snake lunging at her mistress. Even if she flew over, it would be too late.

She was so frightened that she lost her voice.

However, just as the snake was about to bite, a hand shot out like lightning, pinching the snake's open head, and no matter how much the snake struggled, it couldn't break free.

Shen Li sat up, holding the snake in her hand. She looked at the little thing in her hand and realized it looked familiar. Come to think of it, she had dealt with it in her past life.

However, in her previous life, this little thing only appeared on the last night in the palace after she finished her painting, but in this life it appeared much earlier.

But it was as she expected.

"Miss...?" Peony's voice was hoarse. "Are you alright?"

"It's alright. This little thing thinks it can kill me? It's underestimating me." Shen Li was still teasing the snake with her other hand.

She was born with keen senses and had already woken up when someone quietly put the little guy down outside the hall. She could identify the snake's tracks just by listening, without even opening her eyes.

The talent that even Xiao's cousin, a martial arts prodigy, envied was no joke.

"I killed this beast!" Peony was furious after the initial shock, and she took a few steps forward to tear the snake in half.

"No." Shen Li dodged the snake for a moment and said, "Find a container to keep it in; I need it."

"You still want to keep this beast? It's a poisonous snake; one bite can kill a person."

"It didn't do anything wrong, the people are the ones who are wrong." Shen Li settled the little snake, made a tiny hole in the container, and fed it some meat with chopsticks.

"A person?" Peony pondered for a moment and lowered her voice: "You mean this snake was deliberately let in?"

"Is it hard to guess?" Shen Li asked with a smile.

"Yes, how could such a venomous snake appear in the palace, and why would it crawl into our room in the middle of the night?" Peony became more and more frightened as she spoke: "Miss, they wanted to kill you..."

She had only ever heard of the dangers in the palace, never imagining it could be this dangerous.

"Thinking and doing are two completely unrelated things. Let them think what they want." Shen Li's tone was indifferent, as if it weren't her own business.

Given her physical gifts, assassinating her would be more difficult than falsely accusing her of a crime, and of course, falsely accusing her of a crime wouldn't be so easy either.

"Miss, you'd better finish your painting quickly so we can leave." Peony became increasingly frightened as she thought about it. Today it was a snake, but who knows what it might be tomorrow?

The slightest mistake could cost them their lives; they couldn't afford to gamble.

“This painting will take some time to complete, and besides, are we going to suffer a loss for nothing this night?” Shen Li looked at the little snake and said slowly, “It is impolite not to reciprocate.”

Looking at her young mistress's calm and composed demeanor, Peony couldn't fathom what was going on in her mind, and finally gave up completely. All she had to do was obey.

"I'm going to sleep, or I'll get hungry." Shen Li patted her tummy, her voice sounding a little aggrieved.

I was a little hungry, and I also missed Gu Chang'an.

Peony only realized what was happening when she lay down. If she had been sleeping in the outer room, she probably wouldn't have been able to react in time to deal with the venomous snake, and she would probably be dead by now.

It's not her protecting the young lady, it's the young lady protecting her.

Shen Li felt as if she had just fallen asleep when she heard a knock on the door. When she opened her eyes, it was just getting light.

"Bang bang bang!"

Unlike before, this time the knocking was very rude.

Peony stood up alertly and looked at Shen Li: "Miss, should we open the door?"

"Don't open it." Shen Li was still half asleep, her eyes were a little blurry, but that didn't stop her from thinking a little.

After a while of knocking from outside, the head eunuch's eyes lit up, and he said to the other eunuchs, "Break down the door, I suspect something has happened inside."

They were prepared and broke down the door in no time, but before they could even get inside, a solid wood chair was thrown at them.

The eunuch's nose was instantly broken, and his front teeth fell out. He screamed in pain, and blood kept flowing.

Before the others could react, a whip lashed out from inside the door, raining down on the eunuchs.

In an instant, the eunuchs fled in terror, the sounds of whipping and screams echoing throughout the room.

Shen Li, in the room, smiled contentedly and continued to sleep, hugging her pillow.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

"What's going on?" Consort Zheng looked at the kneeling Peony and a group of eunuchs below. Her eyelids, which were a little swollen from waking up, twitched violently. She was furious.

"Your Majesty, we knocked on the door early this morning to bring water to Madam Gu, but this girl beat us up. You must stand up for us!" A young eunuch covered his face, which bore two bloody whip marks.

The person whose nose and front teeth were broken was almost covered in blood and had already fainted.

"Did your master order you to do this?" Consort Zheng asked Peony, her words probing.

According to the plan, the snake had been starving for three days, and neither the master nor the servant should have survived. How did one of them manage to escape?

"Your Majesty, these people started banging on the door without explaining why. When I heard the noise, I hurriedly dressed to open the door, but it was kicked open as soon as I got close. I thought they were assassins, so I attacked them."

Even when kneeling before Consort Zheng, Peony remained neither humble nor arrogant, and her answers were very precise.

Consort Zheng didn't want to hear any of that, and only asked, "Why hasn't your master come?"

All she wanted to know was how Shen Li was doing.

"My master is probably still asleep. I didn't see him wake up before I left."

Consort Zheng was almost certain of what had happened. How could someone not wake up after such a commotion? It could only be...