The sight that greeted them was less like an abandoned summer house and more like a wild jungle.  Branches, vines and leaves were everywhere, covering the floor and walls.  At first glance, nothing human could be seen.

Then, Weisheng noticed an area to the side of the room, near an open window.

No.  The window wasn't open.  It was shattered.  The remnants of the ornate wooden screens were scattered about the floor beneath, meaning that something had broken in, rather than out.  His eyes slid to the left, and landed on a spherical tangle of branches and vines, almost like a cocoon.

Unafraid, but very apprehensive, Weisheng moved towards the shape.  Luo Jian went to step in front of him defensively, but the prince motioned him back.

As he had with the doors, Weisheng slowly reached out.

He heard a rustling of leaves, as if in warning, and he trembled involuntarily.  Still, he kept extending his arm until his hand touched the closest branch.  He closed his eyes, and willed himself to stay perfectly still, keeping his emotions in check.

The rustling stopped, almost as if nature itself was assessing him, gauging his intentions.

Then, slowly but surely, the branches and vines started to recede, and he was allowed to see what they had been protecting so fiercely.

It was as he had both hoped and feared.

She was lying there, so still and so pale.  At first, she looked almost peaceful, as if she might have been sleeping.  Then he focussed his gaze and noticed that her dress was ripped at the shoulder, and blood was drying from a patch of torn skin there.  And there were angry red marks around her throat, and a trickle of blood flowed from her temple.

Luckily, he was relieved to see, the rest of her clothing looked undisturbed, other than the sash at her waist, which was half undone.

Forcing himself to stay calm, Weisheng moved forward to take a closer look, and it was impossible to describe the sense of relief he felt when he saw her chest gently rise and fall as she breathed, slowly but steadily.

He gathered her carefully in his arms and looked around.

There was no movement from the greenery surrounding them, so he took it as a sign that he was being permitted to take her out of their care.  He nodded once to Luo Jian, and the two of them made their way carefully across the floor of the summer house and out of the door.

They had taken only a few steps back into the orchard towards the prince's mansion when they heard a loud, creaking, groaning sound.

They turned around and were amazed to see the vines and branches surrounding the structure tightening, much like a large boa constrictor incapacitating its prey until, eventually, the building shattered and crumbled to nothingness.

With that final act of defiance, nature withdrew, until the forest looked much as it always had.  Tranquil, if a little wild.  Weisheng and Luo Jian gave each other a long look, then headed back towards the mansion, their precious cargo cradled carefully in the prince's arms.

***

Meanwhile, on the other side of the palace grounds, the eldest prince had almost been driven out of his mind with fear and, rather than making things better, his constant attempts to recreate the events of the past few hours and make some sense of them were only pushing him more and more into a state of delirium.

He recalled strangling the woman until she passed out, then reaching to undo her sash. Then, he remembered a roaring sound and, when he looked across, he saw a gnarled arm that resembled a tree branch crashing through the wooden window sashes not far from where he was kneeling.

He felt a sudden, heavy impact on his chest, and he was thrown several metres backwards until his body hit the far wall.  Thankfully, he didn't lose consciousness, but if he had, at least he would have been spared a sight that his eyes were unwilling to believe.

The large branch – for it could only have been a branch, however unlikely – came to rest over the woman's body, shielding her.  At the same time, vines started pouring through the broken window, through small gaps in the wooden walls of the building and from holes that were appearing in the ceiling above, spreading rapidly to fill every corner of the room.

The sound was unbearable.  Creaking, roaring and rustling, like some gigantic creature that was slowly waking from a deep sleep.

Li Jun had scrambled to his feet, covered his ears with his hands, and run to the door in sheer terror, exiting just before the avenue of escape was closed off to him by the encroaching woodland.  He ran headlong down the pathway back towards the inner palace, too scared to look back even once.

Chuanli simply watched his master in silence.  He knew better than to speak when the eldest prince was in this kind of condition.  Eventually, Li Jun fell asleep, having totally exhausted his mind, and Chuanli left the room to find him a soothing tonic.

It would be many days before Zhao Li Jun returned to anything like a state of normalcy.

***

Doctor Xiao, Weisheng and Luo Jian solemnly regarded the woman lying on the prince's bed.  The physician had already examined her and treated her injuries. He turned to his friend.

"This is starting to become a bit of a habit with you three," he said, in an annoyed tone.  Then, his voice softened.

"Luckily," he said, "the only injuries I could find are the ones you can see.  The gash on her head is not too deep, so it should heal well enough.  If it was just that, I would surmise that she met with some sort of accident but, taken together with the other injuries."  He stopped and took a breath before continuing.

"Someone put significant pressure on her neck.  It was probably this that put her in an unconscious state.  When she wakes, she will likely have a sore throat for a few days, so she shouldn't be made to talk more than necessary.  As for the wound near her collarbone..." he tailed off, clearly uncomfortable with what he was going to say next.

