Gou Zhongcheng just stared at the manor from the pavilion, one leg raised up and staring at the night sky.
The moon moved from east to west, and soon, the sun followed after it. At the break of dawn, she had done nothing but smoke and smoke from her pipe.
She had spent her sleepless night with many thoughts on her muddled head.
Soon, she heard the a clicking sound. She was very familiar with this certain sound. It was from a golden headpiece with small, round bells that clinked together once in a while.
The headpiece was familiar to her as well. A golden hibiscus flower.
She turned to the person with crossed arms, and gave a lazy smile.
"I have received complaints from the servants. They can't stand the stench and can only walk to another route because of the smoke." Lady Shu told her with a scolding tone.
"That's exactly the plan." Gou Zhongcheng lazily tilted her head to the side. "Wanted to give them some privacy."
"Give who..."
Her face immediately changed colors like a chameleon. First pale white, then a bit green, then burning bright red.
Gou Zhongcheng laughed hysterically at this changed, slapping her knee. "Hah! No need to be so horrified about it! Hahaha! Look at your face!"
"This is no laughing matter, dimwit!" She smacked the lady guard's arm with her fan. "What if they got caught?"
"We'd be all dead. The Emperor may burn the whole palace down." Gou Zhongcheng only chuckled at the thought. "Wouldn't that be a lovely sight? All the colors... Painting the blue sky in hues of red, yellow and orange...."
Lady Shu smacked her once again, this time on the forehead. "You speak so lightly of death. I know you no longer fear it but... Have you no respect for human life?"
"Oh, but I do. That is why I am asking you to keep quiet about this. Keep them alive." Gou Zhongcheng inhaled more of those drugs, and blew into the air, trying to see images from the pattern.
Lady Shu sighed. "Of course. I have no plans on telling on them in the first place, I simply worry."
She sat beside the smoker, pinching her nose as she did. Gou Zhongcheng just grinned at this and offered her the pipe.
"Don't act like you do not smoke, Lady Shu. Especially not in front of me." The guard said in a cheeky tone. "I know you are covering your nose because you are resisting the bewitching scent."
Lady Shu grumbled, and took the pipe from her. After she sucked in a few times, she gave it back and made Gou Zhongcheng look very satisfied.
"Do they plan to escape?" Lady Shu said after blowing the same gray smoke that had long surrounded Gou Zhongcheng's lips.
"Mn. I plan to help them."
"Why?"
"Because I want to."
Lady Shu did not show any immediate reaction, but Gou Zhongcheng could see her gripping on her pretty silk robes she was so proud about.
"Great. May all of you be fortunate in your grand escape then." She scoffed. "Why don't you go to some country far, far away..... Maybe beyond the Borderlands and into the realm of those people with pale white skin and pale blue eyes....."
"I have no plans like that." Gou Zhongcheng answered succinctly. "I am born in Great Zau and wishes to die and be buried in Great Zau."
"Then you are wasting this opportunity. You must have grander plans than becoming a farmer or a fugitive in the woods." Lady Shu grabbed her pipe once again to smoke.
"No. My grand plan.... Is to secure that the two of them escape safely. I have no plans of leaving this palace."
Lady Shu raised an eyebrow. "Then you would be sliced in half by Emperor Zau."
"Then so be it."
Lady Shu was about to place the pipe on her lips once more, but faltered. "You..... Stop joking..."
Gou Zhongcheng just gave her a certain look, and took the pipe back. That look was very unmotivated and listless, but also filled with unfathomable determination.
"You really mean this. You mean to get involved and get yourself killed." Lady Shu looked down, gripping her skirt tighter. "Why, Zhongcheng?"
The guard did not answer. Instead, she looked at the sunrise. "Mmm.... The colors have mixed really well, both reds and blues."
"Answer me." Lady Shu insisted. "Why?"
She just continued to observe the sunrise, entranced by it.
Lady Shu clutched on her sleeves. "Don't do it. Escape with them, I can cover for you."
Gou Zhongcheng just answered. "No, that's not needed."
"Then.... Then don't get involved. Cover for them, help them find a way... But do not be involved directly. Do not get caught. " Lady Shu said with a hint of desperation.
She repeated the same words. "No, that's not needed."
Lady Shu's eyes shook, and she could not bear it anymore and---
She slapped Gou Zhongcheng!
"Fine! I know it's my fault! Do you really want to avenge your rejected feelings for me so badly!? Is this how you see yourself getting back at me!?"
Gou Zhongcheng did not answer. Her pipe had fallen to the ground because of the slap and she reached out to take it.
"Zhongcheng. Don't think for one second that I would cry or mourn for you if you die as a traitor. And I mean this."
The guard just brushed off the dirt, and brought the pipe to her lips again. This pipe that was also from this angered Yin noble's lips.
