About halfway to the mess hall, right in front of the lotus pond, someone threw a mud ball.

 

“Pwaah!” Pul heard the Prince yelp as huge balls of mud smacked them both in the sides of their heads, the thick heavy muck splattering everywhere. One had hit Pul so hard that he could feel mud in his ear.

 

Dammit! It’s an ambush! thought Feiyan, quickly scanning the area. I was too careless and let my guard down…

 

Face stinging, Feiyan spat dirt out of her mouth and dragged Pul down beside her, lying flat on her belly in the muddy grass as the air erupted with black brown projectiles shooting from all directions. Even worse, the culprits were using the mud to conceal the rocks that they had mixed in. At this rate, she was going to lose an eye if she let this go on.

 

Crawling forward on her elbows and knees, Feiyan realized that she was really in for it this time.

 

Those bastards got us into the most open and lowest area of the garden. They’re all on slightly higher ground and I only took the shortcut because that clumsy fool made me late…and it was roasted meat for lunch today! Ooooh! I’m annoyed to death!

 

“Heh!” grunted a voice Feiyan instantly recognized as thirteen year old Zhu Yunfeng, the Royal Astrologer’s nephew. “So the page of the Shoban Crown Prince isn’t much more than this. A pity to let such a creature into the Royal Academy. Look at his barbarian coloring: it hurts one’s eyes…” he laughed, referring to Pul’s Kazarussian features with disdain.

 

“Who is it?” gritted Pul. “Show yourself!”

 

Feiyan glanced beside her. She could see a red sheen fall over the blond boy’s gaze as he ground the dirt with his fingers, blue eyes filled with rage.

 

“Zhu Yunfeng, you really have guts. How could you be so discourteous to a guest of our kingdom? If you want a fight, then come out here,” challenged Feiyan.

 

“Shit…it’s his Highness,” someone whispered.

 

“Where?” asked a girl’s voice.

 

“Are you sure…??” another girl muttered uncertainly.

 

“Does it matter?” hissed an older boy’s voice.

 

Feiyan sighed internally, easily identifying the whispering voices because of her training.

 

Zhu Yunfeng, Li Molan, Song Juqing, Su Qian Qian. Is that all? Heh…

 

“You guys, get yourselves out here,” Feiyan said in a low voice, standing up.

 

“Sure sounds good!” said Zhu Yunfeng with a nasty grin, stepping out into the clearing. He was still holding a ball of mud, and rolled it around in his hands in anticipation.

 

“Well you’re Highness, since you have a weak body with just thought we’d help you get a head start with raking the pond weeds!” he laughed.

 

“Zhu Yunfeng, you really want to die,” breathed Feiyan. “Insulting a member of the Royal family is punishable by death. Can the Zhu family really take responsibility?”

 

“There’s no rank here!”  Li Molan butted in. “We’re all students…or are you flouting the Academy rules by insisting on your status, your Highness?” he hissed.

 

Feiyan ground her teeth.

 

Hmph! You’re not as stupid as you look! You know that I will make myself and the Emperor hypocrites if I say yes…Li Molan and Zhu Yunfeng have been watching Bi with this type of intention from the beginning. Overestimating yourself!* Today I must teach you a lesson!

 

“Since it’s like this, don’t blame me for being discourteous. Come at me altogether,” Feiyan said calmly.

 

The two boys and two girls looked at each other, hesitating.

 

“You…no one asked you to fight for me,” Pul mumbled in a low voice, climbing to his feet.

 

“Huh? You weren’t the only one insulted…why are you picking a fight with me?” Feiyan grimaced, whipping her head around in surprise to stare at the older boy. She saw that his eyes were obscured by the curtain of his blond hair, but his lower lip, which was cut where a muddy rock had sliced him, was trembling.

 

“I’m not,” Pul sighed, regaining some control. “But I don’t want to make trouble for Prince Seiren. If my presence offends them, then I will take myself out of their sight,” he said, bowing low over cupped hands.

 

He made to leave, but Zhu Yunfeng quickly blocked his way.

 

“What do you intend to do?” Feiyan demanded, once again stepping forward in front of Pul.

 

“A teacher will be coming any minute!” hissed one of the girls, looking around nervously.

 

“I didn’t think the men of Shobu were such cowards!” laughed Li Molan.

 

Zhu Yunfeng guffawed in a nasty way.

 

Dark clouds rolled across Pul’s face and his hands fisted at his sides.

 

Feiyan shot Li Molan a narrowed glance.

 

That idiot is just stoking the flames. Zhu Yunfeng is big, but isn’t that smart…Li Molan must have told him what to say…I will remember this later.

