When I was young, I was put in a boarding school. It was only for three years, but it is an experience that helped this chapter to be as real to me as possible.

Chapter 74

Wei Li Lian
Princess Elora
Imperial Concubine Wei
Nevoria

Li Lian was swooshed through the air, nestled against Oren’s chest. He smelt of woodsy cinnamon and a freshly rained forest, all in one. No man except Hu-go and the emperor had lifted her until now.

“Seat here, I shall leave you in the care of Fang Qing,” Oren carefully placed her on the chair, “and get you something to eat in the meanwhile.”

She shyly nodded. Li Lian was not used to being treated this nicely except if the person was a servant of hers. And with that she was struck with remorse as she remembered something. If everyone thought she was dead, that meant even Ai thought the same too.

Her poor girl, they were going to dump her in that palace to something of a lower position, probably to the washing place where they washed palace maids clothes, or even worse, sending her away to the bureau where they cleaned waste buckets the royalty used to relieve themselves in.

Li Lian lost appetite. Her poor Ai. She couldn't abandon her there.

"Make sure she is comfortable, Fang Qing," Oren strictly instructed his student.

"Yes, your student will abide to the command."

Before leaving, Oren patted her on the head. This affection was inopportune for Li Lian who was not yet on a friendly basis with Oren. Didn't Yuwen Hong also say, Oren is a womanizer, the other time?

“My name is Fang Qing.” The lad next to her, who looked a little younger than her, began their conversation. He was the cutest she had ever seen that she was all the more reminded of Ai.

“My name is Li Lian,” she replied.

He breathed in a rugged manner. “I have to say you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, a snow goddess, I would call you.”

“Thank you, you are cute as a rabbit, yourself.”

“Rabbit?” He burst into laughter. “Not so bad of a compliment but not the best I would like to hear. And I have to also say that I am glad to see another goddess, besides Ruo Xi. Would you mind it if I drew a painting of you?”

“Hmm. You can paint?”

“I have been painting since I was quite young, painting beautiful women is my speciality.”

“I would not mind it. Grand Consort… I mean I have a friend who can paint as well, she has passionate paintings with meanings so deep, it's alluring.”

“This friend of yours sounds amazing." He held up rice with meat on his chopsticks. "Would you like to taste?”

“No, she cannot eat solid food yet, otherwise she will get sick if we introduce her to it that fast.” Oren was back with a bowl of soup. “Drink this as your dinner, but be careful, it is a little hot.”

“Thank you, Master Oren.”

He nodded with the same warm eyes she first got from him when they met, then departed from them.

“I have to say being the princess of Furia has some perks, Master never gets food for anyone.”

“Maybe it does.” Li Lian smiled as she spooned her soup.

As dinner progressed, more students came to introduce themselves, raffling her with some jokes here and there, and making her feel welcome. They weren't as bad as she initially thought.

After meeting more than half of them, from observation, it seemed only Oren and Lance were from Furia, while everyone else was Nevorian. Li Lian was curious to know why Oren bred students who did not belong to his nation. What was so good about Nevoria that he would leave her people of Furia?

Her people?

She was partly Furian by the way, which was amazing. Anything than Huticah was good.

Overtime, the dinner hall started emptying as people left, and that was when she got the pleasure to start eating, no one to make her talk and steal her attention away from her food.

“Imperial Concubine Wei?” Another young man slid next to her with his full plate of food. “Kong Cheng is the name, my apologies you only meet me now, I was busy training. You see, if you aspire to be the best like Emperor Huizhong, you have to be unique and avoid being like the rest.”

Even in his absence, Yu'er was a hot topic. Her beloved was indeed a man of presence. “Greetings, Kong Cheng.”

“Eh. I heard you are a woman belonging to the emperor.”

Li Lian chuckled. “No one owns me.”

“But still you were a concubine." He looked up and clapped his hands. "Surely, the heavens have smiled upon me.” Kong Cheng proceeded to pull out a small book from within his sleeves, alongside a bar of graphite. “Who knew that a woman who knows the ins and outs of my idol would be sent to me? Such fortune is unknown.”

“What do you mean?”

Kong Cheng gave her the brightest teethy smile. “What I mean is… share with me what the emperor does in the mornings.”

What kind of question was that? “He does many things.”

“Tell me the 'many things'. I have all the time I need to listen.”

