XH 19

 

“Xiao Hua, why are you not eating any bok choy?”

 

The younger girl that had been slowly pushing rice from her bowl into her mouth stopped and went still. “I did eat it.”

 

“Don’t lie to me.” Long Lian rebuked and pointed her silver chopstick at Xiao Hua. “I only saw you picking up chicken to eat. Even the Luo Han Zai was not picked by you!”

 

“I…”

 

Long Lian did not bother to listen to whatever excuse Xiao Hua tried to come up with and just piled her bowl with vegetables until it resembled a flower pot.

 

“Ah Lian, this is way too much,” Xiao Hua complained in dismay.

 

“It’s good to eat more meat, but you must eat vegetables too!”

 

“I did-”

 

“Then look at me when you say that.”

 

“...” Ops, she got caught.

 

“You eat way too little when you are still growing. It’s bad for your body!” Long Lian scolded as she narrowed her eyes at Xiao Hua’s small figure. “Third brother also agreed that you are too small.”

 

She’s… too small? (→_→)

 

Xiao Hua pointed out. “Ah Lian, I’m only thirteen years old.”

 

Le XiaoTing was the only child in her family and her friend’s children were all not older than ten years old. She knows that her current body was thinner compared to a few months ago, but she doubted she could be any smaller than average thirteen-year-olds.

 

Seeing that Xiao Hua truly believed that there was nothing wrong with her body, Long Lian decided to show her instead. “An Wan, are there any thirteen-year-old servants around?”

 

An Wan had switched shift with Tian Zi and Tian Chi to serve the princess until there was a new trustable maid to fill in the empty position. “There are, Princess.”

 

“Have them all bring over.”

 

 “Yes, Princess.”

 

“Ah Lian…? What are you doing?” Xiao Hua asked in confusion, her head tilted to a side slightly. That action tickles Long Lian’s heart.

 

Long Lina: So cute! If she gains more meat, she will look even more adorable! (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ

 

Long Lian wanted to pick up more vegetables for Xiao Hua but her chopsticks stopped moving when she noticed there was no more space for her to add more dishes on Xiao Hua’s bowl.

 

“Eat!” Long Lian ordered and stared at Xiao Hua, using her forceful gaze to push her friend to finish all the food in her bowl.

 

Sighing inwardly, Xiao Hua started to eat the food, not wanting to argue. She had just finished off a piece of bok choy when An Wan returned.

 

“Princess, they are all gathered at the courtyard.”

 

“Good!” Long Lian put down her chopsticks, grabbed Xiao Hua’s wrist and pulled her out of the room. There were two female servants walking in front of them as a guide while carrying lanterns to light up the way under the dark sky.

 

“Ah, wait!” Xiao Hua cried out when she nearly tripped over her long skirt from Long Lian’s forceful pulling. Her hand was still holding onto her chopstick as there was no time to put them down.

 

They arrived at a small courtyard where there were two boys and one girl standing in attention. The girl looked nervous while the two boys stood with straight backs, ready for whatever would be asked of them.

 

“This servant greets Princess!” The three of them greeted Long Lian.

 

“Rise,” Long Lian said absentmindedly as she pulled Xiao Hua to stand closer to the other kids. “Look, they are the same age as you.”

 

Why does this situation remind Le XiaoTing of her friend that tried to get her child to befriend other kids in school?

 

Even if Xiao Hua felt a little embarrassed at the situation, she had to go along with it. When Xiao Hua was wondering how she should greet them, the three of them had already moved to greet her.

 

“Greetings to Elder Sister Hua!”

 

“H-Hello, how are you?” After she said that, she wanted to smack herself. What kind of greeting was that? A stupid ingrained reflex of hers!

 

One of the boys snorted rudely, where the other boy quickly stopped him with a sharp prod of his skinny elbow.

 

“Can you see, Xiao Hua? They are taller and larger than you!” Long Lian ignored their antics and focused on the main objective of this meeting.

 

Xiao Hua blinked and took her time to stare at them properly. The three of them were indeed taller than her. Since two of them were male, they naturally have a big sized body.

 

So Xiao Hua turned her attention to the sole female to compare herself to. Her height was actually taller than the boys but smaller than them, yet her size was definitely twice bigger than Xiao Hua’s!

 

Xiao Hua turned her attention back to Long Lian, who was sported with an anticipating expression and seriously answered the princess. “They have gotten the good things from their parents. That’s nice.”

 

Long Lian: “...”

 

An Wan: “...”

 

The three that had gotten good things: “...”

 

Long Lian did not say anything and pulled Xiao Hua back to her room to continue stuffing Xiao Hua with food, much to her horror. However, Long Lian had no sympathy for Xiao Hua. She felt that Xiao Hua was simple-minded so she will just need to do what she told her to and then everything will be fine!

 

After the thirteen-year-old servants were dismissed, they returned back to their task before they were summoned. Their mind was still replaying the earlier incident and they finally confirmed one thing.

