Chapter 17: Chapter 17: In a library, one must be respectful.

Another day and Min Li was back to planning how she was going to get a power.

She had sat herself down and had a serious conversation about all the places that she had gone wrong. She had spent so much time working in Eastern palace and she was still no closer to figuring out why she didn’t have a power or how she was going to get a power.

Her plan to keep going back to the library had gone down the drain as she was occupied with other things lately. Not even the crown prince was frequenting the library all that much. The place had been abandoned.

Min Li decided to give looking for information about power in the library one proper shot before she decided to do something else like venture out of the palace walls and ask wise, old people how to get a power.

She wasn’t sure that going up to old people randomly and asking for advice was the way to find reliable information. But if this last little library stint didn’t work, she would have to do something; she was tired of working to the bone, and a voice deep inside her was convinced that watering flowers and talking to plants was not what she was meant to be doing in life.

As going to the bathhouse at night had worked so well for Min Li, Min Li decided to do the same thing with the library.

She would sneak to the library at night whilst the whole palace was sleeping and thus avoid prying eyes and inquisitive minds.

The locks on the library door and the guards at the door of the library. Min Li had recently learned that the reason why she hadn’t encountered them the first-time round was that they were non-existent.

Apparently, they liked to work on the premise of trust in the Eastern palace. Min Li guessed it helped that everyone was horrifically scared of an angry Fenhua, presumably they hadn’t seen how cowardly he could be.

So, Min Li snuck into the library at the dead of night.

This time she didn’t get caught up by the beautiful interior of the library like she had last time.

This time round she got her head in the game and got stuck in straight away.

She went to the first bookshelf of the library and skimmed the titles of the books from the bottom shelve to the top shelve using a very helpful ladder. She also had to quickly skim the content of the scrolls which took up the vast majority of her time.

She went to most of the bookshelves and did the same thing ensuring that she would not miss one book out that would help her secure the information she was looking for.

When she had searched the majority of bookshelves, there was one bookshelf left for the checking.

This bookshelf was the one that Min Li happened to be most excited by. She had left it last for a reason, she knew that this bookshelf for a fact had a lot of the content that she wanted to read.

How did she know this?

Her plain, old nosiness had paid off like never before.

The bookshelf was near where Min Li had hidden before, and it also was where Fenhua had gone to retrieve his book about prophecy which clearly tied into powers.

As soon as Min Li approached the bookshelf, she knew her prediction was correct. From afar she could see the titles on the spine of the books. Many consisting of the words ‘power’ and ‘water’. Anything related to power inherent in the people of Xilin kingdom was on the bookshelf.

Min Li had principle. She knew that all books were important and should be used and treated with respect and love. A lot of writers had put in a lot of work to fill this library with such important information and she didn’t want to ever disregard that.

The top shelve was where all the older more fragile books were kept. Min Li decided to keep those books for last as she would have to be extra careful not to ruin them and alert the crown prince to the fact that anyone was looking through his secret stash of books.

Min Li pulled out the books from the bottom shelves that were related to power and she sat down at the round golden table in the middle of the library excited to start her reading.

She skimmed the pages of the first book that she had opened. It was full of glorious pictures and words instructing just what should happen at a Xilin power ceremony.

Min Li wasn’t interested in any of that. In actuality she had bad memories of that time, so she closed the book and moved on to the next.

The next book spoke about how important it was to understand that wielding powers gave a person responsibility to help the people around them. The type of information that came to the average person through common sense, so Min Li closed that book and opened the next in her pile.

The next book sadly read of much of the same. It explained how powers should not be misused and it detailed how a person misusing powers should be punished linking to another book that Min Li skimmed through. Min Li closed that book trying to think positive.

The issue was most of the other books Min Li had put on the table boasted of the same boring information. Min Li had a headache from skimming so many words in a day and she was fed up with reading.

Was this the best library in the Kingdom that Eastern palace boasted about?

This must not be correct, Min Li thought shaking her head.

Another book Min Li closed with a huff. The same went with the next. A scroll she rolled back up in disgust. An extremely big book that had looked promising when it was on the shelf she shut loudly making sure her annoyance was clearly audible in case it could reach the people who wrote it.

Another book she slammed shut and chucked on the floor. That book was utter filth, she was sure it had no place in the library itself. Someone had made a mistake putting it on the shelves. It belonged in the rubbish bin. She would have put it there herself if she wasn’t respectful of books and if she didn‘t want the crown prince to catch her.

That book had the power to pollute the minds of the innocent and make whole generations incapable of real fruitful relationships in their lives.

The anger for that particular book was valid Min LI told herself.

Its crime?

It spoke about how no one should use their powers to do things that would better their lives in an unfair way. That using powers to harm people was only allowed on a battlefield. Not once did it mention about people without powers and how their compatriots shouldn’t harm them. Not once did it mention how people without powers could get powers so that people couldn’t harm them even if they tried.

It should have instructed people to be nice to their neighbours without powers so that they could make themselves better individuals.

Yes, in the whole kingdom maybe it was only her with such a problem. But did that mean that they had the right to skip over her and not include her small community in their writings?

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To anyone listening to the rational part of their mind, the answer was yes. But to Min Li whose rational mind tended to forsake her when she was in situations like these, the answer was no.

