Lei Xing and the other three were sent to the Cloud courtyard. It was a beautiful little courtyard with a small garden in front of it and a little pond in the center with some water lilies floating in it and a little wooden bridge over it, creating a path through, the courtyard had a simple and peaceful atmosphere. As soon as they arrived, they all went into their rooms to prepare for the next day. Lei Xing walked into her room, which was a simple spacious room with just basic furnishings, a table set facing the door with a teapot and cups on it, another table on the left side with ink, brushes, and paper and on the right side, a bed with green curtains in front of it and another smaller room off to one side that served as a bath and restroom area with a curtain covering the entrance.

Lei Xing turned to the maid, "What's your name?"

The maid bowed, "This servant's name is Xiao Ruo."

Lei Xing nodded, "Okay, I'm going to sleep. Don't wake me up."

The maid nodded and approached Lei Xing and reached for her. 

Lei Xing furrowed her brows, "What are you doing?"

"Miss, you said you want to sleep. So I wanted to help you undress." Xiao Ruo answered Lei XIng with a look of confusion.

"Oh, no need. I can do it myself. Just leave."

"How can I let Miss do it yourself, I have been assigned to serve you and so I have to do my best, otherwise I will get punished." Xiao Ruo anxiously said.

"Well, no one will punish you. If you don't tell them, I don't tell them, no one will know. Plus isn't it just simply taking off my own clothes. I have my own highly functioning hands."

"But- "

"Just leave, I have a headache and I want to sleep. That's the best way you can serve me right now." Lei Xing interrupted her protest and sternly looked at Xiao Ruo. Xiao Ruo pleadingly looked at her and then helplessly turned and left, closing the doors behind her.

Lei Xing sighed, "How tiring..."

She took off the dress and hair pins, and laid down on the bed in her inner wear and thought through the events of the morning. 

...so that annoying asshole turned out to be a Prince...it seems I have offended someone troublesome...anyway, he was just trying to make his position known today...so he shouldn't be a problem anymore...yep, definitely not, I hope T_T)...this situation is already stressful enough without an annoying critic who is out for blood...

As she was thinking, she fell asleep and woke up sometime in the evening. When she woke up, she rolled around bed for a while, hesitant to move.

...Lazing around after working hard is the best...

After a while of lazing around, she got thirsty and as soon as she got up to get some water, Xiao Ruo opened the door and entered.

"Miss, you are finally awake. I will have your dinner brought in."

"Okay." Lei Xing replied as she looked at her skeptically. 

...did she have her ear plastered to the door the entire time?...

Xiao Ruo turned around and left and Lei Xing went to drink some water and looked around the room, opened the windows and looked into the front garden with the pond, her room was facing the front so she was lucky to get some view. She sat by the window and looking at the peaceful scenery and her mind blanked. After a short while, Xiao Ruo came back with a two other maids carrying containers. They arranged the dishes on the table in front and left. Lei Xing went up to the table and enjoyed her dinner, the food was good and there was a variety of 5 side dishes of meat and vegetable. Lei Xing nodded with satisfaction as she savored each dish.

...A palace is indeed a palace...even the food is on another level...

After dinner, sat down idly and scanned the room and yawned.

...I'm bored, I miss my phone, the internet...can't even go anywhere...

Xiao Ruo stood on the side and after a while of watching Lei Xing just sitting down idly, she said, "Miss, why don't you prepare for tomorrow?"

...all the other candidates have been preparing and you went to sleep!...

"Prepare what?" 

"Miss, your piece for tomorrow sounds very complicated. I'm sure it will be magnificent and I'm sure you have been practicing beforehand, but I thought maybe Miss might want to still...maybe practice some more...or maybe, do you have any specific requests for me to arrange for tomorrow?" 

Lei Xing raised an eyebrow, a bit confused as to what she was talking about and then she remembered what she had told that Lady Lian earlier and burst out laughing. Xiao Ruo was taken aback and dumbfounded by her laughter and looked at her confused.

After Lei XIng had enough of laughing she said, "I'm not doing that."

Xiao Ruo was even more confused, "You're not? but you said..."

"I said I was thinking about it, didn't say I was." Lei Xing smirked and continued, "I'd be an idiot to do that, there's no way I would finish that in 3 hours...I'd probably need at least a week and a lot of paper."

Lei Xing laughed a little again and then composed herself and settled in a smile, she was in a good mood.

"Miss, then what are you planning on doing?"

"Who knows...I guess I should start thinking about that." Lei Xing said holding her chin and drumming her fingers on the table with her other hand.

...Yeah, what am I going to do...I'm not terrible at art, but I'm not great either...also, I tend to lean more towards abstract art, it's easier...but I don't think they'd be able to appreciate my avant-garde style...and I'd have to give a bloody presentation too...