 

Elder Sister Hua is weird.

 

Long Lian did not give up and keep stuffing food onto Xiao Hua’s bowl. She only stopped when Xiao Hua could no longer eat. Xiao Hua knew that if this goes on, she will vomit, so she shifted her body away from the table and ignored the unreasonable princess.

 

An Wan’s mouth twitched once when she saw this scene. Their Princess had never been treated like this before and yet this little girl dared to do so and was not punished for her rudeness. Looks like this girl is not as simple as she portrays herself to be.

 

The remaining dishes went into Long Lian’s stomach when she could not stuff the sulking Xiao Hua with food anymore.

 

An Jing came by and reminded the princess to return back to the palace. The Emperor and Empress were waiting for her and had even sent a carriage to bring her back.

 

“I will see you tomorrow!” Long Lian promised earnestly, her eyes twinkled in anticipation.

 

“I will wait for you,” Xiao Hua said, no longer sulking over the food stuffing. “You don’t need to visit often when you are busy. I heard that a princess needs to do a lot of things.”

 

Long Lian whined. “Mother Empress wants me to learn archery tomorrow. I don't know why I would need to learn it. It’s not as if it will be useful to me.”

 

“There must be a reason why the Empress wants you to learn it,” Xiao Hua gently pointed out.

 

“She told me that it would be good for me when it comes to self-defense. But I still feel there isn’t a need for me to learn it. I’m not planning to enter the military!”

 

“Learning archery isn’t only useful for military or war,” Xiao Hua pointed out.

 

Long Lian frowned. “What else could it use for? Most of the court ladies had never learned archery and focus only on the four arts. But currently, they are obsessed with the zither.”

 

“Oh, zither? They make beautiful sounds.” Xiao Hua feels a bit excited. She had never seen or heard live Guzheng playing before. She only saw it from the Youtube site and historical Chinese dramas.

 

“You want to learn it? I can have one of the court ladies to teach you.”

 

“No, there’s no need. I’m just interested in listening, not playing it. Wait, don’t switch the topic!”

 

“You are the one that switched it. But what's more to talk about archery? Mother Empress wants me to learn, so I had to.”

 

“With that mindset, you will learn it just to obey your mother’s words. Without interest, you will not concentrate well and that would be a waste of time.”

 

Xiao Hua felt a strong determination to try broadening Long Lian’s view. She knows that it was not good to push a person to follow her mindset, but not if Long Lian was ignorant of the benefits of learning archery.

 

“Archery is indeed mostly used in battles, but it will also help you to train your mind and eyesight. It also helps in building your arm strength. I do not claim to know what the Empress is thinking, but did she not just tell you it’s for your self-defense?”

 

Long Lian pouted. “I already asked the third brother to teach me sword arts earlier. Sword arts are definitely more useful than archery!”

 

That was what Xiao Hua secretly thought too. “Archery has its own strengths.”

 

“Perhaps so, but it’s still not as good as a sword! I will need to refill the arrows every time it was used!”

 

“Just learn both arts are fine, isn’t it?” Xiao Hua asked.

 

“It’s wasting my time. I could have used the time to learn more about sword arts.”

 

Xiao Hua never thought a fifteen-year-old girl would think this much, but then, this was not the modern time period. “But Ah Lian, archery seems to help a person’s mind to be sharper. Isn’t there one of the general that follows the second prince is good at archery? Tian Zi said that general is good at strategizing!”

 

“Xiao Hua,” Long Lian stretched out her name with an annoyed expression on her face. “Are you calling me stupid?”

 

“What? Of course not! No one is stupid except when they did not use their brain or suffering from mental deficiencies.”

 

“Me-tai…what?”

 

Xiao Hua’s eyes widened in a comical way when she realized she had just spoken English!

When she talked to her Chinese friends back in her original world, she would often speak in a mixture of Mandarin and English, especially when she does not know a certain word in Chinese and have no choice but to say it in English.

 

“I mean… a person that's got a problem with their brain. But my point is, learning archery helps you. I don’t know much about the strengths of archery, but learning more than one form of protection is always better, right? Even if it wastes some time, but when the situation arises where you lost your sword and there’s only a bow and arrow in your hand, at least you know what to do, right? And you need lots of strength to pull the bow and fire the arrow at the target, so it could be considered as training your strength too!”

 

Seeing that Long Lian was contemplating what she had said, Xiao Hua smiled happily.

This princess is a good one by not being narrow-minded. It’s truly tough to listen to people’s reasoning when they have strong belief!

 

“Take your time to think about it. Just attend the lesson tomorrow and experience it. If you think you don’t need to learn it, you can always tell the Empress to stop the lessons.”

 

Long Lian sighed wearily. “I cannot tell Mother Empress that I don’t want to learn. But…I still don’t believe it would help me much.”

 

Xiao Hua just smiled and did not say anything. She had said all she could say. The rest will be up to Long Lian herself.

 

Meanwhile, An Wan stared at Xiao Hua with a complicated expression.