Chapter 3: Chapter 3: The problem with Lily

            Along with the other women who were allocated to serve at Eastern palace, Min Li made her way to her new lodgings.

Although Min Li had seen most of the palace gardens before, with the entire palace grounds being over two and fifty acres, everything she saw seemed like she was seeing it anew. It was incredible to look upon the variety of flowers that were over all the palace. 

With the weather being as hot as it was, it could have been rather fatiguing to walk around the place even if was a sight to behold, but as the crown princes’ quarters were near to where the maids were being briefed, the journey wasn’t as tiring as half the maids had expected it would be.  

As she was well acquainted with the palace, the head maid had left Min Li to show the other new Eastern palace maids how to get there, going off to escort another set of maids to their own new lodgings. 

Owing to Lily’s exuberant, welcoming personality, the two best friends had got quite friendly talking to one of the other girls who had fit in well with them.  

“I am very excited to see the crown prince,” the girl named Rose chirped happily. “Everyone says he is so good looking.”  

Not wanting to give such a view the satisfaction of an answer, Min Li stuck to rolling her eyes while the two girls bonded over their love of the crown prince.  

Rose squealed acting like she was going to tell them some big secret. “You might not have known... but earlier he walked past and I was able to get a glimpse of him and good news.... they seem to be correct!”

Rose had looked so excited by what she was saying that Min Li had been leaning her head to the side to hear and had nearly forgotten who they were talking about wanting to join in on the hot gossip.  

When Min Li remembered that they were talking about the crown prince she concentrated on walking twice as quickly to her destination. The servant girls all had to double their walking speed and eavesdrop all at the same time. Must be hard, Min Li chuckled.  

Lily, in a way she must have thought to be furtively, excitedly waggled her finger pointing to Min Li and whispered, “that’s her boyfriend.”

Unfortunately for Lily her volume button had not yet reset and what she thought to be a whisper turned out to be a lot louder than she expected. 

It was also unfortunate for Min Li as some servant girls also sent her some scathing looks. Min Li made sure that it was again unfortunate for Lily by sending her own scathing look that way.  

At first Rose seemed confused.

Then the penny seemed to drop. She spun her head so fast to Min Li and said, “You must be Min Li, the royal family’s… uh… uh… foster daughter. I had heard that a royal had joined the servant ranks.” 

“Ouuuu, how is he? Please tell me, pretty please.”  

Now would be the best time to point out the woman acting extremely childish was past her teenage years and looked about the age of twenty-seven.   

“Don’t mind her. Let ME tell you the story about how they met,” Lily said proudly. 

All the servant girls who had been previously leaning towards rose to hear her story, started tilting their heads the other way to hear Lily.   

Min Li looked to Lily mouth agape. She wondered why she had ever felt that the girl was faultlessly loyal. When it came time to gossip about the relationship between Fenhua and Min Li, Lily was always happily obliged.  

Fortunately, solace came to Min Li at the time of her greatest need. She looked up and thanked the heavens.

The new male Eastern palace servants joined them on their walk to the palace, and Rose started introducing them all to one of her best friends, Tom.  

Though not much time had passed, Min Li felt that it was a long time coming when the now bigger servant group reached their destination.  

As she was about to inform the servants that the servant lodgings were at the very back of the quarters, yet again, she felt a menacing presence behind her. 

Min Li turned and when she saw who was behind her, Min Li smiled. Her smile wasn’t at the menace himself, or for the gaggle of human geese behind him. It was at the fact that her gut feeling had never done her wrong. She knew that there was a complete menace behind her, and she was proved right as soon as she had seen the crown prince’s face.  

The crown prince seemed disarmed at her smile and his demeanour seemed to soften. But as if he had realised there was a chink in his armour, Fenhua quickly reformed the frown he once bore.  

The frown of disapproval made Min Li look away and as she saw someone behind the crown prince, she was immediately glad that she had averted her gaze.  

Among the gaggle of geese was someone whom she greatly admired. Someone who had never done her wrong despite his best friend’s bad influence. Someone who seemed to have her back. Someone she now had a crush on.  

So, she shouldn’t have been blamed for smiling like a little girl, blushing like a tomato, and fluttering her eyelashes like they were butterflies. None of what she did was on purpose. It all happened quite naturally once she had seen Joe.  

Joe was quite dashing, with a radiant smile and a strong jaw. He was cheeky and fun and not a quarrelsome nuisance like some people, Min Li teared her eyes away from Joe to the crown prince to make the point.  

The highness of Xilin did not seem best pleased. He looked as if he was going to have an aneurysm because Joe was taken by her charms and grinning at her. It is not my fault, Min Li giggled inwardly, I am just too adorable.  

Min Li looked at Joe again to start another staring match and it was going extremely well if one could tell by the delighted expression on their faces.  

His highness was now looking greatly disturbed, and Min Li and Joe’s laughs galvanised him into action.

