"Aunt Lan, you called for me? What's the matter?" Aunt Lan was diligently cleaning, sweating profusely, when Consort Dan summoned her.
"Aunt Lan, here, haven't you cleaned this area already?"
Diligent Aunt Lan replied proudly, "As soon as the guests left, I started cleaning. This front courtyard has already been gone over once. What's wrong, my lady? Do you think it's not clean enough? I can do it again."
Aunt Lan truly deserved her reputation as a model worker. She had been hired by Consort Dan precisely because of her diligence. But today, her excessive diligence had nearly ruined Consort Dan's big matter.
Consort Dan didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Then did you see a small medicinal pill bottle, about this big?"
"A pill bottle? What's that?" Aunt Lan was utterly confused. Something like a pill bottle was far too high-class for a cleaning lady like her to have heard of.
"It's just a small bottle with something inside."
Aunt Lan slapped her thigh. "Oh, I think I did find something like that! I tossed it into the trash pit. My lady, was it something useful?"
The moment Consort Dan heard the words "trash pit," she shot out like an arrow.
Leaving Aunt Lan utterly bewildered, standing frozen on the spot for a good while.
Beside the trash pit, heaps of refuse lay about. Consort Dan covered her nose, her lovely face twisted in a grimace of distaste.
But then, thinking of Elder Ning's astonishing appearance, having regained twenty years of youth, a surge of courage came from she knew not where.
She rolled up her sleeves, revealing slender, jade-white arms, and steeled herself against the stench, rummaging through the garbage heap.
A great beauty, famous throughout the noble circles of the Royal Capital, digging through a trash heap.
The scene was incredibly awkward no matter how you looked at it. Fortunately, this was the private grounds of the Grand Tutor's Villa, so there was no fear of anyone seeing it.
"I found it! It's this!" Consort Dan suddenly cried out from the pile, her beautiful eyes radiating wild joy.
A pair of jade hands, now covered in garbage and grime, clutched the pill bottle, her face wearing a silly, blissful grin.
Thankfully, the pill bottle was sealed, so she wasn't worried about the contents being contaminated.
Just as Consort Dan was beside herself with joy, Aunt Lan's shocked cry came from behind. "My lady, what are you doing? There's dog poop in that garbage heap! You..."
Consort Dan's entire being became chaotic. This embarrassing incident had actually been discovered!
Her head and face were flecked with mud, her arms even more soiled.
"Aunt Lan, what happened today, you are not allowed to speak of!" Consort Dan didn't really know how to be a villain, but she still tried her best to keep a stern face.
No matter how good her mindset was, she didn't want her image as a proper lady to be utterly destroyed just like that.
Aunt Lan found it all bewildering. She'd always known her lady Consort Dan to be meticulous about her appearance, yet today she'd completely overturned that, digging through garbage!
Was this still the same Consort Dan who had a cleanliness obsession?
She washed herself three times from head to toe, discarding all her expensive clothing. Now dressed in new attire, Consort Dan looked completely refreshed. Clutching the pill bottle like she was hugging a pot of honey, she felt utterly blissful.
Women love beauty, and the butcher's knife of time is beauty's natural enemy.
Consort Dan wasn't actually that old, only in her twenties. With her natural elegance and her diligent care for her appearance, she looked very youthful.
But Elder Ning's transformation had given her a massive psychological shock.
Elder Ning! That was a woman around forty!
To suddenly look like she was eighteen again—the impact of that was too staggering for Consort Dan.
Though she was only in her twenties now, the thing women feared most was that butcher's knife of time, feared most was growing old.
Think about it—even now, only in her twenties, forty was just over a decade away.
These dozen or so years would fly by. Even for a woman like Consort Dan, sometimes thinking about the cruel reality that youth fades, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of fear.
So, when she heard the five words "Evergreen Pill," how could she not be excited?
Elder Ning had taken the Evergreen Pill and instantly regained her appearance from twenty years ago! The feeling of regaining youth, the temptation of eternal beauty—even Consort Dan couldn't resist it.
Suddenly, she remembered what Jiang Chen had forcefully pressed into her hand before leaving—wasn't it the Evergreen Pill?
No wonder she had hurried away so quickly at the time.
"Jiang Chen, if this Evergreen Pill is real, I'll reluctantly not hold the previous matters against you!"
Consort Dan lay on her bed, feet propped on a chair, reminiscing about the day's events.
"'Enjoy eternal youth, appearance like heaven's,' those eight words he spoke seem to accurately describe the Evergreen Pill's effects. Could it be that this Evergreen Pill is also connected to him?"
The moment this thought struck Consort Dan, she sat bolt upright, a look of deep contemplation appearing on her lovely face.
"The secrets of the Fengjiao beast, the Nine Hua Jade Dew Wine... this Jiang Chen is full of surprises. To say the Evergreen Pill is connected to him—what's impossible about that?"