“I swear, he fought just like the Jade General! I saw it with my own eyes!” Lieutenant Lu Zhen exclaimed with a hopeful gleam in his eyes.

“Lu Zhen just stop, please! He disappeared after we fought, he’s never coming back after what happened! I know you want him to come back, me too, but I think your mind is playing tricks on you,” the Emperor answered truthfully and then downed a sakazuki cup in one go. They are sitting in one of the smaller rooms the palace contained, no candle was lit, only the light of the moon and stars illuminate the room. The open doors and window let in a soft breeze that gently moves the long, red curtains.

Lu Zhen grabbed the gourd filled with sake and poured himself another cup, while thinking out loud: “Then why on earth would someone fight like him! Nobody fights like him, he’s like a lunatic when it comes to fighting!”

The Emperor sits up from his cushions to face him, the movement was irritated and aggressive. “Lu Zhen, have you considered the odds?! Why on earth would he come back to the palace after everything that happened? WHY on earth would he dress up as a servant, start fighting with a soldier and then disappear again?! It’s simply not possible! It’s not like him!”

The Emperor combs through his long, jet-black hair with an irritated movement of his hand and sighs loudly after sitting back in his cushions again.

“Lu Zhen, I-“

“I know, your Majesty, I understand. It’s just… frustrating,” and he took another sip.

“Emperor, Lieutenant Lu Zhen...” a soldier in front of them bowed and waited to be dismissed.

“Jiang Xuefeng, rise, what news do you bring?” Lu Zhen asks him as he sat up, curious for results.

“Lieutenant, we followed the unknown servant-“

The Emperor looks at Lu Zhen with a raised eyebrow in a questioning manner.

“He and the soldier he fought with parted ways after drinking together. I followed the unknown servant as instructed…” the soldier stops all of a sudden, apparently ashamed of his discovery as his cheeks turn bright red.

“Go on, soldier,” the Emperor orders him, his curiosity was getting the better of him.

“Uhm, your Majesty, I followed hi- well… I followed the servant… and she changed her clothes and then disappeared,” he says and he swallows.

“Soldier, you must be tired and have misspoken, it can’t be that a trained soldier was defeated by-“

The soldier looks him straight in the eye with a certain amount of steadfastness burning in his eyes that he stopped mid-sentence.

“Your Majesty, it was indeed a female that had defeated the soldier… I saw it with my own eyes!”

The Emperor frowns and thinks everything over. Lu Zhen in the meantime sends the soldier away after thanking him.

“I guess this proves it wasn’t the Jade General, what a disappointment! It seems I have lost yet another bet against your Majesty!” and he laughs.

“Yes, indeed. I do wonder why you are in such a high-ranking position when you always have such bad luck. Anyway, let’s finish this bottle, then it’s your turn to-“

“I know, I know! Don’t remind me! Give me that bottle,” Lu Zhen says while already reaching for the bottle. When the Emperor gives it to him, he puts it to his lips and downs remaining content of the bottle.

“Now, let’s go find a maid to bother,” he says as he gets up, slightly wobbling on his legs. The Emperor laughs loudly and gets up as well.

Like two teenagers, they start messing around a bit while walking to their destination. The two of them hide themselves in the shadow of the high roof that hung over the hallway, just inside the garden. They wait for a maid to pass by at the right time for Lu Zhen to carry out his end of the bet.

“There is one… time to see your horse-catching abilities, Zhen!” the Emperor whisper yells, exited for the entertainment awaiting him.

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“You know, I still can’t believe you’re making me do this! Aren’t you supposed to be the wise and mature emperor?”

The Emperor chuckles and pushes him slightly. Zhen steps away of the shadow and sneaks up to the unsuspecting maid. With a hand to her mouth, he prevents her from alerting the guards as he drags her to the pond.

That was his part of the bet, if he lost, he had to pick up a maid, drag her to the pond and jump in together with her.

The maid was struggling and it was hard for Zhen to keep her in check. From the sidelines, the Emperor sees him jerk his hand away from her mouth, it looked like she had bitten him quite hard, because he was groaning. Strangely enough, she didn’t scream for help, instead she plants her knee in his crown jewels and kicks him in his face with a well-placed side kick. All the while, the Emperor watches in astonishment as a female beats up one of his best lieutenants using martial arts, something strictly allowed for males. Then, with a punch to the gut, she makes him tumble into the pond. The maid doesn’t run away, but instead watches Lu Zhen come out of the water, too thunderstruck to do anything against her, and laughs.

