Two months after his first meeting with the emperor, Xiao Song was once again invited to the palace. This time, it was different as he had gotten a special invitation from the emperor. There was nothing political nor serious about this meeting. It was a light tea drinking session where they were exchanging pleasantries and discussing about the progression that the Shen province had made since the aid was delivered two months ago. The meeting was rather short and simple.
As he was leaving the palace, he stumbled upon a woman whose face had been haunting his dream ever since the firework day.
"Miss Liu Shi? What are you doing?"
"How dare you speak like to the princess!" the maid who was accompanying the woman, scolded Xiao Song.
* 'Princess!' *
Xiao Song's jaw almost dropped to the floor and his imagination about sharing his future with Miss Liu Shi instantly.
Since the fateful encounter in the palace, Xiao Song no longer harbored any wishes of reconnecting with Miss Liu Shi. While he gained some confidence to get to know more about her since the firework night, everything crushed into mere dreams as he realized that there was a huge hierarchy gap between both of them. It was almost unrealistic to think that he would even get see a glimpse of her in the future. She was the princess of the empire while he was only the son of an impoverished aristocrat who resided in the countryside.
"Young Master! You have a guess" the worker of the boarding house called out for Xiao Song.
"Is it Young Master Lu Zheng?" he asked the servant.
"No. It's a woman"
Xiao Song who had been lazying on the bed the entire day, hastily get up to his feet. He immediately ran out of his room and almost fell on the staircase as he was rushing down to the ground floor. If his guess was right, there was only one woman he had been acquainted with since he came to the capital!
At the entrance of the boarding house, Xiao Song could see Princess in front of the Liu Shi was standing in front of the door with both of her hands hidden behind her back.
"Miss…no…Your Highness! What are you doing here?"he asked in disbelief.
"I wanted to meet you"
"Huh?" Xiao Song was shamelessly staring at the beautiful woman in front of him. She wanted to meet him? The princess wants to meet him?!
"Your Highness wanted to meet me? B..but why? Err… where is your servant?"
'"I sneaked out alone. So they weren't here with me right now"
" Why did you wanted to meet me?" Xiao Song's face turned red as he repeated the question.
"I wanted to apologize to you because I was not telling you the truth about my real identity when we first met"
"Ahh… that thing.." Xiao Song scratched his head shyly."You don't have to worry about it. I understand that you'd be in trouble if you revealed your identity to a stranger." He starred at the ground as he was uttering the half-baked lie. He was clearly affected by the deception. But he was trying to play the cool guy act here.
"I want to befriend with you" she mumbled the words slowly Xiao Song could barely heard them.
" Huh?"
" I think I'm indebted to you. Hence, I want to do something to repay for your kindness. Take this" she held out a cage with a pigeon inside of it. Befuddled, Xiao Song hesitantly accepted the bird and the cage.
"What is this for?"
"This is my pigeon. From now on, let's use him to exchange letters. I need to go now or someone would realized that I was not in my room." she then, turned around and proceed ran toward the main road leaving Xiao Song who was still stand rooted at the exact spot. It took him several minutes to digest the whole conversation. He gleefully walked inside the boarding house with the cage hanging on his hand. That day, his confidence was boosted high he was practically on the cloud nine!
Subsequently, Xiao Song's days in the capital were no longer tedious. He would frequently exchanging letters with Princess Liu Shi midst helping Lu Zheng developing new drugs at his work place.
The most unexpected situation for Xiao Song was when his visitation to the palace increased by days. After four months living in the capital, he would frequent the palace once a week to have tea drinking session with the emperor.
Other than Lu Zheng and Princess Liu Shi, Xiao Song had also expanded his social circle by mingling with the people around the capital. He liked to exchange small talks with the lady who sold mantou in front of his boarding house. The lady seemed to be a chatterbox who knew a lot about the most current and updated issue within the capital.
She gladly informing him about the commotion that occurred within the minister of finance's household. Rumors had that his headstrong daughter had - one day -declared that she wanted to marry someone from outside of the capital.
"I heard that the boy was practically penniless, hence why the minister rejected the boy" she whispered scandalously. Her eyes were wandering all over the place trying to detect if there was any eavesdropper lurking around.
"She was practically marrying beneath her. That's why the family forbid her from marrying this boy. But the girl was too spoilt by her father. I heard that she ran away this morning with the boy" the lady chuckled.
Xiao Song found her gossips to be amusing. It was difficult to imagine a daughter of powerful officials would want to elope with penniless man. It was something that the lady must have taken out of a novel!
Other than occasional explosions he had to witness at Lu Zheng's work place, everything else was progressing smoothly. It was until the day he received a letter from Shen province.
He had received the letter early in the morning when the boarding house's worker passed it to him while he was on his way to Lu Zheng's house. He forgotten about the letter altogether as he was preoccupied by with his task broiling more brand new medicine for the young doctor. Once he had finished his task, Xiao Song carefully withdrew the letter from his chest pocket.
