Crown Prince Ching, was tidying up in his study room when one scroll fell on the floor. He scan on a surface but did not bother to open it and toosed it in the other side to be thrown out but the scroll flew open.
He picked it up and take a closer look. He frowned, the girl in the painting was somehow familiar.
He called his personal attendant.
When he saw the girl's eyes he was transfixed. It's not the color of her eyes that caught his attentions but a pair of lovely eyes that says about her soul.
An expression of love, pain and loneliness, the eyes he could never forget even a thousands years would passed. He's unintentionally drowned to her.
How could I forget you? You looked so beautiful! The most beautiful woman he ever seen.
His voiced was full of love and admiration to the woman sitting in front of him. She smiled adorably, her eyes were grey that reminded him of ashes and smoke blowing in the wind, they always get darker and grayer depends on her emotion.
"Don't stare at me like that!"
She complained.
"Soon you will get tired of me!"
"How could that be possible? Would I paint you a couple of times, if I'll be tired looking at you?"
He said while painting her with love and adoration.
Then he suddenly saw an image of them walking in the palace hall, she was wearing a red wedding dressed with a crown in her head and so was he, they bowed before the heaven and on the eyes of their ancestors.
He was smiling at her, kissing her passionately. Then suddenly another flashed of vision came, he saw her died in his arms with an arrow stuck in her chest.
An arrow that was supposed to be his but she pushed him away instead, his heart breaks a thousand times seing his beloved dying in his arms, the pain was unbearable!
"Your Highness!"
His thought was pulled back when his attendant called him. Prince Ching dropped the portrait and absentmindedly touch his chest as he felt a sudden pain in his heart, it's still fresh, just like yesterday!
His hands was shaking. He never realized that there were tears in his face, he cried.
What was that, All about? He asked himself, turning his back to Ma Chunli, so he could not see him ans silently wipe his face.
This is not the first time he had that kind of visions, he always dream of it. but this is the first time that it appear so clear!
"That woman in the painting, who is she?"
Ma chunli picked the scroll in the floor to examine it, he frowned when he recognized it.
"Crown Princess— Princess Ye'er!"
When Prince Ching heard it, he was stunned. He sat heavily on the chair, as if all his strength was draining out on him, How is it possible that I forgot her?
"It was her!"
What he meant was the time when he first saw her in the bridge. He did not recognized her because the refined and composed lady in the painting that he saw just now, was exactly opposite to the reality of her.
Before the selection of consort, Prince Ching remembered he already excluded Ye'er in the list but indeed up on choosing her, instead.
In his dream, the girl that stood next to him in the past, will be the one who stand beside him in the future.
She will the girl that wields swords and block arrows to protect him. The girl that always believes in him even if the worlds go againts his will.
Just like Princess Ye'er he also had vision in his past life and he knows that as long as she stays beside him, her life will always be in danger. He saw her died in his arms protecting him. He doesn't want it to repeat again.
In that dream she was his beloved wife, his Empress!
Maybe by not choosing her as a Crown princess will protect her from danger!
But as the saying goes what may comes will always come.
"Your highness! His Majesty, already chose someone for you!"
"Is that so.?"
He asked dryly. "Is that what makes you so happy?"
"Your Highness!"
His attendant give a discreet laugh.
"It's not like that but I think you might like your future wife!"
"Oh—really?"
"Princess Ye, the daughter of Prime Minister Yan!"
Prince Ching, drops the blade that he was polishing upon hearing it. His heart beats fast, as if something inauspicious will going to happen, again.
He already exclude her in the list, how on earth it happened?
"How it happen?" He asked grimly.
"They said that, His Majesty accidentally meet her in his excursion not long ago, and he give her a riddle!"
"Riddle?"
"They said—"
"What?" He ask impatiently.
"It was a riddle that only you could answer!"
He clenched his hands tightly in his robe. How could that be possible? For the first time in his life, he felt an extreme fear and anger.
When fate decides, no one could ever change it.
That riddle was given to him by someone in his dream when he was ten years old. Out of his curiousity he asked his father, eventually, time had past that he forgot everything about it.
He could not believe his father still remember it and even asked it to someone else.
"There's no way in the world that girl knows the answer. That lady in my dream told me about it!" he thought.
"Chun'li from now on, you have to secretly protect, Crown Princess at any cost!"
He commanded his assistant.
He doesn't know how long he could protect her but this time, he won't allow the tragic history repeat in this lifetime.
"It's time for me to pay what I owed her in my past life!"
he bowed to himself.
"I got it!"
Ma chunli answered with out hesitation.
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Note:
Tàizǐ diànxià - honorific name for crown prince
Tàizǐ fēi. - crown princess consort
Ye'er Gōngzhǔ - Princess Ye or Ye'er depends on who is calling her
excursion a traditional visit of the Emperor in a certain place.