THE YILING MATRIARCH

Chapter 40 : What hides in Golden Hall

A/N: Here is the chapter you've all been waiting for!! It's a little longer than I originally wanted it to be, but that's ok and more than makes up for the long time in between chapters. Enjoy!

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After returning to their room, Meifeng saw it to be quite ornate and spacious, which seemed to be quite normal for the Jin Sect to subtly show off their wealth by the luxury shown in the architecture of their buildings and landscape. Not used to such plush living quarters because of her experience both in Gusu and Yunmeng, she wanted to gag just a little bit at the gaudiness of it all.... But now was not the time no matter how much she wanted to.

Searching through the drawers, he found a pair of scissors and a stack of paper. With just a few cuts, she created a paperman that would be just the right size for sneaking around Lanling without getting caught. The paperman, with a round head and unusually long sleeves that resembled butterfly wings, was only as tall as her finger. Taking a brush pen from the table, she painted a few strokes to it that would give it life and, after taking a mouthful from a liquor cup, the paperman suddenly twitched. With a few trembles, its wide sleeves lifted its weightless body into the air, as though they were wings.

It flitted about and landed on the tip of Lan Wangji shoulder, the man looking to the side at his shoulder as the paperman threw itself onto his cheek. It climbed upward, all the way to his forehead ribbon, and tugged at it, as though the ribbon was its favorite thing in the world. Lan Wangji let the paperman wriggle on his ribbon for some time until it slid its way down as fast as it could. No matter intentionally or not, it bumped its head once against his lips, insinuating a kiss that caused him to glance over at a blushing Meifeng.

"Don't look at me... I certainly didn't tell it to do that." Upon wishing the paperman well-wishes, it was off and snuck out the bottom of the door. The Carp Tower was predictably well guarded, with guards at almost every corner, but people's sleeves and doors made excellent hiding places as it traveled the tower. While passing by the Blooming Garden, Meifeng heard through the paperman a sound of someone crying and two other voices trying to comfort the weeping person. It was Lan XiChen and Jin GuangYao with Nie HuaiSang crying in a drunken state as both men were trying to ease his complaining about things that his blubbering made hard to understand completely. 

However, it wasn't the three that caught Meifeng's attention, but another grand place with at least thirty-two pillars made of gold that had higher security than Carp Tower.

This place was the Fragrant Palace, a grand five-ridged pagoda with a glazed roof that gleamed bright in the evening light, and the home of the Lanling Jin Sect leader. Sneaking inside was so easy, seeing there was no one around the palace, seeing how Guangyao and Xichen were outside consoling Huisang, and slipped inside under a closed door with ease.

Inside the palace, layers and layers of golden gauze cascaded onto the ground and a dragon-shaped incense burner sat on top of its stand, exuding clouds of aromatic smoke through its nostrils. Amid the extravagance, there was a sweet yet languid sense of decadence that added to the grand scene around that Meifeng could almost smell through the paperman that she controlled.

Seeing an already opened envelope underneath a paperweight that strangely didn't have any sort of indication as to who it had been from or who it was addressed to. As she tried pulling it from the paperweight so that she could see what the envelope contained, the woman was reminded of one painful flaw her spell had on the paperman she had created: it was still paper, therefore was extremely light and could easily rip if she tried doing something beyond the paper's abilities. Giving up for now on the envelope, she was about to investigate the rest of the room when suddenly the door opened, causing the paperman to hit the deck quickly so that whoever entered didn't see her.