Bai Yue's confident façade lasted until she turned around the corner. Once her figure disappeared from the Crown Prince's sight, her face crumpled in despair and her fingers twitched as a hard to suppress desire to pull her hair surged up in her heart. Of all the things that happened to her, she could now add 'getting lost' to her long list of misfortunes!
How was she supposed to go back to the Bai manor when she was stuck in a maze of narrow, almost empty alleys? They all looked the same!
A weary sigh left Bai Yue's mouth and she straightened up, her dark eyes looking straight ahead. She started walking forward even though she had no clue where her steps would lead her. Left. Right. Let again and right again. There were few people around her as this was not one of the main, larger streets of the capital, and most of them looked shady. Which was truly hypocritical of her considering she had just killed an honest if only a bit arrogant and ill-tempered worker.
The more she walked, the more her surroundings became an eyesore, and her poor abused feet ached. Eventually, she was forced to accept the fact that she needed help.
Catching sight of two men whispering to each other, she cautiously approached them. The swords hanging at their waist seemed to glint in spite of the sheaths protecting the blades. Her wariness increased tenfold.
She coughed to catch their attention. "Excuse me, sirs, would you be so good as to tell me how to go to the manor of Count Zhong?"
The smile on her face felt especially fake as her eyes kept darting to the swords. Surely her luck couldn't be so bad that these two men would try to attack her too, right?
"Count Zhong manor?" One of the two men repeated while turning to her, his eyes slightly widening as if seeing her face from up close was horrifying. He took a step back, soon followed by the other man next to him. Well, it certainly helped that she wasn't the only one feeling tense. Even if they had nothing to fear from her and thus were quite ridiculous to act like this. "It is in the opposite direction, miss."
Her face instantly paled. Never had so few words sounded so awful.
"Just turn back and take the fourth right, then turn left and you will reach the main street. Turn left, then right after Madam Ming's teahouse and go straight on until you reach the manor."
The directions were easy to remember but she still repeated them five times to make sure they were all but carved into he mind. Then she took her leave.
From her birth to her death, Bai Yue had never been left to her own devices. Whether it was bathing or taking a short walk outside or even sleeping, there was always at least one servant not far from her. Hence the reason why she never realized before how bad her sense of direction was. Reading books was fine but it couldn't beat actual experiences.
She walked and followed the given directions, yet she still ended up in front of the same two men again. The first one looked as surprised as she while the other one's right eye twitched in disbelief. And perhaps a little exasperation. A hint of doubt appeared in her heart and her forehead creased in worry. She couldn't be sure but there was something different about this alley. Was it really the same as last time?"
"Miss...? Have you forgotten the directions?"
Her cheeks flushed and she averted her gaze, her back stiff when she caught sight of the swords again. They did stand in the same exact position so perhaps her mind was just too tired. It seemed that she was truly back to square one...
"You must have made a mistake. I did exactly as you said but I never found the manor."
Man number two failed to understand her awkwardness and pointed out bluntly, "And you chose to go back here instead of asking someone else? Miss, I noticed earlier that your hand was wounded. Could it be that you also hurt your head?"
His friend hit the back of his head with a glare and hissed something her ears failed to catch.
"Miss, don't bother with this idiot," man number one said with a grin. "His mother dropped him on his head when he was a child."
"I can see that," she nodded seriously, "it must have been a very high fall, then."
"Yes, well, his mother was standing on a cliff," he chuckled mischievously.
She let out a giggle after hearing the cheeky answer, a small, amused smile blooming on her face. Although the men facing her were both dressed in black like cold killers, their behaviors were as different as the sun and the moon. One was cheeky while the other appeared especially grumpy. Her shoulders eased slightly.
Unfortunately, Grumpy didn't appreciate the humor and glowered at them, almost stomping his feet on the dusty ground like a child throwing a tantrum.
"Are you done?" he said through gritted teeth.
Right, Bai Yue thought regaining her composure, it was bad manner to antagonize the people who could help her.