The books Min Li skimmed through also told of the rationality behind the power system.

In theory, there was no reason for the book to mention not harming people with less power than them in the kingdom. Not because everyone in the kingdom was supposed to have powers, but because of the way power seemed to be distributed in the three kingdoms to allow the calm, peaceful functioning of the kingdoms.

The peaceful functioning of kingdoms was maintained by the power system. Civilians in a kingdom only had the normal version of their allotted power. Someone with the normal version of their power couldn’t really do all that much to injure someone else with the normal version of the same power.

They could only really hurt someone with the normal version of a different power which is also why there wasn’t all that much mixing and migrating between the kingdoms.

However, someone with refined power could hurt someone with the normal version of the same type of power and in fact may be able to hurt anyone as long as their power was stronger. So, they could inflict punishments and help their subjects stay on a righteous path.

In theory it was all good, as long as the people at the top of the food chain were good people.

In fact, they didn’t even have to be good people. They only had to act like they were so the higher ups didn’t punish them. The royals, the people with the most power at the top, also had to act like good people in fear of the other two kingdoms.

The powers worked in a way that two kingdoms together were able to keep the last one in check.

The three kingdoms were meant to work in perfect unity. Fire (Yilin), air (Nilin) and water (Xilin). Fire, air and water were each said to help each other. They were also each said to be able to hinder each other. Each kingdom was made to be just as powerful as the next, no less, no more, in case any kingdom was struck with envy.

Only a real secret unstoppable evil plan in one kingdom that the two kingdoms didn’t catch in time could ruin it. Just like what is going on in Yilin. .

The Yilins had got their hands on a formula that could increase peoples’ power. By how much? No one knew.

It was said that civilians and elites alike were being forced to take the formula by fear of death by the top dogs in Yilin. It had caused some problems that Xilin were only learning about now, Yilin kingdom’s own kingdom men were fighting between themselves at the lower levels due to the imbalances in power and the people at the top here getting even more greedy and wanting to take over the other two kingdoms too.

It was all now finally coming to a head with Yilin gaining more power than anyone would have ever thought was possible, and Xilin and Nilin getting more anxious and getting all soldiers prepared for war.

The crown prince had a primary role to play in the fight back against Yilin as it was definitely about to get to the place of war or battle. The same for the crown prince of Nilin too.

The chosen one was said to have something to do with the outcome of the battle between the three kingdoms too. The chosen one could calm the world of its raging or do the opposite and lead the world into destruction. The latter was presumably why everyone was scared of the chosen one and would rather have the royals sort it through battle.

Min Li had often wondered whether Fenhua was the chosen one, especially after she had seen him flipping through books about the prophecy in the library.

The man although he was powerful, didn’t seem as if he was powerful enough. Joe was his best friend since childhood, and though Min Li’s little crush on the man nearly stopped her from admitting it, Joe hardly seemed serious enough to lead the East of Xilin that was going to be passed down to him, never mind help take the ‘pain’ away from Fenhua, he would be too busy laughing at his friend.

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Min Li pressed on with skimming through books and scrolls not worrying about her struggles today and thinking of the powers that she may be able to obtain for tomorrow.

Only one of the books of the lot that Min Li had put on the table had any information that Min Li deemed as helpful. But even that book was not helpful for her own powers but for her to understand a bit more the dynamic between the three kingdoms.

With all the books that Min Li had brought out of the bookcase finished being skimmed, Min Li climbed up the bookcase once again to go and retrieve the older books and last of the books she hadn’t skimmed from the top of the bookshelf.

Min Li climbed up the ladder of the library to see the last books in the pile.

When she was climbing, she was sure she had seen the fat book that she had shut loudly and put back on the pile in the bookcase. She moved on convincing herself that she had seen it wrong. She definitely hadn’t put that book back on the bookshelf, she hadn’t think it deserved the respect.

Min Li had only climbed a few more rungs when she saw that there now seemed to be another exact copy of the book of utter filth that she had dropped to the floor on the shelf that she had got it from.

Min Li overcome with anger that there was two of the same disgusting book, slid it out of its place and dropped it to the ground. She planned to pick it up and put it back with its filthy twin after she had completely finished reading all the books that she had to.

But as she took another step on the rung, she coincidentally happened to look back to where she had just taken the book out. The book was again where it had been previously on the shelf.

Thinking that the library had a very good system to protect its book just like the grand tree outside, Min Li dripped the book again watching in delight when it bounded back without even hitting the floor.

She did again and again and was happy to see that the defending power seemed to get smarter and respond quicker every time she dropped the book.

Now the book was only reaching to about her hip before going back up to where she had plucked it out from.

Min Li squinted something didn’t seem quite right. There seemed to be slight bit of water on the book. She was positive that if there was an unknown automatic defender keeping the books on the shelves, it would be clever enough not to use water that could ruin the books.

Min Li looked back to see what was causing the phenomenon. Her eyes stopped looking at its target.

The man looked back at her looking slightly amused, slightly bored. Min Li carried on her visual exploration of the library.

She thought to herself for her second. Her eyes looked back from where they had come from.

A man was looking back at her still slightly amused, slightly bored.

Fenhua. FENHUA.

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