 

“Li Molan, all you know how to do is talk. Pul you go first to find Senior Teacher Tu. Let me handle them,” she said.

 

Pul hesitated.

 

It didn’t sit well with him just leaving the Prince to these four who would obviously gang up on the much smaller boy, but if he got into an altercation here, it would have political implications and affect his older brother’s reputation. Gnashing his teeth with frustration at the dilemma, he felt his blood slowly boil. He stood with his feet feeling like they were bolted to the ground, and then he abruptly turned away, moving without thinking.

 

“Don’t let him get away!” snarled Li Molan, darting forward with his hand raised in a chop against Pul’s exposed back.

 

Dammit! Feiyan thought, shifting her stance to meet him. Who shows their back to an enemy? So clumsy!

 

Kicking out at Li Molan, who blocked her and then skidded backwards, the problem Feiyan now faced was revealing too much of her skill. Under normal circumstances, taking on four opponents would be nothing to her. As a Shadow and Lord Mu’s daughter, she had trained day and night, and although she was only nine, she had far surpassed what a normal child of her age could do.

 

Like Feiyan, Bi also had a natural aptitude for martial arts, but because his body had been born weaker than hers, he hadn’t caught up to her level yet. Also, he was deliberately hiding his skills to protect himself. If she exposed a much higher skill level than expected, then she’d also be exposing the Crown Prince to his enemies.

 

Zhu Yunfeng, she could fool, but Li Molan came from a general’s family. Like her, he would have trained from the time he could walk to now. Being thirteen, he had four more years of training than her, and it would be considered normal if he defeated her. Realizing this, Feiyan felt that she could only lose here, but if she let them beat her up…

 

Well isn’t this a little too miserable? I haven’t healed completely from the last incident…

 

“What are you waiting for?!” Li Molan screeched at the others, who immediately joined in to attack Pul.

 

Seeing that he’d done something foolish, Pul decided that he could not leave Prince Iseulbi now and moved to block his attackers. Although he had trained in secret in the palace annex, it was not like he had actually encountered real combat situations and he gradually realized that his skill could not make up for the lack in experience. With this dynamic, he began to feel that he was a little out of his depth.

 

“Pul, just go! You’ll just get in the way!” Feiyan shouted, sliding in front of him as Pul crossed both arms to block a kick from Zhu Yunfeng. Feiyan slid around Zhu Yunfeng and simply kicked the back of his knees out. He fell face first into the mud with a splat.

 

“STOP!” commanded a low, silky male voice. The sound had not been very loud, but it had reached every corner of the garden because the sound had been emitted with internal force. All six of them turned towards the voice as Lord Mu and Headmaster Liwen Yi walked swiftly towards them with identical frowns.

 

Father! Feiyan thought in relief, but unfortunately it had been too early for that and Li Molan, seeing her distraction, took the opportunity to drive his palm towards Pul’s chest. Realizing just a second too late, Feiyan shoved Pul out of the way, taking the blow in the back.

 

“KEUGH!!” Feiyan coughed up blood as she tumbled forward. Dazed, she watched the red drops flying in a pretty splatter as she hit the surface of the lotus pond with a terrific splash.

 

“Bi!” shouted Pul in horror, running to the side of the pond. He threw off his outer robe and splashed into the water, but was stopped by Senior Teacher Tu who had arrived as well.

 

“You!” roared Lord Mu. He seized Li Molan by the collar and threw him at Liwen Yi who caught him and shoved him into a kneeling position on the ground.

 

“Don’t move,” Liwen Yi said to the boy.

 

Lord Mu walked swiftly to the side of the pond noticing that Feiyan was not surfacing. Even in this situation, he had realized that she would not want to expose that she was the Prince’s double and had no doubt tried to swim under the bridge and into one of the channels that linked the pond to the other palace waterways. Lord Mu’s frown deepened. Both he and Liwen Yi had sensed something off about Li Molan’s palm strike. Although he did not know the extent of injury, he trusted Feiyan to make it out alive. Unfortunately, the other issue could not wait. If not handled carefully, relations between Moutan and Shobu might deteriorate.

 

Face grim, he turned to sort out the remaining participants of the brawl, however Pul was still fully panicked.

 

“We must go and get him! He’ll drown!” shouted Pul, struggling with Senior Teacher Tu, who held him back from in the shallows of the pond with a surprisingly firm grip. “Please! Why is no one helping him?!”

 

Mu Shan sighed at the desperate expression on the boy’s face.

