Chapter 29 Moving Onwards

The next morning
As Zhan Peng promised, they were on their way. She found it hard to leave this place which held a lot of their little misdeeds and adventures. But as Zhan Peng said, they were done there. They mastered what art was in the inscription and there was nothing left to do but to return to what they came for.
The mission was way more important than having the time of their life. She knew and understood her role as the Imperial Guard and she couldn’t let her lust control her. Perhaps one day, when she was done with her tasks and needed a break from being a guard or the Imperial Advisor, if fate had it that she would become one, then she could find her way back to the cave again.
Then, hopefully, Zhan Peng was still with her. She glanced towards him, and he handed her the waterskin.
“You should drink.”
It pleased her how caring he was even at this time, and she swallowed a mouthful of water. Last night, he had been very considerate towards her situation, and even warmed water for her to wash herself in and to relieve her discomfort. She wondered where he had even known all this. Being a prince, shouldn’t he be the one who was less caring towards the women and whom women threw themselves at their feet instead? Ironically, he turned out to be the sweet one instead.
When they got back to the island city, she wasn’t sure how she could break the news to her aged father. That she wanted to marry her mercenary and he was a runaway prince from a land that nobody knew how to get to? Would she just receive a berating from him? She wasn’t even clear whether he would believe that Zhan Peng was the man in the prophecy.
But since they revealed their feelings to each other and became one, she found that her powers were growing slightly. She attributed it to her proper rest and the art they found in the cave. She had long heard of some martial arts that were linked to sexual desire and connections of the flesh, as they were called on the island, but such skills had the unorthodox label on them and for a girl to have such desires made people perceive her as filthy and unvirtuous.
If not that Zhan Peng had promised to marry her, the fact she was no longer a virgin would make her less attractive to potential suitors. Not that she cared. Since Lang Juan was no longer in this world, with the taboo in her city, they would perceive her as a curse as she had unwittingly led her ‘husband’ to his death, even if she wasn’t directly involved. The elderly commoners of Shang-Yi could be very superstitious and she didn’t want to be a part of their idiocy-led beliefs. Only the shaman thought otherwise, but he often kept his dialogue to a few words.
They travelled for a few days, fighting their way through the long wild grasses as they sought a path back to the bandit camp.
“Yuxi, are you ready for this? A few more days and you will have to face the person who tormented you,” he uttered gravely. He was right, but a tinge of fear in her veins riddled her. She was afraid, but she couldn’t tell him that.
Having him by her side was a source of motivation. But since their powers didn’t work with each other, how could she defeat him?
Avoiding him wasn’t in her dictionary. He had abused her and exposed her in front of all his people. She could only swallow that down during her moment of weakness, but now that she was back and her strength restored, she wouldn’t take it lying down.
“I’m just not sure if we can defeat him.”
“Don’t worry.” He didn’t say a word more to assure her, which worried her. But he had gone on walking, and she hastened her pace to catch up with his speed. Men were all like that; forgetting about the women who were now behind them rather than beside them. He wasn’t any different from them. He walked so briskly that he forgot that she was much slower and needed time to cope with the long walks.
“Stop, Zhan Peng.” She sat on a log and caught her breath. He halted immediately, realising his blunder.
“Sorry, I thought-”
“I’m fine. It seems you have little interactions with women to understand this part of us.”
He nodded sheepishly. She didn’t want to probe further about his relationships with Di Pao and the other women who warmed his bed. Instead, she devised a simple plan on how to keep him in the island forever. As long he was proved to be the man in the prophecy and she forged a bond with him, perhaps this bond would be ample to prevent him from leaving.
Shaman Li would have an answer to that, so she had to wait until she got back to her hometown to have a word with him. No matter what, she believed he would have the answer, because he was her only hope in retaining the man. Even if it involved witchcraft or taking a bit of her blood or even making a cut on her flesh, she didn’t mind. Just to have him, she was willing. But she had to keep him at bay until they returned. At this juncture, they hadn’t even achieved a milestone with their mission.
“It feels we just fell off the cliff and ended up in this place, but when we tried getting back up, it’s taking forever,” she stated.
“And that, my dear Yuxi, is the truth behind exploration. It’s been my dream to be an adventurer and explorer, and finally I can get to experience it myself.”
Zhan Peng held great joy in his words as he pronounced them. She never ceased to wonder that behind this handsome face, was a prince filled with mysteries. He hadn’t explained to her what made him want to leave his glorious palace to wander into the depths of another ‘world’ while leaving behind his royal status.
But then, she had never stepped outside Shangyi Island and neither did she know how the world out there was like at all. She was a beautiful frog in a well, starved by curiosity. In the past, she dwelled in her own comfort zone, but after being entangled by this man, it seemed she turned into a completely different person.
“Do you ever think of going home? I mean, you’re a person of grand birth. You must have a lot of servants to wait upon you, and living here like a commoner is just an injustice to you.”
“It allowed me to meet you.”
Her heart tingled when she heard him say those words which appeared genuine. He glanced at her with a warm smile. “If I didn’t arrive in Shang-Yi, I would never had the chance to meet you,” he reiterated. “Although, it was my good brother’s desire to set foot on this land. And after that, everything came forth smoothly.”
“It was his decision?” She had been so overwhelmed by her blind love that she had forgotten to ask about Yang Tian. After losing that part of him that he only lived for, she didn’t know how he was going to go on living. When they landed in the ravine, she hadn’t predicted that they would be away from Erlu for so long. Yang Tian must have felt so lonely without any friends with him.
“Yes, to find his mother.”
“His mother-” Her voice trailed off as she figured out her aunt’s last words to her when she saw her, back when she hadn’t gone into hiding. At that time, she hadn’t mentioned why she had to disappear or that she had a son with anyone. It was against Shang-Yi’s rules and she probably had to keep the fact she had an illegitimate son a secret that she would take to the grave.
“Ah, yes, his mother. Sorry, I lost you for a moment.”
Right now, she hadn’t any idea where Su Yan was or that Yang Tian was definitely the son she was looking out for, but the fact he carried an unique power in his veins pointed out that he had to be a descendant of their family. So, she had a strong feeling in her bones that Yang Tian was her cousin.
“Let’s just get on with the journey. The longer we dwindle, the longer it will take for us to get back,” the prince said.
“Agreed.” She stood up, albeit that it was too quickly that she felt a sudden cramp in her leg, that inhibited her from walking further.
“I guess it’s time for me to take over for a bit, yeah?” he winked playfully at her, and in the next second he lifted her into his arms.