The Emperor's Female Official (Hiatus)

2

It took another night and dawn before they made it to the palace. Jade was taken back by just how larg it was.

The book description didn't do it  Justice. The palace was its own mini society in and of itself huge golden gates that kept it separated from the inner city. Every piece and bit of architecture seems to have been covered in some form of gold and gems that made every building twinkle and sparkle underneath the sun.

It almost felt illegal to be there and to witness as the sun rose behind the palace the higher it gets the more buildings glowed creating a Halo effect that washed over the entire place. She could see why this was such a sought after job, well any job in the palace to be honest who wouldn't want to live in a place that seems so magical. Yet unlike the others she was aware of what dangerous treachery could lie underneath all that glitter.

During the night she had a dream one of her old life and it made her reevaluate quite a few things. One she really was going to have to start blending in a bit more she has to play some of these women at their own game beat them to it even if you truly wanted to survive she couldn't just focus on her main death flag which was her very obnoxiously stupid friend she's going to have to focus on everyone.

Palace life shouldn't be any different from the corporate world. Meaning she's going to have to watch out for others she knows for a fact that there's always snakes in the garden and with a garden as beautiful as this one well there's definitely going to be more than one snake tempting Eve wouldn't there be?

It also dawned on her that as much as she hates the idea there's a high possibility that she's going to have to interact with the prince's. She didn't need to exactly be buddy buddy with them but it would make more sense for her to garnish the affection of more than one of them at least that way there is a higher possibility that if she isn't able to turn her dumb friend around. She'll have people that are also in higher positions to back her up.

The absolute last thing she needs is for things to seem as if they're going right just for them to go horribly wrong again. This isn't an opportunity for her to be sitting here playing chess while everyone's playing checkers oh no she needs everyone else to be playing motherfucking tic-tac-toe and connect four while she's playing chess checkers and mahjong around their asses.

A hundred steps ahead not two steps behind.

Her thoughts were interrupted as the carriage finally came to a stop. Looking around she noticed that they had completely entered one of the garage-like structures. Inside was nothing but women clearly a few of them maids some of them fellow hopeful officiants coming out of their own carriages. But one stood out she was an older woman her back was straight her head held high and she looked at everyone down her nose even though some of the other girls there were even taller than the woman yet she never lifted her eyes to view anyone. Clearly she was going to be the woman in charge of them during the first three levels of this test.

Jade could already feel herself getting a headache from having to deal with her. She's met this type of many times before they're normally women who come from nothing backgrounds. Having worked their way from the very bottom of the trenches by nothing more than the straps of their boots until they get to a higher position and then all of a sudden as far as they're concerned everyone else is nothing more than insignificant filth.

She'll never be able to fully understand how someone can come from the bottom to the top and yet completely forget about the fact that at one point they were the filth on the bottom of someone else's shoe. Then again sometimes the position and money just brings out a person's true character sadly most people's true character is trash in the first place.