Chapter 9: Chapter 9: Why didn’t curiosity kill the cat?

Min Li was settling into her work as a servant for the Eastern palace with ease, she was all too happy to spend her time cleaning around the pond and pruning the trees.

In three weeks, she had come to know all the best places in the crown prince’s gardens.

Lily liked one of the areas of the garden that had a beautiful peach blossom tree, Min Li was partial to a small pond which was sparsely decorated with white and pink water lilies. With the help of Tom, Rose’s friend who also worked in the gardens occasionally, Min Li had created a new path of cobblestone leading up to the pond.

As much as Min Li liked the pond, there was one other place in the gardens that always drew her attention. Hidden away at the very end of the garden area was an absolutely grand tree.

The tree was big and proudly vibrant in its browns and greens. All the leaves were almost unnaturally perfect, each leaf having its own distinct shape, so much so that Min Li was sure that even from afar she could name each leaf and would be able to remember it’s name when she came back from its individual characteristics.

She wasn’t quite sure what type of tree it was. It could have been an oak tree, elm tree or maybe even an ash tree. And when she had dragged a reluctant Lily, Rose and Tom near the tree to ask their own opinions on the type of tree, they too were stumped.

Despite how pretty Min Li thought the tree to be, she was surprised when some of the servants had said the crown prince and the other royals had visited the tree frequently.

At that point, Min Li had only been admiring the tree from afar. Once she heard that piece of information, she decided to see from up close why the royals had visited the tree.

Unfortunately, she was stopped in her tracks and thrown to the ground, not by a person or an animal, but rather what seemed to be the tree.

This jolted a memory which helped to realise exactly why a person sans power like her could not get close to the tree. The jolt told her exactly what it was about the tree that subconsciously commanded her attention and respect.

The rumour went that there was a tree inside the palace walls that had mysterious power able to guard the greatest power of the kingdom. It was said that only the most powerful people in all the three kingdoms were able to get close to it. The tree was named rather simply, the power tree.

She was sure that not even the royals were able to get into close proximity with it, if they had been she was certain that the queen would have told her. The queen told the majority of things about the family to Min Li. Min Li secretly thought that her foster mother told her more than she should because she didn’t want Min Li to feel like she wasn’t part of the family. Which in turn made Min Li feel less of a part of the family.

From the time Min Li realised that the tree held power, a switch flipped in her head. The game was on. Min Li was determined to use the tree to the best of her abilities. She no longer really cared for the tree’s aesthetics but its inner qualities so to speak.

She started meditating on optimistic thoughts as close to the tree as she could get.

Despite knowing she didn’t have any powers she tried jumping over the barrier stopping her from getting to the tree. Min Li also tried cutting up said barrier with a sword. Maybe if she was like Fenhua who had spent countless hours in his youth practicing cutting bamboo trees down with his sword she could have done it. As a last-ditch attempt, Min Li, without the express permission of any of her friends, tried throwing each of her friends towards the tree.

All her innumerable efforts left was bumps and bruises from Min Li getting repelled from the tree, and three very confused friends.

Min Li tried her best on every turn, consoling herself with the knowledge that a very welcome distraction was coming up soon.

The royals of the Kingdoms of Xilin and Nilin were coming together with Xilin palace for the first time for over twenty years. Xilin and Nilin had always had good relationship and the only reason for the twenty years of not meeting up was that the king and queen of Nilin had been in a period of mourning as they had lost a very close family member.

Min Li was grateful that she was one of the lucky ones who had the good fortune of being able to see the Nilin royals up close. She was not attending as the royal daughter of Xilin but rather she had been chosen as the maid to serve Fenhua during the banquet. Either way she welcomed it as she had never even seen a painting of the famed family.

Min Li’s chance to search the library came sooner than she thought it would.

While trying to get a power the easy way through the tree, Min Li nearly forgot yet again about her plan to use the library to improve herself.

Whilst she was in her chamber picking out which one of her servant girl dresses she was going to wear for the banquet the next evening, which by the way all looked nearly the same except for a brooch or two, she heard a tasty tidbit of information.

Min Li always kept her ears pricked up to hear anything about Fenhua’s whereabouts related to the library and her insistence upon it was finally bearing fruits. It was at times like this Min Li was grateful for her room being right next to the crown prince’s chambers.

“... father is expecting me to fight at some upcoming event so I … train. Right now... field...NOW. NOW”

Through the wall Min Li couldn’t be completely certain of what the crown prince was saying, but she thought she was safe enough to take a trip to the library.

At once Min Li snuck out of her room and crept to the library. Hunched up, she tiptoed in dead silence trying to do achieve the incredible feat of getting into a boring library.

