Chapter 9

I spent a long time thinking about that in the parasol grove.

How had I got myself into this state?

Azure Bird was the old phoenix’s personal attendant, naturally a creature of great ability.

Yet when we’d fought before, I could beat him soundly if I used my full strength.

How had one bowl of broth turned me into something so useless I could barely walk?

Where had my inner core gone?

Every day, I lay beneath the tree muttering the same few questions until Azure Bird could stand it no longer.

One day, he suddenly returned to his true form, picked me up in his beak, placed me on his back, and flew to the Eastern Palace.

Hovering above it, he asked, “Can you feel it?”

Of course I could.

The aura of my inner core.

But by then, it had been made into a necklace and hung around the crown princess’s throat.

Beasts almost never cry.

Yet that day, lying on Azure Bird’s back, I wept, tears falling one after another.

“That’s mine,” I said. “I have to get it back.”

I sat beside the pond for half the night, until the silly carp was so round and full it could scarcely swim.

Footsteps approached behind me.

Zhong Rui held discussions in his study every evening. On his way back to his bedchamber, he always passed through the rear garden.

Sure enough, his voice came from behind me.

“Keep feeding it and it’ll burst.”

I turned.

In truth, he had changed.

I simply hadn’t been able to see it before.

As a child, he’d carried only a faint scent of books and ink mingled with expensive incense. It had been pleasant.

Now, as he approached, the first thing I smelled was the sharp tang of blood.

“Insolent!” the guard beside him barked. “Why aren’t you bowing to His Highness?”

I looked up at Zhong Rui for a long moment, then held out a hand.

“I’ve been sitting so long my legs have gone numb. Could you help me up, Your Highness?”

He seemed unconcerned and reached out naturally to pull me to my feet.

At the same time, he dismissed his attendants.

“What keeps you out in the wind and dew at midnight?”

I pointed at the pond. “The fish never seemed full, so I kept feeding it. Before I knew it, it was this late.”

His voice was mild. “Two days ago, the servants said it hadn’t eaten properly for some time. Even Ah Yao came to see it. It seems to have taken to you.”

“But it’s not that it can’t get full. It doesn’t know when it’s full.”

He spoke calmly. “If you keep feeding it, it’ll keep eating until it eats itself to death. After tonight, I’ll have to tell them not to feed it at all tomorrow.”

“Oh,” I sighed. “I’m sorry to have caused you trouble, Your Highness.”

He shook his head. “No matter. Blame it for not being able to speak and tell you itself.”

I smiled. “You make it sound as though there are birds and beasts in this world that can speak.”

He fell silent.

So I said no more.

We stood quietly by the pond in the night breeze for a while. At last, he spoke again.

“I’ve seen one.”