“Leave her alone, Kong Cheng.” Fang Qing was back to sit next to her. “He is obsessed to be like the emperor, it is the only thing he thinks of.” Fang Qing muttered to her.

Li Lian seeped on her soup. “The emperor wakes up to train.”

“I know that. Tell me something I don't know.” Kong Cheng flipped through his pages. “What does he like eating?”

“He likes everything. He eats a lot.”

“Hao, then I will eat more.” Kong Cheng stood and headed to double the portion of his food.

What craziness was that? Li Lian smirked, who knew someone like Yu'er would have fans? She shook her head in amusement and zeroed in at what was in her view, on the table across theirs.

“Fang Qing, who are they?” She pointed to the men who sat excluded from the rest of the juniors. It was a group of a dozen or so students, reserved, calm, not fretting and making noise as the rest.

“They are the seniors, the impressive league that keeps to themselves." Fang Qing exhaled. "It is not easy to become a senior, you know. There is someone who has been here for ten years, yet he will not be admitted to be a senior by our master. Only three are qualified to be titled a senior, each year."

“What is so important about becoming a senior?”

“Are you kidding me? Everything!” He gazed up dreamily. “You will be seen differently by the world because being a senior is a status on its own and you get to embark on secret missions dispensed by the palace, you get paid instead of being the person paying Oren. It is too good!"

“Lady Wei, I'm back! Tell me more, now.” Kong Cheng sat in again. “What does the emperor do at night before he sleeps?”

“I do not know. Sleeps with his harem?” Why did he think she was always beside Yu'er? Per week, she saw the emperor for less than twelve hours, on average.

Fang Qing giggled. “Master Oren forbids courting for all the juniors. You are at a dead end there, Kong Cheng.”

After dinner, everyone went on to bathe, while Li Lian just sat in the dining room feeling lonely. It was not because people ignored her, but because she rejected them.

Lance offered to take her to bathe, but she refused. It was not proper.

When she saw Oren pass by, she hid underneath the table. Something told her he would seek to keep her company if he knew she was alone, but she felt awkward around him. He was Yu'er's master and she didn't know whether to trust him, that he would not snitch on her and also, the past relationship he said to have had with her mother was an uncomfortable thing to digest. Li Lian didn't want to build anything with Master Oren.

"Li Lian?"

She looked up to see a beautiful small figured woman. She wore clothes similar to hers, had her long hair tied up and noteworthy big breasts.

"I guess you are Ruo Xi."

"You have guessed right."

So her and Ruo Xi didn't go as planned. They didn't have the amazing conversation Li Lian expected. It was dry talk about the season, Nevoria, other places Ruo Xi visited. There was no connection between them, everything basically felt forced.

After a little while, they decided they would retire to sleep. When Ruo Xi asked her if she wanted to bathe too, she rather declined. She had already done so earlier on, with the help of a dedicated servant, and Li Lian didn't wish to experience the horrendous leg pain while bathing, twice in one day.

Although small, Ruo Xi was fiercely strong. She managed to easily carry Li Lian on her back to the juniors’ quarters.

The sleeping quarters appeared to be a shelter for wild animals, and describing it as such was also an understatement. The juniors played around in underwear, dancing on their beds, chasing each other and loudly shouting on top of their voices.

There were two rows of horizontal beds and wooden chests of drawers lined in the centre as a point of separation for the rows. The huge room was shared by twenty students in the west section.

Ruo Xi walked to the far end of the left row and put down Li Lian on the second from last single bed, next to the only large bed in the room. It belonged to Ruo Xi, since she was a senior.

Li Lian inspected the white linen on her small bed, glad to see that at least it was clean and seemingly new.

“Your clothes are in the top drawer of the chest of drawers opposite your bed, the bottom drawer belongs to Fang Qing.”

“Is the single bed next to mine Fang Qing's, too?”

“Yes, but that does not matter since you also have me by your side,” Ruo Xi sniggered.

Li Lian faked a smile because honestly, she did not like this place so far.

Lance better finish his training as soon as possible so that we can leave. Never in her life had she been expected to share sleeping quarters with people of the opposite gender.

She couldn’t help cringing as she looked around, seeing clothes on the floor and untidy beds.

“Kiya, kiya!” Fang Qing shouted as he rode a junior who was on his fours and making horse sounds.

