Chapter 19: Chapter 19: Note to gardeners: Roses and lilies compliment each other.

There was one good thing that Min Li had got from all that talking to Fenhua in the library.

She had wasted all her time, and she had just now figured out that there was a better way to go about finding out the information she wanted to get. No more spending time in the library. The gold of the library's interior was irritating her eyes and was starting to seem a little ostentatious.

She realised yesterday when she was in the library that the biggest reservoir of information in the whole damn place was Fenhua.

Fenhua had gone through all the books in the library probably about a thousand times and fortunately this human book could tell Min Li what she wanted to know directly without her having to search every single piece of his memory files.

If there was any way to gain the knowledge of how to gain a power, Fenhua would have it.

For the other piece of information she wanted to know, why she didn’t have a power in the first place, using the same method she decided that she had to go to the person who had known her the longest, the head maid of the palace herself, Betti.

Both Fenhua and Betti were like fortresses. It definitely wasn’t going to be easy for Min Li to get information from either of them, but she was going to try her best anyway.

Min Li couldn’t just go up to them and ask them outright for the information she wanted to get, she would be sent away in an instant and told to go do some real work. She had to think of something good.

For Betti, Min Li knew that it would be too suspicious for her to approach Betti for no reason at all during the workday.

Betti had to be the one doing the calling. Min Li planned to make some trouble in front of the teacher pet, Tom. The trouble would inevitably get back to Betti and Betti would approach Min Li or call Min Li to her so she could tell Min Li off in peace.

For Fenhua, Min Li wasn’t sure what she had to do. She decided that she may just need some help from her own friends.

After lunch Min Li got started on her plan to extract information from Fenhua first.

Min Li had convinced Lily to take part in the scheme by saying it would be the difference between whether the crown prince and Min Li would be able to eventually become a couple or not.

Lily being as excitable as she was, had accepted the plan straight away and was now putting it into action.

Lily walked up to Fenhua as he sat under the pavilion just as they had planned for her to do.

That was all that Lily managed to do in the plan that was set for her. Instead of Lily saying ‘hello’ to the crown prince and bowing to him before asking if she could talk with him, Lily settled at just staring keenly at the perturbed man.

Lily looked at the crown prince. Lily looked at him some more. Lily looked at the crown prince and she sighed wistfully.

The crown prince looked up at the girl from his seat confused. He seemed to recognise Lily as Min Li’s friend as soon as he saw her. He looked around as if expecting Min Li to pop out of the woodwork, his actions causing Min Li to crouch even further behind the large spherical stone that she was currently hiding behind.

Now Min Li thought about it, Lily being an avid shipper of Fenhua and Min Li could work for Min Li’s good. The crown prince would just think that Lily was being her usual self by asking him all questions about Min Li.

Lily still looked at Fenhua, but this time she managed to mumble out a few words, although it didn’t appear from afar that she was saying anything of interest to the crown prince. Fenhua went back to eating the snacks in front of him only half listening to Lily’s mummers.

Min Li was prepared for a situation such as this. She had planned to send in reinforcements to reset Lily. Right next to Min Li couching besides her behind the stone stood Rose the back up plan

With a pat on the back from Min Li, Rose ran out from behind her hiding place acting as enthusiastic as she could. The girl clapped and laughed loudly; she would have looked quite mad if Lily wasn’t right next to her for comparison.

When Rose reached the place that Fenhua sat, she elbowed Lily a few times in the ribs trying to reset Lily to factory settings and stop her stumbling over her words. It worked a bit too well; Lily stopped talking altogether.

Rose forsook all she knew about conduct for serving a royal and did what she thought was best to achieve the task set for her.

She bowed about a billion times, then went on her knees to kowtow, then returned to bowing. When she had finished her routine, she looked at the prince in wonder and awe and started her own speech.

“GREETINGS CROWN PRINCE, IT IS A PLEASURE TO FINALLY MEET YOU. OH, I HAVE HEARD SO MUCH. IT IS MY DELIGHT.”

Fenhua narrowed his eyes at the new distraction in front of him. His request was to always have people working at the Eastern palace that did not care all that much, or at least acted like they didn’t care that much, about his royal status.

Min Li silently wished that Rose toned it down a bit. Even Lily seemed to think that Rose was going overboard; she was looking at Rose as if the girl had stolen her role.

Lily made her move and took her revenge by elbowing Rose in the ribs.

It seemed to work well enough. Rose automatically calmed down a bit and restarted the conversation with an approach that seemed a little bit less eager.

It was then that Min Li gave herself a pat on the back. She was right to make Lily and Rose battle. They balanced each other out.

Min Li had learnt when gardening that roses and lilies when well with each other and it was proving true..

In the distance, the two girls were speaking so loud that Min Li could hear every word that the said while fawning over the crown prince.

“You are handsome.”

“Oh yes, Isn’t he just?”

“I know that he would be a great king.”

“He would be the greatest.”

That’s right girls appeal to his ego, just don’t cross the line.

Fenhua didn’t show outwardly that he cared, however he did want his people to think the best of him meaning Min Li was sure that inside him he was definitely lapping it up.

“But how can a king have no queen.”

“A king with no queen? I have never heard of such a thing.”

“Neither have I. This we must fix.”

“How about me? I would suit the job for certain.” That little comment there was made by Lily.

For a second, Min Li thought that Lily had diverted from the plan, but the girl could be a faithful friend when she wanted to be, especially if it would add to her book ‘the crown prince and the maid’. She had just used the line to perfectly set up the conversation for the kill.

