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It was the sort of day that made the pale young man want to stick his long, tapered, but all too bony hands out through the window to feel the breeze and the sunshine. It was the sort of day that filled the young man’s perpetually disgruntled physician with a justified sense of paranoia.
“It’s not paranoia if you’re really scheming to go outside!” The old man glared, letting out a “harrumph” that caused his goatee to float up – just enough so that the young man’s usually calm eyes crinkled at his doctor’s unintended comedic act.
Mei Changsu held up his hands in surrender, his wide sleeves rolling down his forearm to reveal porcelain, almost sickly, white skin, and reluctantly gathered his light blue robes so that he could stand up without tripping over them. He moved away from the cushion by the open wooden window and laid down on the bed close to the fire.
Dr. Yan muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “ungrateful noncompliant patient” as he stomped over and slammed the rather innocent window shut before crossing the room again and tugging Mei Changsu’s sleeves down to his wrist bones – where they ought to stay, for goodness’ sake!
The rightfully suspicious doctor glared down at his patient once more, his sharp eyes making sure that the young man’s medicine bowl was recently and completely emptied, his clothes firmly in place to fulfill their function of keeping the profligate patient well-warmed and mostly stifled, and nodded to himself in satisfaction.
“Take a nap!” The older man ordered. He made to leave the room. And stopped, with one foot over the threshold.
“And no funny business!” He glared back into the room.
His patient was already asleep.
The doctor stared a little longer. Yes, asleep. Convinced now, the short old man tottered out of the room, making sure to close the wood doors behind him.
A few minutes later, he peeked back in. Still there. Still asleep. He sighed and shook his head. Maybe he was getting too suspicious in his old age.
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It was the sort of day that made Mei Changsu want to stick his thin hands into cool, clear brooks framed by freshly fallen snow. It was the sort of day that made the frail and elegant Qilin scholar want to throw his head back against the wind, let the delicate shielded skin of his face be hit by the harsh light of winter day – all the while dashing through the familiar slopes of the city he was born in, raising havoc as if to enliven the waning year. So it was never a question that Mei Changsu knew Dr. Yan would check on him twice. Nor was there ever a question as to Mei Changsu’s acting abilities.
Now, the thing about sneaking out of a locked room, while keeping the room locked – mind you, surrounded by the most well-meaning people, is that one simply cannot afford to be caught. Which was completely why Mei Changsu took great care in making a Mei Changsu-shaped arrangement with his pillows that he then draped with his spare robes and covered with several layers of blankets. He then proceeded to enter the secret passageway that connected his bedchamber to a small study, which then eventually led to Prince Jing’s bedchamber.
Except, he didn’t head to Prince Jing’s bedchamber. He stopped short in front of the bookcase in the underground study. Then, he lifted a small book from the top shelf and replaced it with an identical small book from the bottom shelf, which was itself replaced with yet another book in sequence. He waited. Then, a soft thump was heard from behind the book shelf.
Mei Changsu’s pale lips stretched into a grin as he knocked at the shelf where he heard the thump originate. And the bookcase rotated, briefly revealing that behind it lay an identical bookcase but facing the opposite way. But Mei Changsu barely paid attention to the second bookcase as he quickly stepped through the revolving door disguised as two back-to-back bookcases – last time he got hit in the behind when that thing rotated a little too quickly for his tastes!
The man on the other side wore a most unbecoming layer of tears that was currently trailing down his neatly groomed, white beard – which would have been a very distinguished beard, mind you – if not for the aforementioned tears and whatever other perplexingly mucus-like secretions were dribbling out of the man’s nostrils at the moment.
“Xiao Shu!”
And Mei Changsu was completely unfazed by the lacrimal and nasal secretions as he hugged the older man as tightly as his thin arms allowed him.
“Granduncle.”
The old man finally gathered himself and smiled at the completely changed scholarly man in front of him. He lifted his silk sleeves and coughed lightly, the sort of cough used to hide a cry or a laugh.
“I always told that nephew-in-law of mine that someday a scholar would come out of his side of the family too,” he said slowly. It almost felt like if he spoke any faster he’d have trouble keeping his voice from cracking, “He told me – definitely not his son!”
Mei Changsu smiled softly, his sweeping cheekbones even more regal and defined as he bit the inside of his cheeks. The endearingly downturned curve of his eyes twinged ever so slightly as his already expressive orbs glimmered just a bit more brightly.
“You look more like my side of the family now.” The old man gave Mei Changsu a pat on the shoulder as he guided him towards the stairs behind the second bookshelf, “Named yourself after a tree and everything!”
