"Y-Your Highness, this Minister's daughter greets you." Zhao Xiuying muttered in a shaky voice, bowing her head in deference to the person who had been standing behind her.
Zhen Feng took a few steps forward and walked past Zhao Xiuying to stand between her and Ni Ni and with one swift hand movement, he pushed the injured masked man about four chi1 away, wounding him once again.
"Zhao Xiuying, who gave you permission to touch this Crown Prince's people?" Zhen Feng inquired in a rigid tone.
"Your Highness, I wouldn't dare! But this woman is a mermaid, how could she be one of your people?" Zhao Xiuying asked, her voice still trembling in both fear and indignation. "She was bold enough to enter Your Highness' private library without consent. I was merely restraining her for your sake, only until Your Highness arrived." Zhao Xiuying explained.
"You have no authority to detain people in my stead. Leave this second and take your servant with you." Zhen Feng commanded. "Let this not happen again." He advised in a menacing tone, his eyes emitting a dangerous warning.
His threatening glare along with his harsh words sent a shiver down Zhao Xiuying's spine. She subserviently bowed her head again and looked at the injured Lu Yang, signaling her personal bodyguard to return.
Before turning to leave, Zhao Xiuying took one last look at the man standing close to the wicked mermaid. The prince was wearing black robes with gold details on the sleeves and collar. His clothes were similar to the ones he had worn on that day, so many years ago.
Overwhelmed with conflictive emotions, Zhao Xiuying finally decided to take her leave and walked away from the library with heavy steps, while desperately trying to hold back her tears and anger. After departing, she heard a servant close the doors behind her, leaving the two people in the library room by themselves. Xiuying could almost hear her own heart break.
The crown prince had always been a man of few words and even fewer emotions. But today, not only had he permitted the vile mermaid to enter his mother's library but he had also been angry at the wrong person. Xiuying had rarely – if ever – seen Zheng Feng truly irritated but today she had observed that exact emotion in his usually cold eyes.
She could still remember the day they had met for the first time when she was five years old. Zhao Xiuying and her family had traveled all the way from their mansion in the capital to the residence of the prince's mother just so that she, the first daughter of the Minister of Works, could meet prince Zhen Feng.
When the Zhao family arrived, the prince and Madame Fei Huang were already waiting at the residence's entrance. Xiuying had excitedly hopped off the carriage to greet the prince that her father had talked so much about.
In her excitement, the little girl had almost fallen to the ground but the crown prince, persuaded by his mother's insistent stare, had quickly come to Xiuying's side and extended his arm for her to lean on.
Although only five years older than herself, the prince already possessed a dignified aura that demanded respect, or at least that's how Xiuying had first perceived him through her very youthful eyes. After helping the little girl regain her balance, the prince had returned to his mother's side and barely even crossed his eyes with Xiuying's, but it had only taken that one brief moment of physical contact for her to take a liking to him.
From that day on, Xiuying visited the crown prince at his mother's residence every year whenever he would come. In the first few years, she would follow him around every day and attempt to make conversation, telling him about herself: about her house, her friends, her servants, her family, her toys… But as the prince seldomly responded to her monologues, she decided to try different approaches. She brought him toys, baked him pastries, told him her secrets, and sometimes even pretended to have hurt herself in order to garner his attention; but the boy just wouldn't budge.
Zhen Feng would dedicate his entire days to studying, cultivating, or practicing his magic and martial arts without paying any attention to anything else, including Xiuying. The exception to this was only his mother. Every afternoon the boy would spend some time in the library with his mother.
Zhao Xiuying was curious to know what the two were doing inside but the prince wouldn't allow anyone else in the room.
Other than Xiuying, another person followed the prince around for most of the day.
When the prince had turned five years of age, Hu Cheng, a young but distinguished scholar and magician a few years older than Zhen Feng, had been instructed to guard and guide the prince. But even though Hu Cheng was present most of the time, it would hardly make the house any more lively.
Only after growing up did Xiuying begin to understand the prince's responsibilities and burdens. He had been designated the official crown prince from the moment he was born because the imperial astrologist had predicted that Zhen Feng had the potential to become the most powerful human to ever live in the Zhen Empire as well as one of its greatest rulers.
Ever since he was a small child, his father the Emperor had been very strict in disciplining him, barely ever allowing the prince to socialize or do anything other than learn and train. If the prince had been accomplished throughout the year, he would be permitted to visit his mother for a few months.
Xiuying watched him grow year after year, from a quiet and disciplined young boy to a righteous and noble future ruler. He was someone who would rarely speak, but his words held tremendous value. Someone who wouldn't favor the wealthy over the poor or the people he knew over a stranger. A strict and impartial person with a sharply defined set of principles and rules.
Although his calm and unfazed temperament was admirable, it could make any outsider feel as though the prince was distant or unfeeling. One day, however, Zhao Xiuying discovered that the man's heart was not made of stone.
On the day consort Fei Huang was buried, when the prince was eighteen years old, Xiuying and her family came to the palace to attend the elaborate burial ceremony at the underground Imperial tombs.
It was a stormy winter day; thus, when the ceremony ended, everyone waited inside for the rain to stop before making their way back to their own residences. But Zhao Xiuying couldn't leave without finding the crown prince first. She searched everywhere she thought he might be yet she still couldn't locate him. When she was about to give up her search, Xiuying finally spotted a man wearing black robes silently standing in the imperial garden, drenched from all the water pouring from above. He was gazing at the dark cloudy sky with a mourning expression as if longing for someone.
Looking at the motionless man, no one would be able to tell whether he was crying or if the streams of water running down his face were brought upon by the raindrops that were falling so violently from up above.
With a painful chest, Xiuying stared at the man's figure from afar, knowing in her heart that she had long fallen for this remarkable person.
A few months following his mother's death, Zhen Feng headed to the South and led the human army through another battle against the merfolk. Half a year later he returned victoriously. But when Xiuying visited him, she could barely recognize his behavior. He seemed to have become obsessed with something. He hardly did anything else other than staying in his study room reading new books that Hu Cheng brought him every day. One day, Zhen Feng left and he didn't return for two years.
His absence and what had happened during that time had remained concealed from the public and to this day Xiuying still hadn't found anything about it. After returning, the prince became ill for a few months but gradually regained his health. As he grew healthier, he prepared to head to the South to join the army in battle once again, but it was then that a Peace treaty was signed between the Zhen Empire and the Merfolk of the Pristine Ocean.
Those had been the three most painful years in Xiuying's existence.
1. Chi - A traditional Chinese length measurement unit equivalent to about 0.33 m or 1.09 ft