She felt that such thing, such presence of lips that were only once there, must be the same color as sunrise, or twilight. Reds and blues.
"I know. You are too scared for your own life to risk crying for a traitor. And I don't want you to mourn for me either." Gou Zhongcheng said nonchalantly.
She stretched her limbs, and started to walk towards the manor with a swagger.
"Gou Zhongcheng!"
She didn't look back.
"Gou Zhongcheng!"
She treated those words like empty air, but then--------
Her hands were grabbed, and with extreme force, someone knocked their teeth with hers and they both tumbled on the grassy ground smelling of morning dew.
Her kisses were ineffective and sloppy. Nothing good can be said about it. Gou Zhongcheng did not move at all, only letting her mouth to be eaten.
Lady Shu let go. "Why won't you just do as I say!? You used to follow every word and every whim from me!"
Gou Zhongcheng reached out, and Lady Shu thought she would touch her face...
But instead, she took her hibiscus pin, causing her hair to tumble down.
"I have been your most loyal dog, Zhanxing. Ever since we were children. But even dogs have to die, and their owners have to let them go."
She gently sat up, and fix Lady Shu's hair in a different style than she usually wore, placing the pin back again.
After that, she smiled and patted the noble's cheek, and left her.
Lady Shu shook for a while, her nails digging past her silk skirt and reaching to tear her skin as well, as tears started to fall...
Red and blues. A beautifully painted scene.
Someone, however, was watching this scene.
It was said that it was the beholder, and not the artist, that distorts every scene and work of art.
There was no such thing as ugly art, especially not to the artist. It was the watcher, the audience, that turns the art ugly, and something beyond what the artist intended.
He was such person. He who smiles at this beautiful scene between the two girls perversely, as well as eyeing the manor with twisted delight.
And after that, he mixes with the shadows.
-----------------------------------------
After a few days, Ren Jidian had ran out of ingredients for the ointment and soup that he delivers to cure Empress Wei and help with his estrus. Luckily, the Palace has its own garden that had every supply he needed. But he was aware.....
That this very peach blossom-shaped garden he was standing on was a graveyard.
And so, every time he would take plants from it, he would bow reverently and prayed for the lost souls that made this garden into existence. Those who have labored under this sick, heartless man.....
May they find peace.
After kneeling down to pray, he stood up with his basket, and was about to go back to his manor when---
Someone grabbed him, and covered his mouth!
The person moved too fast and was too strong, he wasn't even able to sense anything at all! He struggled, and was then brought to a tree, his head hitting the hard bark.
His eyes narrowed, and he pulled away the hand covering his mouth. "You again!?"
"Yes. It is me again. Do you remember my name, Qing Guang?" His attacker asked in a sickeningly sweet tone.
"Look, I don't care if you are the Emperor's uncle-thrice-removed or his right-hand man or something. My Empress needs me immediately. If you cause further delays like this, I would have to report it to the Emperor."
"Report what? I simply want to have an amicable chat with you." Song Xiu grinned. "I promise not to take much of your time. After all, 'Your Empress' needs you very much..."
Ren Jidian felt the hair of at the back of his neck raise with the way this shady Yang man was talking.
It sounded purposefully suspicious, trying to taunt him with something.
"What do you want? Just get straight to the point." Ren Jidian said with gritted teeth.
"If you report me to the Emperor, I would have to report some things I have noticed during the beginning of the Empress' cycle." Song Xiu tilted his head to the side. "Some very interesting things that I'm sure he would like to hear."
Ren Jidian's eyes widened. He saw the shady Uncle's sword on a sheath by his waist, and grabbed it.
"Oh, oh, I wouldn't go there, if I were you. Ah, you truly are different from all the Yins I have encountered. Can't we resolve this more peacefully?"
He gripped Ren Jidian's wrist and increasingly tightened around it, but the scholar did not show any signs of pain or made a sound. He still gripped the hilt of the sword, trying to take it even at the cost of having his hand broken.
This caused Song Xiu to let go.
"Interesting! Really interesting... I think my heart would burst out from its cage----URK!"
He received a kick to the balls, and Ren Jidian ran while he was rolling on the ground in pain.
But he seemed to have realized something, and instead---
He went back to take a stone, and aimed to bash it on this man's head.
His other head between his legs.
"Wait, wait, wait! A-Guang, let's talk about this!" Song Xiu pleaded before Ren Jidian can strike his little brother and crush it.
"Only my father gets to call me A-Guang. Speak now about what you want in exchange for keeping quiet. If it doesn't convince me, this little one gets it, and you might as well be a eunuch."
"Alright!" Song Xiu raised his hands defensively. "I am not your enemy here, I actually want to help!"
Ren Jidian just glared at him, and aimed to strike---
"I mean it, I mean it! You want to escape, right?? I will kill the Emperor for you!"