"What about it, Doctor?"  Weisheng asked, worriedly.

"I have cleaned it," Xiao Yu replied, "but, as a precaution, she will need to take this medicine to ensure that no infection develops because..." again, he tailed off, and the prince gave him an impatient look.  The physician quickly finished the rest of his sentence in one breath.

"Because...I don't know what manner of person it was that bit her."

With that, Xiao Yu put a bottle down on the table beside him, grabbed his physician's bag, and hurriedly left the room.

Weisheng barely registered his departure.  Luo Jian watched his friend carefully, aware that his mood could go one of two ways.

Thankfully for Luo Jian, it was the less destructive of the two, as the prince sank into a nearby chair and put his head in his hands.  When he eventually raised his eyes, the other man was surprised to see them glistening with unshed tears.  Weisheng rarely cried. In fact, Luo Jian could not recall a time when he had ever seen him cry.  Unsure of how to respond, he simply rested a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Don't worry, Weisheng," he said.  "You heard Doctor Xiao.  The injuries are relatively superficial, and Ming Yue is a very tough young woman.  She will be fine."

"I know that," Weisheng replied.  "I just can't help but think that I let her down in some way.  If the..." he waved his arm, unable to find the right word for the scene they had witnessed in the forest, then carried on without it, "hadn't happened then I would have been too late.  How could I have lived with myself?"

Luo Jian said nothing.  Weisheng was right.   The consequences would have been unthinkable.  For that reason, he decided it was best to change the subject.  He moved around the prince to sit down directly opposite him, and leaned across the table which separated them.

"Weisheng," he began.  "We know what we saw.  It was the same thing that happened with the tree before.  This...wonder is directly connected to Ming Yue in some way, whether she is aware of it or not."

The prince nodded.

"I know," he conceded.  "I should have pressed her more firmly the first time.  I was too soft on her. I always am, I suppose," he admitted, before carrying on.

"The worst thing is," he looked down, "it is not so much the strangeness of all of this that bothers me."  He stopped, and Luo Jian waited patiently for him to finish.

"What bothers me the most is that, if she does know about it, that means she lied to me before."  Weisheng looked up to meet his friend's gaze.

"She lied to my face, Luo Jian."  With that, he sat back and rubbed his hands over his eyes.  He suddenly felt very weary.

Luo Jian pondered his words for a moment.  He knew that the prince was hurting, but he also knew that he was not being entirely fair on the young woman currently lying unconscious just a few metres away from them.  Choosing his words carefully, he responded.

"I am certain that she would never lie to you if she felt she had any other choice, Weisheng," he said.  "Imagine if it was you who had some sort of strange power like that.  Would you tell anyone about it?  Who would believe you?  And even if they did, how could you possibly predict how they would react to it?"  He continued.

"Before you knew it, you could find yourself in the bottom of a very deep dungeon awaiting execution for practising dark magic or something or other.  Or, perhaps worse, you could be locked away for the rest of your life being treated as some sort of human experiment.  At the very least, you would become a target for all sorts of people who would want to use your ability to further their own ends, or simply assassinate you so that no one else could use you against them.  Surely the best thing is to keep quiet about it for as long as possible."  With that, Luo Jian stopped and took a breath.

Weisheng gaped at his friend.  That was quite possibly the longest speech he had ever heard Luo Jian make.

Pushing the thought to one side, he took a moment to carefully consider his friend's words, and realised that he was quite right.  All things considered, if Ming Yue had lied to him, it was because she had no choice but to lie in order to protect herself and, whilst they had formed a close friendship over the last few months, if not something stronger but yet unsaid, it would have been foolish of her to ignore the fact that he was still a member of the Han royal family.  She may have thought he would have felt duty bound to inform his father, and who knows what would have happened then.

Having made up his mind, Weisheng spoke suddenly.

"Luo Jian," he said, firmly.  "This time, we must have the truth from her.  But, before we do, I have to ask you something."  The other man nodded for him to continue.

"Whatever she says, whatever it is we hear, will you follow my lead on how we deal with it?"  Luo Jian nodded again, and Weisheng sighed.

"I suppose, to be honest, what I'm asking you," he said, "is whether you're happy to join me in shouldering the burden of keeping a very big secret."

Luo Jian regarded his friend calmly.  He had already known that, irrespective of what Ming Yue told him, Weisheng would do whatever he could to keep her safe unless it put the kingdom at risk and, in this case, the safest thing possible was keeping quiet about the strangeness of recent events and their connection to the third member of their little group.

"You know I will always stand with you, Weisheng," he said.  "You did not even have to ask."

Weisheng smiled in response, and the two men started their silent vigil over the injured young woman.