Chapter 5: Chapter 5: Everyone cares for the opinion of the future king.

A stream of light flooded Min Li’s face at the opening of the bedroom’s window drapes. Due to the added stimulus, Min Li woke up with a fright. 

It had only been one day that she had spent as a servant of the crown prince. 

It had only been one night at the Eastern palace and already she had a very bad sleep.

She had tossed, turned, and perspired.

Not because she was in a small room with a couple dozen servant girls; no, she was used to a life without luxury now. Not because of Lily’s snores, or because of Rose’s flatulence or the new environment. No, rather she had a sneaky suspicion that she had such a bad dream because she was so close to the crown prince that it was sure to make her body rebel.  

Now if she was to tell the truth, she had bad dreams often even without the crown prince’s input. Her birthmark on the nape of her neck felt like it was burning raw during the night.  

She dreamed of bone agonising pain, of uncontrollable power surging her veins in vengeance and of watching from the inside of her body having no control of what she said and did. And those were only the fragments she could remember when she woke up in the mornings.  

Min Li reckoned that it was worse because she was so near to the crown prince, and she was serious about that assertion. How exactly would such occur? She didn’t know. It sounded as crazy as unicorns flying in a bright sky or an overweight pig flying over the moon, but she was sure. It may have been just her dislike of him popping up, but that knowledge didn’t stop her thinking.

The other couple dozen servant girls that she had been made to share a room with were already up and dressed ready for the day ahead.  

Yesterday, they had all been handed their individual tasks in the Eastern palace. The head maid had put Min Li in charge of a small section of the crown prince’s gardens. By a stroke of luck, Lily had also been given the same job. The head maid had informed them that their job was to prune the trees, maintain the grass level, water the plants, cut the bushes and all in all make the place look fabulous.  

All the new maids were on probation so it was understandable that Min Li was not only frightened because of her dream, but because she was up late and her job and only ticket to a power could be taken away from her.  

With that realisation she rose like from the dead with dark circles around her eyes and she quickly got dressed and ready to work.  

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Min Li whispered accusingly to Lily as she stood like a good cherry blossom in front of the inspecting head maid of the Eastern palace.  

“I tried. You wouldn’t wake up no matter what I did. I was going to tell the head maid that you had got up to help do something or another.”  

It was a good enough excuse, Min Li thought.  

It would have been a better excuse if the head Eastern palace maid didn’t inspect not only their clothes and hair at the start of the day, but the way each maid had made their bed. There she would have found Min Li and probably had thought Min Li was possessed with her tossing and turning.  

With the dismissal of a raised hand, the girls all went to work. 

 Min Li and Lily worked hard to follow the instructions of an older maid who was experienced in garden keeping.  

By the time it was noon, the two girls were rightfully exhausted.  

They made their way to get a quick nibble for lunch, but nearly as soon as they started walking, they were stopped in their tracks by no one other than Fenhua the crown prince. 

Behind him, his assistant ran to catch up to him, nearly failing to come to a halt when he had reached his destination. 

Min Li scrutinised the crown prince’s face to check what mood he was in. She decided. He must be annoyed. He looked terrible. He looked tired, there were dark circles under his eyes. There are good reasons to look well spent, but his state seemed to surpass that. He looked as fatigued as she had felt in the morning.  

Whilst Lily greeted the man just like a good servant would, Min Li tried smiling like they didn’t know each other and walking passed him, but he seemed to have gotten rather good at blocking her way from their practice yesterday.  

She had heard that he had an important meeting in the morning, but it seemed as if he had just woken up. She decided that the meeting had exhausted him, but he soon put an end to that thought.  

“You made me tired.” 

“That is not a greeting.” 

“You. Made me. Tired,” Fenhua said again rubbing his neck.  

Min Li was confused, tired of what? They hadn’t seen each other since he had allowed her to stay. How could she possibly have made him tired?  

Instead of asking him one of her many questions, she decided to anger him further. 

“That. Is not. A greeting.” 

“You made me tired. I didn’t get any sleep.” This time he practically growled it out like he was a big black bear. 

Again, Min Li wondered how she had made the man tired. Maybe he hadn’t liked the way she had spoken to him yesterday.  

