After the lunch they specifically looked for detailed road maps as well as maps of wilderness for the region the hunt will take place at. Few hours later they went over everything they bought. Then on 'accident' YunYun showed her appearance on the street and it was immediately followed by a huge commotion.
Both of them took a refuge in the small restaurant and it got immediately closed. Afterwards Ling rushed to the palace and brought a closed carriage that transported the pair back home already at dusk. But while hundreds of admirers were crowding the palace entrance once again, under the cover of the night, two middle aged Qi masters sneaked out of the same restaurant and left the city towards the north.
YunYun especially liked these 'undercover' operations and Nick found them fun as well, therefore this plan was made. All they had to do, was to get to the wilderness and wait around the hunt area till the time it started.
The two youths who pretended to be Nick and YunYun, accompanied by Ling, left the palace and the city next morning in the same carriage and proceeded directly to the east, but they would never reach the gathering point. After two days of travel they would stay in a small town for ten days and then return back home without disguise while Ling will proceed to the east and wait for the end of the hunt.
When the queen saw this little charade she laughed loudly and announced she was due for a vacation. Then delegated a ton of work to her desperate prime minister Mei Zhen and left the capital with princess Min in tow. She didn't intend to take part in the hunt, but seeing her younger daughter having fun every day, she wanted to finally relax a bit as well.
There was no real need for Nick and YunYun to have this plan. They could've just taken few Qi masters from the palace as an escort and no traps could've done anything. But they preferred to travel alone with no one else bothering them. In addition, they could pretend to be an old couple one day, middle aged Qi masters another – the possibilities were almost endless. In addition, this was a good training exercise as well since they traveled on foot.
Without rush they arrived at the gathering spot one day before the event. Xian's aristocrats had made a camp at the side of a large lake with a grand red tent at the very front.
"Mom also came?" YunYun was surprised.
"She was probably bored in Xian. Let's go and say hello." Nick shrugged. He could understand the queen, at least in this case.
"This is lake Tai." YunYun pointed at the endless waters in front of them, "And it's the biggest lake of the continent. Actually it's so big there's no way for us to run over it in one go … it could even take more than a day. There is an interesting peculiarity – it's the only place in the world that has freshwater sharks! The woods we can see to the north of the lake is the spot where the Tiger hunt will take place. Actually, they stretch for over two thousand kilometers and end deeply in the Styx kingdom."
While talking, they leisurely strolled towards the big tent under everyone's surprised gazes. All the people came on horses and in carriages, but these two came out from the woods with YunYun only having a sword on her back and Nick without any weapon at all, only a small, black backpack. In addition, one of them was the famous princess whom everyone adored and longed to meet.
"What took you so long?" Queen seemed to be annoyed when they came in, but Nick couldn't tell if that was her usual mood.
"We stopped to make some antidotes on the way." YunYun smiled.
"Oh, that's not a bad idea. Woods can sometimes be dangerous." Queen grinned. Looks like Nick understood her arrangement, "Do you have a plan already?"
"Not really, we wanted to travel a bit and then go to our sacred land, but this hunt suddenly interrupted that." YunYun explained. She didn't understand the hidden meaning and queen Hu did ask this question to Nick anyway.
"I didn't mean that … wait! Sacred land? Why would you go there?" Queen was surprised.
"Well, we're close to becoming Qi masters and had an idea to do it in a place with rich natural Qi. Our sacred land has such spot, right?" YunYun asked.
"Yes, that's a good idea – most of women in our family became Qi masters there."
"See, Nick? I told you we can easily do it here!" YunYun excitedly clapped. She felt as if they already were becoming Qi masters.
"No, Nick is not allowed there! No males are allowed to sully it – hence 'the Sacred ground'. Even more, your grandmother currently is practicing there and if any male, even my husbands enter, she would just kill them." Queen sternly said.
"But mom, why can't we …" YunYun become upset, but Nick interrupted.
"YunYun, it's no big deal. Because of me there is no need to break the traditions that existed for hundreds of years. We'll find such place in these mountains – we'll have a lot of time during the hunt anyway – it's not like we intend to hunt tigers." Nick calmed her down.
"You're not even going to attempt to sneak in? Your stealth skills should be to notch." Queen was surprised. With how these two behaved it would be normal for them to try and get in the 'easy' way.
"I don't have a death wish." Nick shook his head, "Especially if there is the old queen present. A woman from Li family with a sword … it's not possible to overestimate the lethal danger."
YunYun still pouted, but queen agreed and changed the subject.
"Did you prepare well?"
"There was nothing much to prepare, but if you have an additional information we could use, we would appreciate it." Nick smiled back.
"He has around ten hunters at the Qi master level as trackers spread out between the other families. I doubt there is a need for such army just to hunt a tiger."
"Is there anything else we need to know?"
"Besides the obvious target?" Queen glanced at her daughter, "I have no further information. In recent times it's hard to get any useful information out from the Chu clan, few of my people have disappeared there as well."
"So this is much more serious than I expected." Nick sighed.
"Indeed, take a good care of her." It was not like her to become so 'soft' suddenly, but Nick understood that queen loved YunYun dearly, just that the weird temperament in the Li family didn't allow to express motherly love like the 'regular' people did.