Lei Xing stood up and went to sit at the desk on the left with the ink and paper. Xiao Ruo followed her and sat beside her and started grinding the ink. Lei Xing stared at the paper for a long time and then looked at the ink and brushes and froze.

...Bigger problem, I don't think I have ever drawn anything with a brush before...I definitely don't have the control for a brush...

Lei Xing sighed and went back to staring at the paper, furrowing her brows. She picked up a brush, dipped it in ink and hovered over the paper. 

...Let's try for a mountain?...yeah two mountains with a river in between...yeah, that's easy...so what does it mean?... I don't know, two countries and a border...I already said that, didn't I?...Whatever, I'll figure that out later...

Lei Xing started to draw her mountains, she stopped midway, frowned and removed the paper and started on a new sheet. After a while, she removed the paper again and started again. Then she crumpled the sheet and threw it to the side and started again and repeated this several times. The more she tried, the more annoyed she was becoming and the deeper she frowned.

...This is why I hate art! I always get annoyed by it...which is probably due to the fact that I grew up with an annoying older brother whose one of those naturally "gifted artists"...something that took me hours, would literally take him seconds -_-)...there's also the problem that I am too particular when it comes to art and have to have it look ideal, it's so infuriating...which is why I gave up art  in general for the sake of my health...and went with abstract, there's nothing like a mistake in abstract...

Lei Xing refocused and realized that she had started turning the mountains into some abstract mess and started to make it look like some elaborate mess. She breathed out exasperated by all this, dropped the brush and got up. "Please prepare me a bath." Then she walked back to bed and got on and shut her eyes, all this thinking about art has given her a headache.

Xiao Ruo watched on as Lei Xing tried to draw and saw all the messes that followed after and watched her increasing frustration. She looked at Lei Xing on the bed, then inwardly sighed and went off to prepare the bath.

...It seems tomorrow won't be easy for her either...

When the bath was ready, Lei Xing got up and went over to the bath. This time she didn't protest when Xiao Ruo went to help her undress, she was too tired and busy thinking to bother. When she got in the bath tub, Xiao Ruo took the initiative to massage her shoulders. Lei Xing stiffened when she touched her at first, but quickly relaxed and shut her eyes. 

After a while of massaging her shoulders, Xiao Ruo said, "Miss, I can help you massage your temples as well."

"En, thank you." Lei Xing said in a relaxed voice. Xiao Ruo then moved on to use two fingers to massage her temples. Lei Xing sighed in a relaxed manner and sank in lower in the tub, finally feeling completely relaxed.

...I could get used to this...I can't believe I had always rejected this help before now...I have to re-evaluate that...

After the relaxing bath, Lei Xing entered the main room and looked at the table with her drawings around it. She frowned and then sighed and went to her bed.

...Whatever, who cares, why am I even making an effort for failure?...but it's just really embarrassing though...who cares what other people think, that's their own business...

With these thoughts in mind, Lei Xing went to sleep. Either way, what she wanted was to fail, what did it matter how badly she did? 

When Xiao Ruo saw that Lei Xing had gone to bed again, she shook her head, inwardly sighed and put out the lamps and quietly left the room.

***

The next day, the event had been moved to the afternoon. Just like before, at noon the candidates were led to the space below the stairs leading up to the main hall and sat down in front of tables which had a large sheet of paper, and then an array of colors in small bottles on the side and different sized brushes with a little bowl of water for cleaning the brushes. They were given even less time than before, this time they gave them only 1 hour. 

Lei Xing sat down and looked at the paper, then looked at the brushes and pigments. After a while. Lei Xing grabbed a big brush, dipped it in black ink and started making curved standing strokes on the paper in the center of the paper. Then she used a smaller brush and drew a ragged line under the strokes, that went on to the middle of the paper and stopped. Then drew a sharp straight line down, and she made an upside down stairway that went on to the edge of the paper. Then took the smallest brush and dipped it in red ink and drew three tiny small circles, with little antennas, and little feet, it seemed to be an ant in front of the curved strokes. Then after that on the other side underneath the stairway, she drew a bunch of wiggly lines, that went on until it reached the stairway. Then she drew a cone shape that started somewhere outside the paper and then ended on somewhere on the wiggly lines. Then she took another smaller brush and dipped it in brown ink and began to draw inside the wiggly lines. Then she took another smaller brush with black ink and made some more additions to it. When she was done she looked down at it. 

...Not too bad, it does look like trees, and that's a mountain clearly, that's obviously a cliff and a wonderful fire ant...It's clear!...right? Whatever...

"Time up!" 

Lei Xing stood up along with the other candidates and they made their way to the main hall and was with the first time, the procedure was the same and the presentations began. 

 

MiraiSaesang's Notes: Hello, I'm back! As I promised it will now be 2 chapters/week...I will work on getting that up to 3 soon...

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