Chapter 79

Wei Li Lian
Black Sword Academy

"Look, look. She is touching his hand, she is flirting," Kong Cheng said.

"She even has his cloak on," Fang Qing replied.

"The old man is finally getting something tonight. It has been a while." Someone from among the juniors observing through the window replied, making everyone fall into fits of laughter.

It was a wide window with its length stretching down to their knees as they stood, but some like Li Lian knelt on the floor, hands resting on the window seal and peeping.

"Kong Cheng, you are stepping on my garments, you idiot." Li Lian complained and cursed him as she removed his black boot from her robe. She made that outfit yesterday.

"It's just garments, not your body," he dismissed.

"Very disrespectful." She pinched his leg and he squealed.

"What was that for?"

"Shut up! You are making noise," she smirked.

He growled and chose to rather rejoin the others in passing remarks on Oren's courting with the mysterious woman.

Li Lian observed the woman with Oren in the garden. She had her back to them while facing Oren, who seemed not to notice anything else than her. The reason why they were still watching was to see who the lucky woman was, after all. The juniors said Oren never brought women to the academy, so this person had to be special in some sort of way.

Observing her, she seemed to be out of the ordinary. She was just unique in posture, movements and aura, the way she carried herself was beyond normality.

"What are you doing there kids? It is time for bathing." Lance shouted as he passed by from the dining hall and opened the door of the hallway that led to their bedchambers.

Lance was indeed mature, a man focused on growing himself and extending his experience. You rarely found him playing around with the juniors, who loved giving excuses for opportunities to laze around. It was only when his intention was to spend time with Li Lian that he would bother to be around them.

Li Lian saw Lance's hardworking attitude as good in the beginning because the more Lance was focused on his work, the faster they would be able to leave for Furia. However, now that she was not sure of what she really wanted, it was hard to tell whether his progress was a good thing.

"Yoh! Run! Master Oren has seen us!" Kong Cheng shouted in time with Li Lian raising her head to see Oren saying goodbye to the woman and heading towards them.

"Run!" They all screamed.

A havoc of fidgeting, thudding, and pushing commenced as some fell while others walked on others. There was the banging of the door as they fled into the hallway while Li Lian jumped up to also make a run for it, right behind Fang Qing.

Although, when Fang Qing passed the door, he abruptly stopped and caused her to bump onto him that she stepped back in reflex, holding her nose.

He grinned in an evil manner as he quickly shoved her further backwards until she stumbled onto the ground.

"Take one for the team, Li Lian!" He banged the door shut and locked it, leaving behind his loud obnoxious laugh as he ran down the hallway.

"Fang Qing!" she screamed after him. "I will kill you! Just you wait! You better sleep with one eye open tonight!"

"Ahem," Oren cleared his throat from behind her, having entered from the dining hall where there was the nearby outside entrance.

"Master Oren..." she awkwardly smiled. "How are you doing? Have you eaten yet?"

"Snooping around is against the rules of the academy, should you not be taking a bath and retiring for bed right now?"

Li Lian did not know which side of him she was facing at the moment. The master, or the nice Oren who wasn't the master? He was nice as Oren but very strict as their master. Aiyah, couldn't he be nice at all times?

"You see, Master Oren. I ate too much and therefore could not walk for the rest of the way, so I decided to just sit and wait for my full stomach to lighten up." She inflated her stomach and pointed to it.

"Really now?" he smirked.

"Yes, yes," she stood up, ready to leave as soon as she got the chance.

"Since you are no longer wounded as before, I shall not hold back on punishing you today."

"Ah, why? I have not done anything wrong since I arrived." She made her best adorable face.

"You keep skipping your lessons, you have a huge bad record concerning this."

"Why does that matter? I am not here as your student." She had no desire to be one either. "And I don't like fighting, it does not hold my interest."

Surprisingly he was smiling, as if she was interesting. "Then what does?"

"Anything that is artistic. Singing, sewing, dancing... Stuff like that."

"Fighting is art."

She wheezed. "Fighting is boring. If it was art, it wouldn't be as boring."

He laughed. "The reason you survived at that cliff is because of Lance and I. If we were not there to play our parts, those men would have done you under."

"I would hold my own even without you." She rolled her eyes.

"Your skills are not up to par. Besides, you can not live here for free. Remember that you are not paying for anything here, the least you could do is train with the others."

She did not like people forcing her to do things, especially now that she was free. "Then I will just leave. I can walk now, remember?" She could walk almost fine, the only thing left was the slight limp due to the slight pain on her knee joint.

"Stop the nonsense," he dismissed, suddenly displeased. "Who said fighting can't be fun? Have you done the sword dance before?"

Li Lian shook her head. "I have only heard of it."

"I can teach you that one, it will be like dancing but with swords involved."

"That wouldn't be so bad..." She held her chin in contemplation.

"Good. Follow me," he instructed.

"To where?"

"For your punishment. You are washing my feet tonight." He began to walk.

"What?" She giggled as she followed. This Oren was a character. She had only talked to him in the midst of group conversation but not really one-on-one ever since at the cliff. Though she had to admit, her view on him had constantly changed ever since. He was actually an all right person.

On the way to his quarters, he stopped to instruct one of his servants to make sure the woman he was with departed well.

Li Lian wouldn't say it, but she had a hunch that was her mother. If the woman had a cloak on, that meant she was trying to hide something, her wings. At the same time it could be any other ordinary woman, and she should stop having wishful thoughts.

Oren's place had a simplistic design she didn't expect. What it did for her was to emphasise his mysterious character as she observed the black undertones spread out in his welcoming room.

A maid came in with a warm dish of water as Oren sat on his central chair. "She will wash my feet today," he told his maid, who agreed to his request by leaving the silver dish on the floor and handing the oil and cotton cloth to Li Lian.

