Zhu Chun, General

I stay at the palace for the night, reading up further on the white foxes while Zhu Chun is busy selecting the guards for tomorrow’s outing. She will bring five of her best people. Then there will be me… and hopefully Feng Yu and Liu Renqing. I don’t think they can refuse the summons of the queen, after all.

The room I have been led to is quite large and I’m sitting on the bed, reading the material I was allowed to borrow from the queen’s library. It’s supposedly my old room, or Zhu Qiu’s room, to be precise. It consists of a sitting area, an office and a bedroom, all meticulously clean and obviously well maintained, even though the princess will never return. I’m too tired to look around and there isn’t much I would consider personal anyway. No wonder, if she hasn’t lived in these rooms since she was six. Even during the drama run, I often thought about what Zhu Qiu thought about leaving the luxury and safety of the palace and being forced to train for a destiny she didn’t choose herself.

The books are revealing, even though I only have time to skim the contents. The white foxes have indeed been seen as an inauspicious sign for hundreds of years. In the past they have often been killed as newborns, since their very presence was said to attract ghosts and demons due to their overabundance of yin. They have even been blamed for the death’s of their mothers prior to and during childbirth. When it was forbidden to kill them, they were kept apart from the main families until the majority of fox people decided to get rid of them completely by putting all of the white foxes into their own settlement, far away from everyone else. I can see why they would participate in an attack on an empire which treated them so poorly. White foxes are also almost always male despite their yin-affinity, which is a fact that did nothing to help them in a world that is ruled by women.

The topic is fascinating, but I am tired. I fall asleep with the book still in my hands and wake up like this too, stirring when a maid is tidying up the things around me. She excuses herself at least five times when she realises she woke me, but I’m quick to wave her apology away. I have to get up anyway to join the expedition. My sect uniform lies on a nearby table, freshly laundered. There’s also a bowl of fruit I’ve never seen and I can’t help but try them. It tastes sweet and slightly tangy, the juice spilling out when I bite into them.

“Good, aren’t they?” a familiar voice rings in my head.

“Zhiyu!” I shout and immediately put a hand over my mouth, since that was loud. “Sorry. But I… You’re still there!”

“I woke up with you this morning.”

“So you haven’t seen anything since the fight?”

“It was hazy at the time, but I can’t remember now… I’m glad to see my body is still alive, though. I’m going to go back to sleep to preserve my energy. If you need me, concentrate like you did to shift into dragon form and I will wake up.”

“Thank you, Zhiyu,” I say, but the pressure in my head is already gone. I ball my hands to fists. Murong Zhiyu… Zhu Qiu is a better person than I could ever claim to be. Sure, one could argue she’s preparing to save her body again, but if it was me, I would be snooping and complaining non-stop. Is it the cultivator training she’s gone through? Is that why she’s so calm and focused? Could I achieve the same?

I mull over this as I dress and pick up the sword. The weight no longer feels foreign in my hand. Compelled by my inner child, I draw the sword and hold it out in front of me. Right. There was one thing I still wanted to ask her. I close my eyes and concentrate on Murong Zhiyu’s presence… and just like that, I can feel her alongside me.

“I don’t think we’re in danger here,” she remarks and I can hear the smile in her voice.

“Can you tell me some basics of sword fighting? I’d rather be able to defend myself than to rely on you for everything.”

“Very well. I observed you in the fight to protect the merchants. It was amateurish, but you have some talent. Well, that may be because I trained my body enough to compensate even for unnecessary movements. Hold the sword. I’ll tell you what to correct.”

It’s a wondrous thing to have someone know exactly what muscles you’re using or aren’t using. She corrects my stance, my hold, my swing. She gives me instructions on balance, on the strengths of her body. Everything she can do in the half hour we spent together, she does, even though it feels more like a triage than a training. Still, she seems satisfied when she fades away. When I feel alone again, I have to sit down to catch my breath. The way she directed me to use her vast cultivation is exhausting, but it is necessary for me to survive. I dread the inevitable fight. It will happen in the city or somewhere else, but it will happen.

Outside Zhu Qiu’s rooms are several maids waiting for me. I’ve always wondered what they must be thinking, staying around all day, waiting for someone to make a move. Then I remember the retail job I once held. At least there the worst thing that could’ve happened was to be fired. Here it could probably end your life. The maid asks me to follow and I walk after her through several hallways and gardens until we end up on the other side of the palace.