The thought came across her that maybe she had kept him up at night tossing and turning over her lovely self for a completely different reason.  

Holding on to that thought, Min Li giggled behind her hand, looked at him and said sweetly, “Oooh, I catch your drift. I made you tired, did I?” 

Seeming to know exactly where she was going with the conversation, he grasped the finger she was running across his chest and cast it away.  

“Don’t act unlike a lady. You are a reflection of how my parents raised you.”  

Min Li took offence. Instead of talking to him any further she tried to escape by dodging past him. 

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But she had forgotten he had powers and had never failed to use them against her if he needed to.  

He generated a big bubble of floating water in front of her and slowly drew it back towards him, meaning Min Li was forced to return to her previous spot.  

Min Li refused to admit that she had submitted to him because of a bubble of water. Instead, she chose to think she forgave him and had gone back to her place because of the look of instant regret on his face. At least this time he hadn’t made her wet. 

The servants of Eastern palace, as nosy as the flies on the wall are, had already by this time began gathering around to see what was happening.  

This time the servants had the intelligence to hide behind the garden greenery to prevent the crown prince from seeing them. Some failed, especially the Eastern palace kitchen cooks who had decided to hide behind a group of trees with rather skinny trunks.  

Not caring about the things going on around him, Fenhua pressed on. 

“I am giving you the room next to mine.” 

“…I don’t want it.” 

It seemed as if the crown prince hadn’t expected that answer simply on account of being the crown prince.  

“I wasn’t asking. You are going to take the room next to mine.” 

“Why?” 

The man simply shook his head and refused to give her an answer why she should have to sleep in the room next to him. 

Min Li looked the man in the eyes and saw no humour in them. He was serious about making her live next to him.  

Weakly Mi Lin started her protest, “I can’t do that. It would be too much pressure to live next to a great man such as yourself. I wouldn’t be able to handle it.” 

She thought she could appeal to him on account of his ego. She had forgotten a big flaw in her plan, something that the crown prince seemed to remember. She had lived next to the man perfectly fine for countless years before.  

The crown prince looked seriously unimpressed at her tricks.  

There was only one thing that came to her mind. More. She needed to act a bit more.  

Her plan was a rule she had made up before.  

When somebody -the crown prince- made a scene, making a bigger scene was the only way to get anybody on one’s- Mi Lin’s- side.  

“Even now by your power, I can feel my head getting light. You know I am powerless. Unable to fend for myself.” She whimpered holding unto him, “my knees are getting faint. My legs, oh so weak. oh. Oh. OH.” 

Mi Lin realised that she was just as dramatic as the queen who raised her. For good measure, she pretended to faint taking herself to the floor. It hurt, and she had to try hard not to wince. She consoled herself dwelling on the thought that a little bit of pain now had the power to stop a lot of pain tomorrow.  

Something was not right. Min Li was not getting the sympathy that she had desired.  

Slowly, and what she hoped to be discreetly, she opened one eye and took a glance at what was happening around her.  

And then, she realised another kink in her plan.

He was the crown prince, and everybody cared about his opinion. None of the servants were about to come to her aid without the crown prince’s say so. Her earlier dismissal of the crown prince, not caring that he was the crown prince, gave her the false confidence to believe that everyone else would act in a similar manner.  

Not even the traitor, Lily came to her side to see if she was alright. 

Even now while she was on the floor next to her feet, the prince seemed to be silently instructing his assistant to do something.  

He looked down at her bored and they made eye contact. “Stand up,” he said not a care in the world. 

Min Li wept silently to herself that he really seemed impervious to her charms.  

Now she was clearly awake, Fenhua said loudly to the assistant walking into the direction of the servant’s quarters, “Feng, show her to her new room when you are done getting all her things.” 

Still on the ground, Min Li kicked her legs about. And with that Fenhua walked away, not even looking back to see if she had stood up ok.  

Apparently, a little bit of pain for her now or a lot of pain for her in the morrow, did not make any difference to the stubborn crown prince.

 

Author's note:

The key of the chapter: Why do you think that Fenhua moved Min Li into the room next to him when he was so adamant about her not living in the Eastern palace in the first place? How could it relate to the overarching story?

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