"Do you know how to massage and wash a person's feet?" He picked on her playfully.

"I did it for my previous mistress for months and I think she was way more difficult than you can be."

"The emperor's mother, I assume."

"Yes, Grand Consort Shu. How did you know?"

"I happen to know many more things than I would like to."

Li Lian helped remove his boot and submerged his foot into the water. "Since you know so much, Master Oren, you could as well tell me how you met my mother."

"Your mother... I knew her for a long time before she got to know about me. At that time, I had a big liking for her that I couldn't hide."

"Then how did she get to know about you as well?"

He laughed. "It is a funny story. You see, in Furia, a princess is assigned with a mate according to the competitions that determine which man is the best warrior."

So Lance was the best warrior in Furia?

"Obviously you won."

"No. I didn't. My friend did. When those competitions happened, I'd just come back from war and was still quite injured, thus I took the second position."

"Your friend then became her mate?"

"That is the funny part."

"Yeah?"

"I killed him when I recovered so that I, who was the second winner, could become her first."

Li Lian's face froze, not the least impressed. That was not funny, it was disturbing.

Oren laughed. "Your face is also funny."

"Whoever thinks what you just said is funny must be deranged."

"I and Hong'er think it is."

"Yuwen Hong isn't a suitable candidate to gauge whether something is worthy to be considered funny. Otherwise, we would end up depopulating the world."

He laughed hard this time. "It is dark humor, my child."

She wiped his leg and oiled it. "So you and my mother found your dark humor funny and laughed at the poor man who won fair and square?"

"No, she got bedazzled by my ripped body and forgot about the other man instantly. If he could be defeated by me, he wasn't worth her affection." He wiped his tears off, eyes glistening from his episode of laughing at her.

"Yeah, right, so why are you here if you two were so in love?"

"Good question for her. I guess what we had was not good enough to be worth it compared to the people of Furia," his voice suddenly became solemn. "When Huticah proposed for her hand she agreed to the marriage her parents suggested in a heartbeat, expecting me to be the man she would take with as her wimp."

"That is awful."

"Yes, but that doesn't necessarily make her a bad person. She is a woman with many great attributes, and just like everyone else, she is bound to make mistakes in life."

It seemed as though Oren didn't want Li Lian to have a bad impression concerning her mother. If all ex-lovers were this courteous, that would be nice.

Li Lian sighed.

There she was, judging her mother's decisions, but they were peas in the same pod. Had she not left Yuwen Hong, choosing her freedom over him?

What if she lived to regret it forever and the sinking feeling in the pit of her heart did not go away with time?

"Master Oren, can I ask you something?"

He nodded warmly. "You can ask me anything."

"Between love and freedom, what would you choose?" Between Yuwen Hong and leaving, what should she choose?

He looked at the roof and made a puzzled expression. "That is a contradictory question."

"Why?"

"Because in love there must be freedom, otherwise is it love after all?"

He was right. She never thought of it that way. Love had freedom in it, so why choose freedom when she could have both love and freedom?

He straightened and had his hand on his thighs. "Rethinking life decisions, are we?"

This Oren was not bad. He was wise, relaxed and peculiar in a not so bad way. Speaking with him was way easier to do than with most people she knew because he understood her easily.

"I do not know what is right or wrong at this point. I am happy here, the happiest I have ever been. No chains and weights to control me, this is the first time I have experienced this. Yet, I do not know whether this is what I would like forever."

"I think your current situation should not concern you. You won't be here forever since you are leaving for Furia soon and after you get there, you will be with your family, which will help your heart heal, erase the weariness, and bring you comfort. Family can be the medicine to one who wants to forget and let go of their mischiefs."

"That is the more reason I should go back to the palace, Master Oren."

His face puzzled again, not understanding her.

"Think of it this way. If I were to fall and get injured, Grand Consort Shu would force me to drink medicine, Ai would not be able to sleep with worry, Dao would tell me I was a fool for falling, Yuwen Hong would seek to kill everyone who was around me as I fell because they let me fall, Luo Meng would think its funny and I deserved it, Mistress Han would write me a letter with well wishes, Noble Consort Qi would read books to find medicine that can heal me fast, Grand Dowager Empress would chastise me for being unladylike... and in all that ... Is that not what we call a family?"

"Li Lian, what are you saying?" he seemed panicked. For what reason, she didn't know.

"Maybe I do not want to go to the foreign land of Furia and meet my mother because as far as I am concerned, I was raised for Nevoria. They have been my people given to me by fate. Remember, no person chooses who their family will be, but they are chosen by the family. Yuwen Hong chose me, and unless me, he sees no other person that can do it for him. Four years apart showed that and I don't want to be apart from him anymore."

"I don't think your logic is sane."

"Well I think it is sane the more I think about it because, Master Oren, where was my mother all this time? Yuwen Hong lost me for 4 years and in that time he looked for me more than my mother did; a man who is not family loves me more. Yes, he hasn't the best way of doing it, but at least he tries. How can I part with such a man?"

"You are risking your life if you want to go back. There are so many atrocities that have you connected to Huticah and Hong'er would not easily forgive. It would be hard for me to protect you."

"You are indeed kind, but you do not owe me anything to be the one to protect me. What you have done is enough already." She wiped his last foot. "Besides, the more time passes, the more this freedom becomes worthless and I despair in heart because I miss my beloved a lot. I admit that I was wrong to think the grass would be greener on the other side if I left the walls of the palace."

Silence stretched between the two of them. Oren was worried for her, which was weird. Did he know something she didn't?

"I respect your decision, but what if we visited your mother and released you from Huticah so that you could happily go back to the palace, later on."

"What do you mean by release?"

"King Tobba is dead."

S.V