I recognise the two people waiting for me immediately. Liu Renqing and Feng Yu stand on opposite sides of the courtyard. They haven’t seen me yet, and if I don’t greet them, they probably won’t, since they only have eyes for each other. Liu Renqing stares at Feng Yu across the divide. When Feng Yu looks at him, he quickly—and very unsuspiciously—looks away. Until he glances back and Feng Yu averts his gaze once more, embarrassed. It goes back and forth and back and forth and… Oh merciful heavens. They’re so cute! I’m dying of a sugar overdose. To see your ship interacting in front of you? That’s every fanfic writer’s dream.

I loathe to interrupt them, but then Zhu Chun spots me and waves me over, and so the others see me too. We all join in the middle of the courtyard, where the personally chosen royal guards stand at attention. There are three men and two women and they look more determined than I ever have in my entire life. It must be an honour to be chosen for a mission directly from the queen, with the trust of their commander to carry it out. While they are dressed in dark leather and silver armour, accented with violet, Zhu Chun once again appears in her flowy robes, looking for all intents and purposes like she’s about to walk the red carpet at an award show. Even her headdress is elaborate, shiny and beautiful.

“I trust you slept well? Jiejie sends her regards. She regrets she can’t be here to say hello,” Zhu Chun says as she clings to my arm.

Regret? Sure. The way she tore me down the last time we met, I’m sure she regrets not being here. I don’t regret it, but I say my part anyway.

“I hope I can meet her again when we return.”

“I’m sure we can arrange that.”

“Good morning,” I greet the other two, who have stood back while the two princesses talk to each other. It feels strange to see them so passive.

“Good morning Murong-xiaojie,” they both reply in unison.

“Everyone here knows of her status,” Zhu Chun says. “You can call her by her real name.”

“With all due respect, I would rather not start calling her by another name in case I mistakenly use it somewhere I’m not supposed to,” Feng Yu replies.

“You’re smarter than you look,” she says and I hear Liu Renqing snort a laugh.

“Hey!” Feng Yu snaps and punches the other’s upper arm, but he is grinning too.

I’ve never felt as hopeful as at this moment. They are finally starting to get along, we are about to find out who the enemy actually is and I’ve confirmed that Murong Zhiyu isn’t dead. I… Oh. I shouldn’t have put it like that. I’m so stupid. That’s the biggest death flag I’ve raised yet. Damn. Please, I didn’t even say it out loud. It doesn’t count, alright? Please?

“I hope the queen’s missive found you well?” I ask and have to pull myself together because no one else here will appreciate an email joke.

“We were honoured to receive a personal message from Queen Zhu,” Feng Yu says with a bow. “Not only myself, but my mother will also come to the palace later today. It’s a higher honour than we deserve.”

Liu Renqing just murmurs something affirmative and bows as well. He doesn’t look good. There are dark circles under his eyes and his pose is rigid. In any other situation I would hate for him to join a mission in his state, but for now I’d rather have him away from his mother. I’m sure her daughter’s death weighs heavily, but I can’t feel concerned for her when I see how Liu Renqing is suffering in turn because of his mother. She should feel proud of him taking up the mantle, instead of what she’s doing.

“Listen up,” Zhu Chun says and her voice is completely different from the way she talked before.

The guards stand straighter and even I have to fight the same impulse. No matter what she looks like, she is the head of the royal guard. It‘s amazing how her expression shifts and it doesn’t matter how she’s dressed, she commands respect.

Liu Renqing falls in line with the guards, obviously practised to listen to a superior in these circumstances, and Feng Yu joins him. Once again they couldn’t look more different. While Feng Yu is wearing dark red robes with added leather bracers and chest armour in what shines warmly like bronze, Liu Renqing is in his guard uniform—blue, black and silver. Fire and water. Just as I wish I could reach over and make them kiss, Feng Yu steals a look at Liu Renqing and I can just so suppress my squee.

“For this mission, you’re all under my command. That includes you two and also my sister. Is that understood? Good. We’re to return to the place the attack happened on the merchant caravan, and then follow the trail the monsters left to the place they were summoned from. Any and all traces of suspicious energy, spells or objects are to be reported. Our goal today is to find out who perpetrated this heinous action, so we can formulate a plan of defence should it happen again. We’re intentionally a small group, so we won’t draw undue attention to ourselves in case the enemy is still present in the area. This is why we’ll go on foot and I expect everyone to be covert.”