Kong Cheng on the other hand, stood on the bed, holding a wooden sword and shouting, "I am the almighty Emperor Huizhong! All bow down down for me!"

People laughed.

"Emperor, kiss my buttocks!" The juniors playing board games and placing bets while on their beds, jested.

"Eat my foot, Emperor!"

“You are a rotten egg, Emperor!”

Li Lian had to give that to their credit, everyone was joyful, happy and elated as if they were celebrating something while it was just any normal day for them.

"What did I say about making noise and playing around in your underwear? Just because I'm one woman, now two women, does not mean you must be inconsiderate in our shared space." Ruo Xi chastised the juniors dancing half-naked on the chest of drawers. "Everyone in their underwear must go get the buckets of waste and put them on their heads, walk around the campus of the academy ten times shouting, I'm a mad person, I'm crazy and I have no brain."

They grumbled as they lined out of the door, leaving the few that were actually dressed.

"Li Lian!" Kong Cheng jumped from his bed with his book in hand.

Oh no, not again.

"You said that within the second hour after Yuwen Hong wakes up, he trains and then bathes. But I see that there is fifteen minutes space of time in between when he starts dressing and when he finishes bathing. Please tell me what he does in that gap, otherwise I won't know what to do."

Li Lian looked at Ruo Xi for help, irritated by the continuous talk of someone she desperately wanted to forget.

Ruo Xi giggled as she walked away to check on the progression of the punishment she just issued.

Li Lian sighed. "I don't know, Kong Cheng. Do you see the emperor tied to me, right now?"

She wanted to move on from her past and so far no one was making it easy by mentioning Yuwen Hong continuously, and how amazing he was.

Kong Cheng started to rumble on as earlier, on why it was important she told him, the emperor was important to him, it was his life goal to be like him, she was shattering his dreams by keeping quiet and not sharing.

"All right. All right, I remember now. I think he dances in front of his mirror naked."

Kong Cheng looked at her questionably.

"Why not? He has dozens of women in his harem. He has to dance in front of the mirror and build his confidence."

He didn't seem convinced.

Li Lian waved at him to draw him closer to her. "He thinks he is ugly so he does those things to be strong and macho,” she whispered.

"Zhēn de?" he exclaimed.

"Yes, it's true. So you must remember that everyone has weaknesses, even the almighty emperor."

"Very good." He used his graphite stick to scribble some notes.

“What about the thirty minutes on the tenth hour of the day? You did not cover those too."

"He eats a lot, remember? So he takes a dump during that time."

"Hao.” He seriously scribbled it down, quite focused and trusting. “On the twelfth hour?"

"He visits me in Hougong to massage me."

"The fifteen minutes after the fifteenth hour?"

Li Lian yawned as she crossed her arms behind her head and lay on the bed, closing her tired eyes. "He takes a dump again."

“But you told me earlier that he relieves himself on the fourteenth hour too. Isn’t that too much?”

"Oh, I said that? Then this one is the time he comes to wash my feet and hair.”

“Wah! This emperor must love you so much.”

“Learn from the emperor, little boy. You must respect your women.”

“Twentieth hour?”

“What did I say earlier?”

“He feeds you.”

“Good, then this time he takes a dump again.”

Li Lian’s inner woman was laughing. This was so much fun. It was not like Yuwen Hong would find out anyway, and it was not her fault too, what Yuwen Hong’s schedule was like precisely, who knew it? He did hundreds of things within a day.

“Wife, I was looking for you in the dining hall, but heard Ruo Xi carried you here.” Lance approached them.

Li Lian rolled her eyes.

Lance walked into the space between hers and Fang Qing’s bed. “I am tired after such a long day, do you need something before I retire to sleep?”

Li Lian shook her head. Lance slept in the east wing of the juniors’ section as he was the leader in those quarters for the rest of the twenty juniors.

“If that is all, sleep well, and you know where to find me. He pulled her up to seat, and to this, Li Lian groaned in complaint.

"Don't be a baby," he mused as he tenderly hugged her for several seconds, then kissed her on the forehead.

“Master! Li Lian and Lance are kissing and spreading an epidemic around the academy!” Fang Qing shouted.

This got everyone’s attention, to which they roared. “Ooohhh! Lance, Lance, Lance!”

S.V