“What- what?!” the poor Lu Zhen exclaimed.

Now the Emperor appears, clapping his hands and laughing.

“She sure got you good, Lu Zhen.”

At the sight of the Emperor and the sound of his voice, the maid turns around and runs away before he could order her to stop. After shrugging, he extends his arm for Zhen to grab and he pulls him up.

“Bloody… that really hurt,” he grunts as he stands next to the Emperor, watching the maid disappear, still standing somewhat bent over.

“Did you see that, she lost something over there,” the Emperor points out.

---

With bags under her eyes, Yin sits in her room, playing a guzheng she found somewhere in the inner palace, trying to relax a bit and ease her headache.

Yin always preferred to play the piece accompanied with percussion, but the was no-one in the inner palace who could have even heard of this song. The wild, cheerful song was well-known in the lower classes that lived near the big river, just like Yin. She was so focused, she didn’t hear two men outside asking to come in.

After they thought it took too long, they just came in. Only until the song ended did Yin notice the two of them standing in her room. Still bent over her instrument, she asks: “Your Majesty, lieutenant Lu Zhen, why the sudden visit?”

“How did you-“ Lu Zhen starts, but the Emperor stops him with a wave of his hand, he wasn’t surprised at all.

“It’s not like we are strangers, Zhen, we used to be friends, or did you forget? Anyway, I recognized your footsteps, that’s how,” Yin calmly states while getting up.

“Of course I didn’t forget, I was just surprised, that’s all,” he fires back at her.

“Now, what is the reason for you and his Majesty to come visit me in my room, might I ask?” The Emperor cringes on the inside at the clear difference in addressing him and Zhen, it seems she still saw Zhen as a friend, him on the other hand…

“We’re here to return your hair ribbon, it had your initials on it,” the Emperor tentatively says as he hands her the ribbon.

“And you couldn’t have someone else do it? You’re the Emperor, don’t you have more pressing matters to attend to?” Yin coldly says as she snatches the ribbon from his grasp.

“Actually, we would like to talk about where you lost it,” he replies coldly, suddenly fed up with her behavior, she was too harsh, even after all that had happened. She had hurt him too!

“There was a maid, she ran from us and dropped the ribbon, I don’t suppose you know anything about that, do you?” Zhen asks her.

“Actually, I do…” shit, how am I going to explain this? “You see, Yawen is a friend of mine and she needed a hair ribbon, so I lent her one…” Why did you use that name, you idiot?! Now they’ll connect the ‘mysterious servant’ at the training grounds with ‘Yawen’, I’ll have to be careful using that name again!

“I assume this Yawen is a maid… why would you lend such an expensive ribbon to her?” the Emperor asks, not believing her completely. There was something in her voice that gave her away, he was well-known with that sound…

“Unlike your Majesty, I still value the lives of my so-called servants and don’t think of them as replaceable!”

Yin strikes a chord at that comment, the Emperor goes red in the face as he’s reminded of how their break-up started and yells at her.

“Get out, right now!”

“What?! You’re going to order me around as well now?! How DARE you?! And need I remind you, this is MY room! Get out yourself!” Yin yells back at him, completely infuriated.

“How dare you speak to me like that?! Do you even realize who you are talking to?!”

Don’t say it, don’t do it!

“If it weren’t for me, you would still be rotting away in your room, crying about your grandfather and father, pitying yourself! You haven’t suffered like the rest of us!” he then yells and Yin finally snaps. With angry steps she walks up to him and slaps him across the face, hard, his head whips to the side. Tears burn behind her eyes and her face angry.

“Don’t you DARE say I DIDN’T SUFFER! YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME!” and with these words she ripped the sleeves of her pretty, white robes. The skin on her arms was mangled, scars and burns were all over her upper arms, thinning out on her lower arms and hands.

“Don’t you remember when the clans attacked and invaded the western regions… Don’t you remember I lived there? They got their hands on me… They sullied me… mangled me…” she chokes on her words as she sobs.

“Why do you think I never returned? It was not only because of that other woman...”

All this while the Emperor and Zhen had said and done nothing, too overwhelmed. The Emperor reaches his hand to touch her arm, but she evades him.

“Yin, I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to-“

“Don’t say you’re sorry… I’ve heard that too many times now…” she referred to the many burials she had attended, when he had tried to comfort her.

“Please, just leave me alone! Please?”

Without saying another word, they leave silently. That night, Yin drowned her sorrows in alcohol again.