 Fenhua moved blocking their view of each other. Hardly paying attention to the scheming man, Min Li moved to the left, as did Joe and they carried on smiling at each other. The crown prince moved to the left again. So, Min Li and Joe moved to the right. The crown prince moved to the right now. So, Min Li, now a bit peeved off, and Joe, who seemed to be enjoying it immensely, moved to the left.  

Behind her, Min Li could hear the excited chatter of the servants.  

Only one person was now completely angry, completely done with the situation. Not the female warrior behind Fenhua who was just sighing fed up. Not even Fenhua’s assistant. He in fact looked a little amused. 

Angry Fenhua stopped moving and now looked at Min Li with a deeper scowl than he had ever managed before.  

The frustrated man snarled like a wolf, “why are you here?” 

“To work” 

“But why?” 

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“Maybe you didn’t know this,” she tilted her head to the side, “but to live you need to work.” 

He looked at her not seeming very happy with her latest attitude.  

“I heard you applied here” 

Giggling softly Min Li replied, “Ahhh, were you checking up after me? Glad to know you still care.” 

He hmphed clearly dismissing her ludicrous words. 

  “That’s nice, but you should know, I am getting you moved to a different part of the palace,” he growled.  

The self-preservation part of Min Li stirred up. I better play nice, she thought.  

She walked excitedly up to him swinging her arms around her body in a way that she hoped came off cute. But to that he scowled even deeper.  

Then she tugged the sleeve of his clothes and sniffed. At first, she thought she saw a softening in his eye, but Fenhua pulled a face of disgust and tried to shake her off. 

Though she had to hold on with all her strength, she dug a little bit deeper to appear sweet. “Pwetty pwease, can I stway?” She blinked up at him with wide eyes.  

“Aah cute. Let her stay.” Joe cooed back as he fell for her trick. 

 But right now, he was not the one she cared about. She waited patiently for his friend’s response.  

For what seemed like a long while, the crown prince was staring at her. But it seemed as if his friend’s words hit him finally like a tonne of bricks and strengthened his resolve.  

“Not happening”, he growled.  

Min Li stepped back, brow furrowed, annoyed that her plan did not work.  

Were their increasing audience was chatting excitedly before, they were stunned now, not saying anything hoping to catch every single word.  

She quickly regrouped from his dismissal and thought up another plan. Fenhua was protective of his friends. At least he was to her when they were young. He also didn’t seem to quite like any of his friends associating with her, particularly romantically. She decided to use this against him.  

“If I can’t work here...” She sighed pretending to think. “Then I guess I can work somewhere else... but where?” 

Quickly the crown prince started listing of places in the palace. “There is the kitchens. There are any of the gardens in the palace. You could help upkeep the unused concubine rooms. You could help look after the children of the servants in the palace. You could work for her majesty or even his majesty”.  

He didn’t even allow himself a breath when he was streaming of the list of places.   

How impolite. He should have at least tried to hide the fact he wants me out, she thought. Did he not see the audience? He should have been a gentleman; how could he leave the lady that she was out to dry in such a manner? The crown prince had clearly known that it was a rhetorical question.  

Min Li ignored Fenhua outwardly, not letting such a menial thing get in the way of her plan.  

“No, no. If I don’t get to work here, I would just leave the palace entirely.”  

The crown prince seemed happy.  

Min Li looked around and found the perfect pawn for her plan. “I would rather work as a servant girl for someone nice out of the palace.” 

She looked up at her short-term crush Joe with much the same doe eyed expression she had given the crown prince moments ago. Joe would have been her long-term crush rather than her short-term crush but once upon a time she had been besotted by the crown prince and she was a loyal girl, it took her some time to get over him.  

Pointing at Joe with the tip of her index finger, she said, “Then I guess I will work with you.” She looked down coquettishly and started twirling her skirt so that it looked like a blooming cherry blossom.  

The crown prince looked so annoyed and sick to his stomach. He was giving off the impression that he wanted to ferociously peel of all the petals of her cherry blossom flower.  

Joe who had been busy eating roasted chestnuts and enjoying the show, stopped eating and pointed to himself.  

“Like that would happen,” Fenhua quipped looking obviously annoyed but self-assured. 

“It could,” his friend chipped in besides him.  

Now, Min Li was genuinely delighted. She knew that Joe would never let her down.  

Now, the crown prince was positively furious. Steam was rising from his nose and Min Li was sure that he would soon start baring his canines. He probably never thought that Joe would let him down. See how it feels, Min Li thought. 

Seeing the servants watching him and whispering as if they were watching the greatest play, Fenhua took out his anger on them. 

He looked at them pointedly and shouted, “SCATTER. SCRAM. GET OUT.”  

Min Li wanted to inform him that he was making a bit too much of a scene and being quite rude. However, she didn’t really want him to take it out on her, so she reverted to her earlier tactic of being an innocent girl who needed saving and poked her bottom lip out and looked up at him from under her eyelashes. 

 

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