As she neared the library doors, she was happy to see that there weren’t any library guards. Given that the very best scrolls in all the kingdoms were held there, she had thought it would be closely guarded. The crown prince is in here so often there maybe there doesn’t need to be any extra protection, Min Li thought.

She crept even closer to the library’s door; she was only a hairbreadth away.

“Min Li,” a familiar voice rang out behind Min Li.

Min Li startled and turned around slowly. She had thought she was doing a great job creeping around till then.

“What are you doing there?” Lily stage whispered.

Min Li stopped and became a statue.

“I can see you,” Lily whispered again.

“If you can see that I don’t want you to see me, why don’t you pretend that you cannot see me?” Min Li stayed in her statuesque position, only moving her mouth to speak and barely blinking.

Lily stood still hands on her hips looking at Min Li. Min Li berated herself in her head. I should have known she wouldn’t leave. She wants more material for her book. I have to give her something or she won’t leave.

“I need to go to the library.”

Given that Lily still had her hands on her hips, Min Li gathered that the information she had given her wasn’t enough.

“I have to go to the library without the crown prince seeing me.”

At once, Lily dropped her hands from her hips interested. She had been given enough material to make up the rest of the scene for ‘the crown prince and the maid’ chronicles she was writing for the other servant girls.

Min Li thought that she should at least try and use the problem to her advantage.

“Well why don’t you, my dear good friend, do me, your very good friend, a favour”

“What should I do?” Now that Lily had some information, she was eager to go back to being the best friend that ever existed, a title she had bestowed upon herself with no input from Min Li.

With that they agreed that Lily would stand guard out the library and break into a coughing fit if anyone approached with the intention of entering the sacred space.

Min Li entered the room and fell short of thoughts at the room’s breath-taking interior.

It seemed that not only were the scrolls the best in the land, but the library the prettiest in the land too.

Behind the big wooden oak door, there were bookshelves upon bookshelves of books. Each chocolate brown bookshelf was engraved with the most intricate gold flower designs. The ceiling of the library was high and held a gigantic gold chandelier. The walls of the library were carved with gold and silver patterns of flowers and trees.

Min Li’s own favourite part of the library was a seating zone right in the middle of all the bookshelves. The table and chairs seemed to be made of pure gold, but what really tipped it for Min Li was that upon the table there was a figure of a small tree.

As Min Li walked closer, she realised that it was the miniature copy of the power tree she had found at the end of the Eastern palace garden. The details were intricate, and she was nearly sure that all three kingdoms would have had to come together to create it.

Very practiced people with the ability to make precise miniscule changes in air pressure and heat from the kingdom of NilIn and Yilin respectively would have been needed to create such a complex model. Without them, Min Li made the estimate that it would have taken more than a thousand of years to accomplish such an accurate model of the alluring tree.

Min Li was so taken by awe that for ten minutes, she just wandered aimlessly around the space, taking everything in.

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The large wooden door started opening and Min Li peered towards the door to see who was entering in, momentarily forgetting that the library was off limits for everyone apart for a member of the royal family.

Luckily when Min Li finally realised her mistake, she was behind a bookshelf hidden from the view of anyone entering and near enough to a large brown drape that she could fairly easily duck behind it to hide.

The person who had entered was none other than the one who was meant to be training on the battlefield. The person who had entered was none other than the one that Min Li had told Lily to specifically look out for. The person who had entered was Fenhua the one and only crown prince.

Funny thing was, about fifteen seconds before the crown prince’s arrival Min Li had heard a little weak cough. Due to the lack in volume or desperation behind the cough, Min Li had assumed that it was an honest cough, one from a cold or a simple flu.

Min Li was certain that she was right to have made that assumption as Lily had accepted the task of fainting and dying before letting the crown prince in.

I should never have trusted the girl. Lily’s only aim these past weeks was to get more content to spread about Fenhua and Min Li.

Love the girl, but she’s disloyal to the core, Min Li scoffed. She would not have been surprised if Lily had led Fenhua right to her just to see what would happen next.

Min Li tried to hold her breath quietly as she hid. If Fenhua was part of the refined air power crew, he would have definitely been able to hear her from the other side of the room. She took comfort in the fact that he was not.

One hour later, Min Li was still in the same position. Her knees hurt, her head ached, and both her legs were cursing her.

One beautiful thing that happened as Min Li was staring upon the tree at the end of the crown prince’s garden, was that she came across this funny little thing called self-reflection.

Min Li had decided that as of late, due to her anger for the crown prince, she had been a little snappier with the people she loved and cared about around her. In a humble and what Min Li was now questioning to be an insane minute, Min Li decided to lead with forgiveness and to really embrace a love for thy neighbour type of mentality.