Mei Changsu lifted one clearly defined eyebrow and a playful light shone behind his dark eyes.
“Then as such, I think I’m within my rights to ask you for a favor!”
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And so it was the sort of day that made Prince Jing itch to take a short hike to the mountain temple. It was sort of an unspoken tradition of his and Xiao Shu’s that the first person to make it to the temple would get the first pick of Consort Jing’s daily batch of pastries. Though, Jingyan would so unerringly choose the hazelnut pastries that he wondered if Xiao Shu ever realized there was never a cause to race anyways.
He sighed, letting the familiar dull, but heavy sting settle in his chest like a well-worn chest plate. It was a rare winter day filled with refreshing sunlight and without a cloud in sight. He had no doubt that the front path to the temple would be littered with temple-goers praying for good fortune in the coming year. So he took the small winding path up the side of the mountain, climbing the steep terrain with the practiced ease of a fit military general.
“Strange,” he thought, “there are footprints in the snow.”
And that’s when he saw her.
Ethereal. A cape lined with white fox fur fluttered in the wind, softly brushing against the silk robes below. Long, glistening black hair trailed down the slender figure’s back like a brushstroke on a painting of a winter scene. A fragrance of winter plum blossoms indescribably refreshing and refined in the clean breeze. Slim, toned fingers the color of white jade skimmed the surface of a gurgling stream, the light reflected by the water glistening against the skin, making it glow.
And that’s when he saw them.
A group of masked men in stereotypical black behind some trees on the other side of the stream.
Unthinkingly, Jingyan dashed from his spot on the path and leapt in front of the figure in white. The masked men were no match for the precise and heavy blows he delivered and fled after a brief squirmish.
Only then did he realize that he’d been holding his damsel in his arms throughout the entire confrontation – a rather unnecessary and quite dangerous thing to do, really, he thought to himself as his chiseled cheeks reddened slightly. But still very enjoyable.
“…rather unnecessary and quite dangerous, really,” his rather unthankful damsel voiced Jingyan’s thoughts for him through her veil.
Her voice was a rather mellow and soothing deep alto. He’d never heard such a voice from a woman before, but Jingyan decided then and there that he enjoyed listening to it.
“But thank you all the same, Prince Jing.”
Jingyan looked up, startled. Yes, looked up. Because the lady was somehow a little bit taller than him.
“You know who I am?”
“Yes.”
“And…?”
“Oh, forgive me,” though that insufferably pleasant and startlingly familiar voice sounded far from apologetic, “where are my manners? I hail from Official Liu’s family.”
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“I told you I was related to Official Liu,” the figure in regal, but tastefully silvery grey, imperial robes said, a hint of sour dissatisfaction ringing out amongst the soft mockery.
Jingyan tightened his shaking fists. His knuckles were a sharp, contrasting white against his dark robes adorned with the embroidery of a flying dragon.
“Two years! You had me believing that you were dead for two years!” The young emperor growled low, his deep voice sending tremors in the air around him.
The blue-clad figure just shrugged a pair of delicate, but toned shoulders, the silken inner robes sliding slightly out of place to reveal a set of sculpted collarbones sensuously jutting out of porcelain skin.
“How was I to know you were so fickle?”
“…” Jingyan didn’t even know what to say. Yet he felt like he wanted to explode.
“I mean, you were groping me and ogling me, and then when we finally got hitched,” the figure continued, splendidly unaware of the darkening eyes that were fastened to the hollow above those teasing few inches of collarbone, “you were like – I think I’m back to fantasizing about my strategist slash completely unsuspecting best friend now!”
“I… you…”
“If you didn’t have to come visit now that the three years of mourning for great-grandmother are over, I bet you’d still be drooling after Lin Shu!”
“You – you’re clearly the same-”
“Oh! I’m sorry, or was that Su Zhe you were hoping to spend tonight with?”
“Excu-”
“Or perhaps Mei Changsu? I always knew you had a thing for the hair-down, flute playing, artistic type!”
Jingyan finally gave up trying to argue and just pounced on the slender man sitting on the bed. His solid, firm build fit perfectly against Xiao Shu – no – Changsu – no – oh forget it – the love of his life’s frame, trapping the thinner man below him.
“Abuse!” Mei Changsu managed to get out.
His long, bare, luminescent legs kicked out of the curtains of the imperial bed before they were dragged back in by a large, tanned hand.
“This is domestic abuse – mmhh – hhmm ------ ! ------ ! --- ! -- ! - !-!-!-!-!!!”