Fang Shi quickly arrived to the capital with no further incidents. After overwhelmingly defeating the leader the rest of the bandits had fled.
After leaving the forest and seeing the capital for the first time Fang Shi was astonished. The solid steel walls of the city stretched to the left and the right endlessly while also rising taller than any building he'd ever seen before. Fang Shi had learned before coming to the capital that this was just the outer layer wall, the inner wall was twice as thick and twice as high, and the wall around the palace was equally impressive and made out of gold.
He slowly approached the gate where a guard was collecting tax for entry. He showed the guard a small token he had been given by his princess, he had started calling her that when he realized how much he loved her, and the guard let him in without having to pay the tax. This made Fang Shi swell with pride, but he quickly remembered his previous lesson about such feelings and suppressed them. Only a little though.
Entering the gate he proceeded towards the inner district intending to then head to the Palace. Taking in the bustling sights and sounds of the city as well as, unfortunately, the smell. He had unknowingly entered the district gate used by the bandits, beggars, and other unsavory people to gain access to the poor section of town.
As Fang Shi approached the inner wall he sighed in both amazement at the wall and relief that he hadn't been attacked. He had started to get the feeling that while walking through the city several people were watching him and not out of interest, but malice. Arriving in front of the inner gate he approached the guard and got directions to a nearby inn as he wanted to clean himself up before presenting himself to his princess. The guard had a lot of experience so he directed him to an inn just past the fighting arena as he assumed he was a fighter that had come from the mountains to test his strength.
Fang Shi continued along the directions the guard had given and was almost to the inn when he saw a carriage traveling rather quickly towards the arena. He noticed immediately that a young boy had fallen in front of the carriage and would be trampled to death if he didn't do something.
He wouldn't make it in time if he ran so he could only hope the person steering the carriage could hear him as he yelled.
"STOP CARRIAGE!"
With luck the carriage stopped just before crashing into the child.
Slowly the carriage door opened and a young man stepped out. While the man had elegant features, his sharp eyebrows were furrowed causing him to look like a villain. He wore a black gown that was woven with gold and had an emerald green trim which matched the color of his vicious looking eyes. His hair, tied in the back and falling just past his shoulders, was black as night.
His face reminded Fang Shi of someone, but he couldn't remember who. All he could think about was his princess so her face was the only one that came to mind.
"Who dares command my carriage to stop?" A cold and calm voice came from the man.
Fang Shi seeing that the driver of the carriage had stopped before running over the child Fang Shi relaxed and quickly approached the noble carriage owner who had just stepped out.
"I apologize. I had asked for you to stop so as to avoid running over this child."
Fang Shi bowed slightly after having explained.
"Then instead of the child you will die." The man said as he thrust his open hand covered in a black ki towards Fang Shi as though it were a blade.
A confused look appeared on Fang Shi's face, but he quickly retreated and avoided the attack. It was quick and if it had hit could easily have killed Fang Shi, but as impressive as it was the attack was still manageable.
"Oh you have some skill, then perhaps you'll entertain me before you die."
The man attacked again this time faster than before as black ki surrounded his feet. Fang Shi had been about to say something to hopefully resolve the situation and thus couldn't dodge in time. He also felt that if he tried to block he would probably die.
With a sigh he instantly realized his only choice was to strike first so he struck out with his right fist and put all Will into the attack.
"RIGHT FIST OF THE EMPEROR; DOMINEERING SOUL"
His Will filled the fist attack and crashed into his opponent who exploded backwards and put a hole in the wall of a nearby building.
Shaking his head he spoke to himself "A pity. He was strong but even my father who is an entire layer ahead of me couldn't survive that attack."
He turned around to check on the child when he sensed movement from the hole. Fang Shi's eyebrow twitched and he turned around in time to catch a confused voice say "..am i?"
The young man from before placed a hand on the edge of the wall and using it to help himself out of the hole appeared with a confused look on his face.
