The Legend of the Concubine in the Harem

Judging from her appearance alone, it is not difficult to tell that Mrs. Guan was once a beauty, but time seems to have passed her by especially quickly. On her powdered face, deep grooves can be vaguely seen at the corners of her eyes, between her eyebrows, and on both sides of her nose, especially the one between her eyebrows, which makes her look like she is frowning sternly at all times, revealing a sense of aggressiveness and harshness.

"Who is causing trouble?" Madam Guan was wearing a glittering brocade dress, but the decoration on her bun was very simple, with only a plain silver hairpin with a pearl as big as the knuckle of her little finger on the hairpin. Her voice had already reached Lu Weiyuan before she even reached him.

Lu Weiyuan, who had fought all the way over, dragged the female yamen runner over and said, "Is that Madam Guan?"

The female yamen runner subconsciously looked at the blurry figure in front of her. The light was dim and they were at a certain distance. She could only see a large group of people coming. She couldn't tell who was leading them at all. But the female yamen runner still nodded vigorously and said, "It's her, it must be her! She is the only one in the cave who can mobilize so many people at once..."

After getting the answer he wanted, Lu Weiyuan threw the female yamen runner aside, stopped Hu Ziyi who was about to draw his long knife with a dark face, and took Mi Nian's hand and walked towards the direction of the person who came.

"Who are you? How dare you cause trouble in my building..." Several people came closer and closer.

Madam Guan stopped abruptly and ordered the guards on both sides of her to step forward and hide behind them. She then spoke, "It turned out to be Master. Didn't you go to the capital to look for your relatives? Why did you suddenly appear here?"

Mi Nian looked at Madam Guan who was hiding herself behind the shadow of the turtle man: "Madam, what you said is right... If I hadn't come here on purpose, I would probably die without knowing when the Hongyang Sect had such a gold-selling cave and a tomb of beauties."

"I am the nominal leader, but my job is really boring." Mi Nian smiled sarcastically.

Madam Guan quietly gestured to the people behind her while laughing in a gentle and disgusting tone: "Little leader, the old leader named you Mi Nian, which means "no thinking". It means you should not be obsessed with the position of leader. But I am still very happy for you, little leader. After all, you succeeded in becoming the leader, which shows that women can also be leaders. This is a good thing. What a pity, the first thing you did as leader was to eliminate the elders in the sect... Alas, you are so impatient, otherwise you would not have been plotted against and fled from the sect in disgrace, right?"

"It sounds like, Madam, you are also very dissatisfied with the current situation in the church?" Mi Nian didn't care about her sarcasm about her name. She didn't have a proper name to begin with. The reason why her adoptive father gave her the character Nian was simply because he couldn't find any trace of his sister at that time, so he blurted out this character.

It was perfunctory enough, but without all the extra malice and warnings.

"If Madam had been willing to lend me a helping hand during the internal strife within the sect in the past, I'm sure the situation wouldn't have turned out the way it is now." This was why Mi Nian didn't like Madam Guan very much. This woman didn't seem to have been completely brainwashed by the doctrine, turning her into a "resource" for the men in the sect to use at will. Instead, she was very motivated and, at first glance, seemed to be obsessed with power.

However, she always watched coldly as to the fate of the women in the sect. She was even happy to step on those women who had just joined the sect and were sacrificed by their families but refused to give up. It was precisely because of this that Mi Nian's subordinates had several conflicts with Madam Guan.

Mi Nian had always believed that the reason why Madam Guan stood aside and watched the internal strife in the sect was because there had been conflicts between the two of them. But after meeting her in person today, Mi Nian felt that it was not quite what she thought.

Upon hearing this, Madam Guan's voice turned a little colder: "It's not easy for women to survive in this world. I'm not like you, Little Sect Leader, who has a father who is a Sect Leader. I climbed up step by step from the bottom, and it took a lot of effort to get to my current position. But you want me to sacrifice my power for you?"

"You are a child who was raised by a man. You are naturally as selfish as a man." Madam Guan said, "I was happy for you to become the leader before, but now I think I should be thankful that you lost the fight. Otherwise, looking at your appearance, I am afraid that you will just hand over the position of leader to some man in the future. Let me guess, the old leader must have left a male heir outside, right?"

Her words made Mi Nian feel a great sense of absurdity and confusion, but Madam Guan raised her chin and continued to analyze: "No wonder you were named 'Nian' and always made to wear men's clothes and learn to do things like men. It turns out that the old leader used you as a substitute and shield for his own son. Ha, little leader, it turns out that the reason you have the confidence to fight against those men in the sect is because you have a man behind you."

After saying that, Madam Guan raised her hand and used her handkerchief to gently cover the corners of her lips that kept rising. "Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, I knew long ago that you were just a puppet who was attracted to men. Look at you, you are still wearing men's clothes. You must want to become a man too. What a pity. You are still a woman after all. No matter how many women in the church are gathered to you, you can never become a man and can't do things that only men can do."

"Little leader, don't be so devoted to men. We are born women and we will be women for the rest of our lives. People like you who betray our female identity are really holding us back."

"Madam." Seeing Mi Nian's increasingly puzzled expression, Lu Weiyuan finally couldn't help but speak out, "Since you think your young leader wears men's clothes, participates in the affairs of the church, and gives women in the church a place to go just to imitate men and want to become a man, then what have you done?"

Mrs. Guan instinctively turned her head towards Lu Weiyuan, but she stopped herself and refused to look at him. She dodged hastily: "Of course, I teach the sisters in the church to do what women should do. I teach them to be motivated! Let them learn how to use their inherent advantages as women to gain a firm foothold... Not everyone is obsessed with men's territory."

"Oh?"

"What did the lady do?"

"Don't tell me that the final way out that Madam gave them was actually in this place?"

Lu Weiyuan had already seen Madam Guan and the people behind her clearly. Except for Madam Guan and the two old maids behind her, the rest were all strong men. They all had proud smiles on their faces. On the contrary, the two old maids had the same bitter faces, with their mouths drooping all the time.