 

“Get those four out of here,” Lord Mu said quietly to Liwen Yi, “and hold them all separately for questioning. If you must take that route, then do that too…I don’t want any loose ends.”

 

Liwen Yi nodded, understanding the hidden instruction from her master.

 

Without wasting anymore time, Lord Mu dove into the water to retrieve his daughter.

 

***

 

“Zhu Yunfeng, Li Molan…just you wait!” Feiyan choked out as she lay gasping on the side of the riverbank some distance from the palace.

 

As the Academy was located on an outside wall, the lotus pond was naturally connected to the exterior waterway and she only had to find the exit hole to get outside where no one would see her. The water gates were heavily armed with deathtraps to prevent intruders infiltrating the palace, but since Lord Mu had designed all the trap mechanisms in the palace complex, she had simply disarmed them and then rearmed them once she had made her way through the tunnel.

 

The water gate she had used exited into the adjacent river which went back for many li into the Royal hunting ground. As the grounds were forbidden to outsiders, and it well before the change in season, the area would be deserted. So she simply let herself be carried by the river’s current until she couldn’t see the palace, and then dragged herself up onto the bank.

 

It was late in the summer and the water level was a little lower anyway, so thankfully she had not had to go through the full length of the underground water tunnels while they were completely submerged. Still shuddering, she recalled the moment of panic she had had as she hit the pond water, feeling like the darkness had swallowed her whole. Amongst the Shadows, only she had a deep aversion of water. Though she had trained against it, and swam well, she had never quite gotten over that initial feeling of disorientation of having her head under water.

 

Shucking off her sodden outer robes, and pushing her unbound hair away from her face, she sat on the bank cross legged and cautiously circulated her internal force, checking her body meticulously.

 

Li Molan…

 

In the little time that he had, Li Molan had not been able to gather the full force of the palm strike before hitting her, thus it was less damage than she expected, but with her previous injuries still not completely healed, he’d fractured her shoulder blade and caused her organs some internal damage. She had had enough presence of mind to protect her heart, but only just. Sitting as she was now, she found that her energy was in disarray. Closing her eyes, she pushed away her exhaustion and tried to focus on what was blocking it. As she focused, she felt pain ripple through her chest.

 

‘Yan’er…’ said a voice in her head.

 

“I’m here Father,” she croaked softly, opening her eyes.

 

Lord Mu, looking like a river god, burst up out of the river with one foot balanced on a plume of water and then tapped down lightly into the grass without a single drop of moisture on his person. Despite her painful state, she had to admit that her father looked pretty cool in his silver mask, with his dark hair flying in the breeze. Elegant and completely composed, he no doubt appeared like a hero from one of Haruka’s silly romance novels. She couldn’t keep her lips from forming into a smirk, but it was short-lived as her father settled himself down in the grass behind her and placed his palms against her back, forcing his internal energy into her.

 

!!!!

 

She huffed against the pain and at the same time a large gout of black blood erupted up her throat causing her to choke as it forced its way out. Her father used his sleeve to wipe the black liquid that dribbled down her chin.

 

‘That Li brat…I didn’t know that the Li family was cultivating a poison palm technique,’ her father said directly into her head. ‘Your pathways are all blocked from the poison…I need to force it out. Hold still!’

 

“The Li family will have to be investigated…” she whispered tiredly. “Father…you know I hate water the most…”

 

“Don’t talk, Feiyan…” ordered Lord Mu as he concentrated on clearing the toxin from her body, feeling renewed anger blooming in his chest.

 

Then Lord Mu’s eyes shifted. Zeroing in on a very specific place in the trees, Lord Mu noted an intruder. His lips flattened into a thin line, but he was more concerned about Feiyan, and since there was no sense of threat, he decided to ignore it for the time being.  However, it would be best if he and his daughter could leave as quickly as possible.

 

“Now that Father is here, nothing will happen to you. Focus,” Lord Mu instructed, pouring his energy into her.

 

Sitting in a tree with a bow over his knee and a brace of rabbits on his belt, Prince Seiren’s heart thudded as he suppressed his breath, one hand over his mouth and nose.

 

Gods! I thought he looked right at me!

 

The Shoban Prince, who had been cheerfully wandering the royal hunting grounds, realized that he had chanced upon something very interesting and quietly watched the two people next to the river. When he was sure that they were too busy to notice, he slipped out of the tree and left them behind.

 

As he hopped lightly from tree to tree, he thought:

 

So, this whole time…it was a little girl. How unexpected…

 

 

 

 

 

___________________________

* 不自量力 – this pretty much means that the person is overconfident/full of themselves.