"Yes, we are all done," she replied humbly, lowering her head in order to act like a weak lady and attract his pity. She pinched her earlobe and smile shyly. A shiver seemed to run through Cheeky and Grumpy and they cleared their throat awkwardly. "Could you perhaps tell me again the directions I need to follow in order to go back to Count Zhong manor, please? It is getting late... As an unmarried young woman, I dare not stay outside too long. I... don't want to be punished by the Head Maid."
"Of course! We totally understand your plea, miss!" Cheeky hurried to say, then gave a loud slap on Grumpy's back. "Don't we, old friend?"
The only sound he managed to get out of his companion was a grunt, which he quickly disregarded with a wave of his hand. "So, miss, here is what you need to do..."
Once again, Bai Yue listened to him carefully and committed the words to memory.
"They are not the same as before," she commented with a frown.
"There is more than one way to go somewhere," Cheeky simply said, ending their discussion.
She turned left and right, then right again. After a while, just when her feet were begging her to take a rest, she reached the main street. Madam Ming's teahouse wasn't far from where she stood and she quickly made her way there, then turned right.
Eventually, the tall walls of the Bai manor appeared before her and she let out a sigh of relief. Finally! Liu'er must be fretting since Bai Yue had been gone for hours now.
Because she didn't wear a veil anymore, she didn't dare to enter through the gates and risked being recognized by someone. Instead, she went past the servant's entrance and walked close to the walls, trying to find a hole or something that would let her sneak in.
Just as she turned around the corner, her eyes landed on the now-familiar figures of Cheeky and Grumpy. There was no such a thing as coincidence in this world and she stilled.
"Who are you?" she asked in a cold voice, the bashfulness of before long forgotten as a thick layer of ice covered her gaze. Her hand discreetly went to the hairpin in her hair, ready to remove it at the first suspicious move. "Who send you?"
"Ah, no need to be so suspicious," Cheeky grinned, crossing his arms in front of him and lazily leaning against the wall. "We were just worried about you, miss."
"Worried?" she sneered. "Do you really expect me to believe people who follow me all the way here?"
"You are the one who told us where you wanted to go," Grumpy retorted.
Thinking back to everything that happened to her today, she didn't take a long time to have a good idea of the identity of the person responsible for Cheeky and Grumpy's presence. She let go of the hairpin, knowing she wasn't in immediate danger, and her gaze darkened in anger. Even if the Crown Prince wasn't responsible for her death, he was still the biological son of the Empress and the brother of Ji Mo Zhen. She didn't care about his kindness and help, and she didn't want to be near him. In his veins ran the same cold blood of those people and it was best if they all killed each other and let her live her life peacefully.
"Good! Very good!" she scoffed in disgust. "You are indeed the good dogs of that man. Letting me go only to follow me all around, spying on me without giving me any privacy. Let me guess, he also told you to report my actions to him every day? When you see him, you should tell him that his life and mine are ones that should never cross. For both our sake, it is best if we remain like the sky and the sea. Very, very, very far away from each other."
With that, she dismissed them and bypassed them. A light breeze caused her sleeve to flutter and brushed past Grumpy. Then, a sharp pain erupted in the side of her neck and everything became dark.
'Grumpy' caught her unconscious body before it hit the ground.
"His Highness is going to kill us," 'Cheeky' wondered aloud in a light tone, nothing in his voice suggesting he was talking about his own death. "That poor Tang Lu only acted a little rudely and His Highness almost strangled him. This time, I'm afraid he's going to tear us apart and feed our remains to stray dogs."
Grumpy's grip tightened on the young woman and he gave a weary sidelong glance to his companion, already used to his morbid humor. "Or to His Higness' 'late' wife."
"Ah yes, her," he chuckled. "She's already gnawing on her own legs. You think her arms are next?"
Grumpy didn't answer. What exactly His Highness was thinking, he didn't dare to guess. All he knew was that the burden in his arms had caught the Crown Prince's attention in spite of looking like a ghost. As a shadow guard, he shouldn't have appeared in front of her but even he got tired of wandering aimlessly through the capital as she tried to find her way home.
"Let's drop her somewhere in the inner court."
She was just a maid anyway. Hopefully, His Highness would soon forget all about her and he could go back to protect him from the shadows.