“YOU?! NO. You are just a little humble servant without any special background or family connections. How can you be the crown prince’s wife.”

Lily and Rose were now facing each other instead of the crown prince. It was almost like they were having a private conversation just allowing the crown prince to be privy to some of it. The technique that Min Li had taught them was said to make the person on the edge listening in think they were in luck to hear the conversation and so they would be completely engaged in it.

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“I get it! What you are saying is that the great man that we all know and love needs someone with family connections and a special background to marry him… Someone like Jess?” Lily said her last sentence with a fake frown painted across her face.

“I don’t think she was saying that,” the crown prince interrupted clearly bothered by the thought. He seemed to be enjoying the conversation with the lively two girls.

“Yes, yes, I definitely didn’t mean that,” Rose said pretending to dismiss Fenhua. “Maybe the amazing man needs someone who can fit in with the royals and the nobles but also understands the struggles of us commoners. But who?“

Both girls now turned to look at the curious Fenhua who also seemed to be thinking deeply about it. They each tapped one of their feet and one of their fingers making it look like they were hard at work in thought.

“There has to be a partner for such a good man… who fits in with nobles.... and also commoners.... I KNOW. I KNOW. I KNOW EXACTLY WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR!”

Rose leaned in to hear Lily’s suggestion. The crown prince leaned in eager to hear Lily’s suggestion. Only Min Li didn’t lean in as she knew what the girl was going to say.

Shouldn’t it be fairly obvious by now. Who else could have all the qualities that person possesses?

Lily carried on now that she had her audience on a hook. "Who else but Min Li.” She squealed.

There it was. Music to Min Li’s ears.

But only half the battle was won. The girls now needed to work on the second half of the plan. If they stopped there or gave Fenhua too much of a break he would definitely leave.

Without taking a breath and now leaning closer to Fenhua, Lily asked the questions that would all ultimately lead up to Fenhua telling them what they wanted to hear.

“Would they care about her not knowing her biological heritage? Would they care about her being a servant? Would they care about her being raised by Betti a servant?”

Rose saw her chance and she grabbed it with both hands. “What about powers, would they care about Min Li being without powers?”

“Oh no, that’s a big one.”

“They would never accept her.”

“We can solve it?”

“How will we solve it?”

They had gotten to the climax of the conversation.

Lily and Rose looked to Fenhua to each other, to Fenhua to each other, and back again.

“Fenhua, have you ever heard of such a thing?” Lily enquired.

The man didn’t seem to want to let his two faithful admirers down. “Well apart from Min Li, everyone I know got their powers by the time the power ceremony came by in their fifteenth year. If not the king draws the power out of them in the power ceremony so it can be displayed.”

“But then that means there is something wrong with Min Li and that can’t be true.” Rose said with a look of worry painted all over her face. She had learnt from a best.

The crown prince, not good with letting his people down, thought quickly.

“Well truth be told… We don’t know where she comes from, so it is a possibility that she is… very different to us. All the scrolls don’t say anything about someone without a power, so it is hard to think that a person without a power can exist in the first place. It goes against nature.”

He thought some more, “The biggest probability is that she is probably from one of the other kingdoms, and only the king of her power will be able to allow her power out.”

Min Li had never really seriously considered that she could be from a different kingdom. As far as she was concerned the queen of Xilin was her mum and so she wanted to be a Xilin; she hated the thought that something else could be true.

She couldn’t help to think that Fenhua was holding something back. It might have been because of his neck injury but the man was rubbing the back of his neck without stopping.

If the crown prince knew that she may have been from Nilin, why didn’t he tell her so at the grand hall during the last celebration, she could ask the king of NilIn to help get her power out? Instead, he had ran interference interrupting her conversation with the Nilin royals by whisking her away from their table.

The crown prince was starting to look as if he wanted to get out of the situation of the two girls quizzing him quickly. He hopped to his feet keen to leave the scene.

Being as upset as she was, Min Li didn’t want to let that happen.

Min Li stormed to the crown prince like it was the day of his judgement.

In surprise, the crown prince looked at Rose and Lily like he had just been betrayed. Good, he should know how I feel.

Min Li was so fed up with everything that she asked Fenhua what she wanted to know outright.

“Are you trying to tell me that there is no other way that I can get my power?”

The penny seemed to drop for the crown prince. He finally seemed to understand why she had gone to the library and why her friends were asking him all the questions that they were.

“You need to be happy with what you have now. Don’t go digging things up that are better off buried-”The crown prince stopped himself from continuing and looked at Rose and Lily like he wanted them to leave before he said anything else.

Min Li huffed; it was obvious, a perpetrator wouldn’t want a witness to his crimes.

Rose and Lily didn’t want to go anywhere. They ignored the crown prince’s withering look in favour of listening to the impending argument.

The crown prince sighed, lifting up his hand to create a bubble of water as if threatening to blast both Rose and Lily to the other side of the courtyard.

He didn’t need to use it, the two girls heeded the warning and were off running as fast as they could.

They even made sure to run in a zig zag pattern making it as hard as possible for the crown prince to be able to blast them into nothingness.

Min Li threw her head back in defeat and lightly stormed off not wanting to talk to Fenhua.

Behind her the crown prince called, “We need to talk about why you don’t ever ask me what you really want to know.”

Huh. As if he doesn’t know. The man didn’t remember the half of decade he had ignored her and had not once given her an explanation as to why.

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