"Do we have to pay attention only to the people from the Chu clan? Or are there some other undercurrents in the capital?" Nick probed.
"There are always some small frictions, but nothing that should worry you. The aristocracy in the Lethe kingdom is very united." Queen replied.
"United in supporting you, I suppose." Nick grinned.
"Don't try to play games with me!" Queen's motherly softness instantly disappeared, "Do you think our Li family would allow some kind of mutiny or a coup? We have ruled for centuries and our position is basically unshakable. And I'm not even talking about the blood connections with the Wu, Zhang and few others. It's in the interests of every single aristocratic family to keep this monarchy and kingdom stable."
"Then what about Chu? What kind of threat are they?" Nick asked directly.
Queen fell silent for a minute, then looked back at the youth, "To be honest, on the outside everything is fine. I have absolutely no ground of suspecting them of anything except for some harmless movements that supposed to be made in secret but were found out by my people. Anyway, don't worry about the politics, leave that to me and concentrate on your priorities, alright?"
In the end queen's voice softened up a little again when she looked at YunYun with loving eyes.
When they came out from the queen's tent, a small crowd of admirers were already waiting while many valiant female Qi masters and practitioners with swords on their backs watched the event with mixed scorn and jealousy. Some young men still tried to shout challenges towards Nick, but only could get angry and upset when got ignored.
"I'm glad you accepted my challenge!" Suddenly a loud voice, infused with Qi, silenced the other people who were trying to get attention.
A handsome young man, dressed in expensive armor came in front of the crowd. Similar to the everyone else he had a sword on his back, except it was sheathed in a beautiful scabbard, decorated with myriad of gemstones. The rest reluctantly parted to let him through – after all he was the one who got to actually challenge the one they all hated so much.
"I wonder how …" Chu Feng started to say something in heroic fashion when YunYun turned to Nick with a questioning gaze.
"How about those sharks? Shall we catch some?"
"I have plenty of experience and would gladly help …" Chu Feng wanted to join the conversation just to get interrupted again.
"Sure, but let's get away from the annoying pests first." Nick smiled back to her.
Under the hateful gazes of everyone they went over to the lake and leisurely started to walk over the surface to get further away from the crowd. Few Qi masters wanted to follow, but it looked weird when only ten or so people separated, trying to tail the two. After realizing that, those young Qi masters quickly went back and continued to be angry with the rest of the mob.
The one who planned his 'grand entrance' for a longer time, got ignored and could only gnash his teeth while returning to his tent. The difference was that this time, apart from the usual hateful looks at Nick, YunYun felt intense killing intent coming at her.
"He really wants to kill me." She said to Nick in surprise when they got further away, "I thought he was just a pervert."
"There is definitely something more to it, otherwise your mom would've dealt with him in secret a long time ago. My guess is that we should investigate first and then complete our task." Nick said his thoughts out loud.
"Our task?" YunYun was surprised.
"Queen just tasked us to eliminate him." Nick shrugged.
"How come sometimes you understand her better than I do?"
"Maybe because my fragile life depends on it?"
Both of them laughed at the joke that wasn't really a joke and darted further away along the coast. They planned to dive in the clear waters of the lake and look for the sharks, but not to catch them – rather find few just for fun.
"Our reports confirmed they are not Qi masters! Why are they capable of freely walking and running on the water surface?" Feng asked the two other men in his tent. They were Qi masters as well and his closest subordinates.
"They obviously are skilled in Qi manipulation and probably just wanted to show off. Didn't you see that after walking for a short wile they hurriedly ran and tried to get back to the shore? My guess is – even though they might have some skills, they still lack a lot compared to a real Qi master." One of the assistants said.
"I doubt that a person who killed the emperor is that simple." The other voiced his thoughts.
"Just because our person from the palace reported him being a hero, doesn't mean anything. We already received the intelligence from the Sun kingdom few months ago describing how king's daughters killed the emperor in his bedroom. The most likely scenario is that YunYun herself did it with the others helping her and now she just wants to increase the kid's reputation so he's accepted into the royal family." Feng said with a deep scorn.
"That sounds logical. He even doesn't use a sword – how can he be a decent fighter? The person from the palace also reported that the duel with Tao was just a lucky sneak attack and after Tao woke up, he immediately defeated the blond boy. He even looked hurt all over, but tried to hide it." The first assistant said and the second immediately agreed.
"Exactly. There is no way a strong Qi master like Tao could really loose to a kid. He was probably confused or even shocked that the guy couldn't use a sword."
"Doesn't matter, we'll deal with them in a couple of days. Do we have any news from the Nestri empire?" Feng changed the subject.
"Nothing much. There is still no information about the whereabouts of the rank six flame wolf, therefore the next test will be performed here."
"Well, the flame wolf was only targeted because the emperor liked it. Our rank six beasts are much more suited for combat." Feng grinned.
The last part of their conversation would've thoroughly shocked both youths who were currently siting on rocks several meters below the water surface, trying to bait few approximately one meter long sharks closer with pieces of fish. Unfortunately these sharks were too cautious and soon both Nick and YunYun lost interest.