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Fang Shi noticed the confusion and was surprised at the lack of anger. With a flash of insight he realized the young man must have lost his senses and quickly turned to leave as the young boy was far from injured and had actually already ran off.
"Wait." said the young man's unsure voice.
Fang Shi stopped, turned back around and decided to feign ignorance.
"How can I help you?"
"Ahh. Ummm. Apparently I'm suppose to kill or cripple you. I don't suppose you'll cripple yourself will you?"
Seeing that the young man might be reasoned with Fang Shi tried to explain again.
"I think you might be confused. See your carriage was traveling very fast down the road and almost ran over a young boy. I yelled stop so that you would stop before hitting the child."
Fang Shi paused for a fraction of a moment as he had quickly realized empathy might not be the best approach for this man continued.
"It also was to help prevent damage to your carriage! If you had trampled the boy to death it might have broken a spoke or injured the horse. I was only looking out for your best interest."
"Hmmm. That sounds reasonable. What? I have to kill him anyways?"
Fang Shi frowned. Apparently this haughty noble not only thought highly of himself but enjoyed playing tricks as well.
"Ugh you do it then. *cough cough*. AHEM. You boy. What is your name?"
Not just tricks but character acting? If the noble hadn't been talking about killing him then Fang Shi would actually have been impressed.
"My name is Fang Shi of the Emper-"
"HAHAHAHA. FANG SHI? FANG SHI? More like Fang Shit." Laughing for a while the noble abruptly stopped and said faintly "Shut up that was good."
Fang Shi frowned and added rude to the list of the noble's character traits.
"Well Fang Shit. If you don't cripple yourself right now and beg for mercy then I, your father,will do it myself and then kill you."
"The name is Fang SHI. And if you hadn't noticed I just punched you through a wall. How about we just go our separate ways?"
"Oh that? HA. Look at me, does it look like that hurt at all? A piece of trash like you? Hurt me? What a SHItty joke. No that's not the same joke it's completely different one. Look do you want to do this or not."
"I just told you I don't want to do this."
"Huh? Oh. Well you don't have a choice. While you didn't hurt me you did attack me and I can't just let you walk around like that or everyone will think less of me."
"People already think less of you."
The nobles right eyebrow twitched.
"The fuck you just say?"
"I said you're behavior here is causing you to lose face. A kid almost died because of your actions but thankfully I was here and-"
The young man quickly held up his and waved it.
"That's what I thought you said, but see that doesn't matter now does it? Nope. Not even a tiny bit. Just like you and that kid. You don't matter one bit either. You're less than a bit. If you took a bit and cut it in half. Then ground that half into tiny tiny bit pieces. You'd be less than that because the only thing in this city that matters is me."
With the last word a force pressed down on the entire area save for the carriage. It was a power so absolute it caused Fang Shi to fall to his knees and cough up blood. Bystanders died immediately though not many had been stupid enough to stick around when the 2nd Prince's carriage first stopped.
"That's it. Kneel like the common filth you are. Feel that? That's my importance. That's something you don't have because you're a nothing."
Fang Shi started to panic, but quickly calmed and pulled out the token.
"I...I am the fiance of the princess." He tried to say, but blood filled his mouth and it came out unintelligible.
Seeing the token the young man showed a demonic smile.
"Oh? You have one of those too?"
Pulling out a large medallion on a necklace with the same emblem, a golden sun on dark black metal coin.
"Funny thing. Mines bigger. hehe. In more ways than one trash."
Fang Shi looked at the demon of a man in front of him and behind the smile saw a true demon. It burned into his mind and was the last thing he saw before his head exploded.
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And with that you should know who the boy and demon is. Or is it devil? For the sake of my memory they'll be treated as the same thing. Also, I do have a name picked out for the main character, not the boy, but the 2nd prince. It's Sun Jiao which google tells me is arrogant. Such great naming sense no? Next chapter we meet the princess which hopefully explains why I spent so much time on fang shi. It's hopefully to give you a better(or worse!?!) impression of the beauty that is Sun Qing!