Stuck in an undignified position behind the curtain, Min Li was realising that her new philosophy was easier said than done.

Whilst Min Li’s legs cursed her, she decided in a fit of frustration that Lily and Fenhua were more suitable for the brunt of her own swears. In fact, she was taking her annoyance out on everybody and everything but herself.

Min Li felt as if the thick brown curtain drape was blocking her access to oxygen, and she could hardly breath properly.

In that very moment she decided the library wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. A truly great library should have a couple hiding spaces here and there. The architects should have thought such an important thing through. Given how much a building like this would cost, how could it have such a fatal flaw?

When she couldn’t take it any longer, Min Li peeked her head out the curtain. The crown prince was sitting on a chair with scrolls and books littered on the table in front of him.

Min Li wanted to read with him since she was so bored, but she could hardly see the writing in the scrolls. It really wasn’t her fault that she had become nosy, the only thing one could do when they were stuck like a half-dead fly on the wall, was take comfort in being nosy.

Giving into the smallest of guilty pleasures, Min Li squinted at the books strewn on the table. As an award for her hard work, she was able to see the titles of two books on the table.

From what Min Li saw, the crown prince was also interested in books that were behind her own original purpose for entering the library.

The word ‘power’ was in the names of both the pieces of literature.

What a greedy man. I don’t have one power and instead of helping me get one, he is looking for a way to get himself even more.

Almost subconsciously Min Li tutted at the thought. Then she bit her lip at annoyance at her error. Then she tried to calm herself down as to not reveal herself even more by displaying further irritation.

It’s not my fault that I had to tut. My righteousness is beyond what I can bear. His greediness compelled me to show some frustration.

Unluckily for her, the crown prince got up and frowning started walking towards the source of the noise. Min Li nearly wailed knowing that she happened to be the source.

I shouldn’t have let nosiness get to me. Now he will find me, and when he finds me, he might just kill me. My curiosity has killed me.

The crown prince walked closer and closer to her. Min Li winced and closed her eyes in fear of the upcoming rebuke.

She waited. And she waited. It never came.

Min Li opened one suspicious eye and cautiously looked round the drape again. The crown prince was frowning picking out a couple books from a shelf near her. The frown on his face was a frown of concentration and not of suspicion.

Fenhua walked back to his seat and started looking through the newly picked books. Min Li strained her eyes to see what the title of the books were.

P. Yes there is definitely a p in there. Not power again is it? An r and a y. Prophecy?

The word prophecy, prompted Min Li to think that her earlier train of thought that Fenhua was trying to gain powers, wasn’t entirely true.

Min Li questioned her eyesight. She had no idea why Fenhua wanted to read books on the prophecy. She knew that all the royal family wanted to bury everything on the prophecy, they didn’t want to take the risk of an untamed fire in the chosen one.

Maybe he is even more of a sinner than I had originally thought. A kind heart could forgive him wanting a power or two, but to covet being the chosen one. Audacity. She shook her head.

Before Min Li could think some more about why he was reading about the prophecy, someone knocked on the library door.

“ENTER”

Joe entered in looking as happy as ever. Pulling out the seat next to Fenhua and plopping down, he gave Min Li a good view of his face and she was too happy to focus on him rather than whatever Fenhua was doing.

Soon in the crown prince and his friend’s conversation, Joe asked a question that even Min Li wanted to know the answer to.

“So, why are you here? Don’t you have to work on your fighting skills?”

Asking the right questions. Anyone who willingly decides to spend time in a library when they have a whole palace to themselves doesn’t know how to really enjoy themselves. Min Li had clearly forgot she too was in the library.

“Work?” Fenhua hmphed. “I am fighting Kit, not exactly a fight.”

Min Li rolled her eyes. What a bad excuse. She knew Fenhua hated it when anyone underestimated their opponent. She zoned out.

…

“Are you ever going to tell her what is going on?”

Min Li zoned back in. She wanted to know both who ‘her’ was and what was going on that had prompted such inquisitiveness from the usually very relaxed Joe.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”

A familiar voice cried out from outside the library. A blood curdling scream. It took everyone’s attention away from the unnamed ‘her’.

What bad timing.

The crown prince and his friend looked at each other and ran out straight away to see what was going on. On account of her recent rise in nosiness, Min Li wanted too as well but didn’t want to run the risk of getting caught red handed and she had a sneaky suspicion she knew who was calling out. Shouting out a little bit too late she would add.

The moral of the story, Min Li took from her trip to the library, although curiosity could have killed her, satisfaction brought her back. Although she had to sneak out and didn’t get to check any books for herself, she now knew Fenhua was an enemy of not just her. Due to his coveting, she now had an ally in the chosen one for their dislike of the crown prince.

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