Unlike any other letter from his house that were sent and signed by his younger brother, this particular letter were directly sealed by his father's emblem.
To his astonishment, the letter was written by his father informing him that his younger brother had eloped with a woman he had met in the capital four month ago. While he was trying to digest on the shocking news, a knock on the door startled the already shaking Xiao Song. He let out a huge sigh when he realized It was Lu Zheng who entered the work room with a tray of food on his hand.
"Why do you look so pale?"Lu Zheng asked curiously. He put the tray on the table near Xiao Song's seat.
" Xiao Zhan!"
"What's wrong with Xiao Zhan?"
"He eloped!"
"Huh? Elope?! That spineless boy?!"
Xiao Song ignored Lu Zheng's offensive remark. He got up from the chair and began to prowl around the room.
"What should I do?"
" Well. What can you do? The boy had made up his mind" Lu Zheng shrugged nonchalantly. He was not interested in talking about other people private matter. However this time, was different as Xiao Zhan was someone who the aloof Lu Zheng considered as good acquaintance.
"Do you know the woman's name?" He asked Xiao Song, trying to help sorted out the problem.
"I don't know. My father did not include her name in the letter"
"Then . There's nothing we can do!" He exclaimed. Lu Zheng raised both of his hands to the air , a gesture signaling that they might as well done with this problem.
Xiao Song glared menacingly at the insensitive Lu Zheng. Relying to Lu Zheng's to help him regarding this matter was useless, this fella wants nothing to do with problem concerning human.
Suddenly, there was a loud commotion coming from outside of Lu Zheng's work room.
" Where is the boy!" the guttural sound of elderly man's voice echoed around the mansion's yard . Xiao Song and Lu Zheng immediately ran out of the work room to see what was going on.
Outside of the room, a middle age man was standing in the middle of a sea of guard who was carefully surrounding him. The man was holding a spear in his right hand. Lu Zheng can clearly see that the old man was incapable of properly swing the spear, what more hurting other people. He was about to call he bodyguard to dismiss , but decided to just let them be for better precaution.
" Esteemed elder Guo, may I know why are you in my courtyard ?" Lu Zheng greeted the old man.
" You are Lu Zheng, Dr. Zhan's son?" he asked
"Yes I am"
"Then, do not hide your friend ! Call the coward right now!"
" My friend? Who?" Lu Zheng was amused. He barely has friend in the capital. Who was he going to hide from the old man.
"Your Friend! The one who had bewitched my daughter and took her away!"
Lu Zheng's jaw dropped to the floor. He could not believe that the answer for their problem just now, would just glide into his mansion's yard like this! He turned toward Xiao Song and saw his friends also shown similar disbelief expression. The old man , however, seemed to realized Xiao Song's presence and trying to put two and two together.
"You!" he pointed his finger at Xiao Song. "Are you Lu Zheng's friend" Startled by the sudden question directed at him, he immediately nodded his head.
"Then, are you the man who had beguiled my daughter?!" He hollered at him. Xiao Song could only shook his head as he was to shocked to utter any word.
"Do not lie to me! My daughter specifically said that the man she fell in love with was a good friend of Dr. Zhan's son!"
"That cursed woman!!" Lu Zheng's muttered slowly under his breath. Those who were native to the capital knew that the Finance Minister Guo's daughter was a talented and charismatic woman . She was the number one candidate to marry the country's crown prince. A popular shaman in the capital also predicted that she was going to be an empress in the future. But, Lu Zheng had never knew that she was also a cunning woman who is as sly as a fox. She purposely hinted that Xiao Zhan was a friend of Lu Zheng to her father so both Xiao Zhan and her, could buy some time from being chased by her father's men.
At the same time, she also managed to shifted their problem to be settled by someone else who was also close to Xiao Zhan, namely Xiao Song. In other words, both of them just have to wait for Xiao Song to solve the conflict before reappearing back in the capital.
That woman really have a good head on that shoulder of hers!
"Esteemed Elder Guo, I do not have any idea what are you talking about. I had never had female friend, what more planning to swept someone's daughter away from her family" Xiao Song tried to explain. Lu Zheng then realized that Xiao Song still had not gotten the clue that his baby brother was the man of the topic.
The elder man was staring at him with a disbelief facial expression. "Then. Who took my daughter!" he demanded for an answer. Lu Zheng could not bear this anymore. Both of them were too dense to connect the dots.
"Esteemed elder Guo, this is Xiao Song, the son of the duke of Shen. His brother, Xiao Zhan was the one who eloped with your daughter" he interrupted. The look of both Xiao Song and the minister were almost comical. Both of them was too shocked by the revelation to the point that they could not utter any words to dispute.
" Stop staring at me. Let's go inside and have a civil discussion. They have gone for how many days already? Two weeks? They might as well gotten married at this point. Best if we could discuss about their future in my work room" Lu Zheng try to be the intermediate man. Even though he hate involving himself with trivial matter that did not involve about medicine, he felt the need to help Xiao Song straightened things up.