CHAPTER 79 - WATER YOU TALKING ABOUT? WHAT ABOUT MY CLOTHES?

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I had an absolutely epic case of bedhead! Aaaaaahhhhh!

My hair was a wild mess that resembled a bird’s nest, except not as tidy.

I flopped face down on the bed and lamented the fact that my boyfriend and his father had seen me look like this. However, it was already after midnight, and I was tired, so I soon fell asleep.

The next day, I woke up bright and early and found Prince Baiyu waiting for me at the breakfast table that had been set up in the outer courtyard. We exchanged greetings, and he told me about his recent expedition in the demon-riddled Southerlands with the members of the various clans during the annual Fall Hunt.

“This is the first time I participated as an adult, and it was as bad as I feared. Everyone had heard of my problem with my qi overloading, and thirty-eight people came up to me asking me about it. I counted.”

I tried to look as sympathetic as I could while I drank my morning coffee and took big bites out of a veggie bun. “That must have been tough.”

“Ha! Yes, but now that it’s over, I realized that I was an idiot to hide out in the cave just because I was afraid of people knowing that I wasn’t the perfect prince.”

“What did they say? What did you say?”

He pouted. “What didn’t they say?!”

“You poor thing.”

“I’m very sad. Give me a kiss to cheer me up.”

I gave him a scandalized look and gestured at the other table. I normally ate with my apprentices, but today Fengying had set up another table for them on the opposite side of the courtyard from us, in order to give us some privacy. Since the prince had been at the hunt, we had only seen each other a few times in the past month when he had dropped off his kills at my doorstep.

“Please behave yourself,” I said.

He sighed. Today he was looking mighty fine as usual in gorgeous royal blue silk robes richly embroidered in red and silver thread. “I had an absolutely terrible time.”

I patted him on the head. “Is qi overload really that bad?”

“People were smirking at me, but that’s nothing compared to what my father had to endure.”

“Your father? Why? What happened?”

“Well, a lot of people never liked the fact that he married my mother…” He fell silent when one of the maids came over with a platter of fried rice and sausages. When she left, he lowered his voice and said, “He actually got into a fistfight.”

“Gosh.” Lord Yulin hadn’t looked like a troublemaker last night, but then again, one could never tell from appearances.

Prince Baiyu rolled his eyes. Now that we had become close, he no longer bothered with his “I’m a cool and aloof nobleman” pose. “That person was asking for it! He actually said right to my face that it was too bad that I had a cursed bloodline. My father punched him in the face and broke his teeth.”

“Cursed bloodline?” This was the first that I had heard of that.

“Ah. Sometimes I forget that you’re not one of us and that you don’t know about these things.” He leaned back on his seat and rubbed his temples. “Do you have time to hear about a long story?”

“Actually, no. I have to plant the trees first. How long are you staying?” Though I really, really wanted to hear the story, I had to prioritize my tasks for today.

“I have to leave this afternoon.”

“Then why don’t you tell me about it after I finish my morning chores?”

“Yes, that would be best, especially since it’s not a very pleasant thing to talk about. I wouldn’t want you to lose your appetite.”

“Mmm.” I made a sound of agreement and continued eating. Fengying came over with a plate of sliced fruit for dessert and informed me that the elk herd was on the move. I hurriedly ate some of the fruit and then left with my apprentices and the prince.

Outside, I saw that the elk were looking healthy and quite lively as they headed off to wherever they were going. We went over to the [Pit Trap] where I retrieved the dead elk’s body.

Since everything looked fine, I went to the chosen site near the top of Skyfang Hill. As we climbed, I bent down several times to touch the grass. When the System had built the contour swales, it had covered the hill with bright green grass. Though it was not as vibrant and fresh as it used to be, the vibrant greenery still made for a striking contrast against the rest of the area which was covered in sparse brown foliage.

“I’m glad the grass survived,” I said.

“The soil seems moister, too,” said Kharli.

The other two nodded.

“Look at those spots.” Lari pointed at the base of the hill where there were some bald spots. “The elk grazed there.”

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Huh. Why didn’t they go higher up the hill?

Prince Baiyu seemed to sense my confusion and said, “We were afraid that the elk would eat all of the grass and leave the hill bald again, so we drove them away.”

“Ah.”

I made a mental note to make sure to prepare a good, large grazing ground for the herd.

Once we reached the higher swales, we planted more fertilizer trees using the [Dendrological Cultivation Chambers]. This time, because I had leveled up my farming, I was able to plant seven trees. My apprentices had enough energy to plant three each. Therefore, the maximum that we could plant every day was sixteen, but only if we didn’t use up our energy doing other things.

“Now let’s check on the [Lizardwings],” I said.

“I’ll go tell the others. They’ve already prepared the cages,” said Prince Baiyu. “They’ll meet you at the pen.”

With that, he flew off. Mo and Kharli immediately started screeching and running.

“Wait! Don’t run!” I yelled after them. “You’ll break your neck running down the hill. Wait until you’re at the bottom before you start racing each other.”

“Aw!” Kharli stopped dead in her tracks.

Mo couldn’t stop in time and tripped over a rock. “Whee!”

Kharli and Lari ran after her as she rolled down the hill, still screaming with glee until she fell into one of the swales, which currently resembled a grassy ditch.

“You guys!” I hurried down to scold them. “Be more careful. You could’ve broken your neck!”

They all promised me they wouldn’t roll down anymore, and we walked at a more reasonable pace. At the foot of the hill, I gave them permission to run, and all three of them set off. I noticed that Kharli was noticeably faster than the other two.

A few minutes later, Prince Baiyu returned to accompany me on my walk to the [Lizardwing] habitat.

“Wow, it’s so hot. I thought I would be snuggled up in my bedroom with a roaring fireplace this winter, but it looks like I’ll be eating iced desserts while sweltering under the hot sun,” I said.

“If it gets too hot, you could always return to your farm, right? Winter isn’t too cold there,” said Prince Baiyu.

I yawned. “Maybe.”

“Are you sleepy? Maybe you should take a nap.”

“I will. I only got a few hours of sleep because I was up after midnight. Wait, don’t change the subject. I thought you were going to tell me about your father.”

“Was I? By the way, he likes you. He gave me this since he said I needed to dress better when I’m going courting.” He held up his arms, showing off the long, wide sleeves of his robe that were embroidered with an intricate abstract design.

“Very fancy.”

“He said this was what he was wearing the first time he met my mother and they fell madly in love. What do you think? Does this make you feel madly in love?”

“Hmm.” I debated whether I should tell him I preferred it when he wasn’t wearing a robe…

“No?” He looked extremely disappointed.

What the heck, I should just go for it. “I don’t know. Why don’t you try taking it off?”

He blushed and looked around. “Not today. My father’s somewhere around.”

“Too bad.” I gave him a mischievous smile and pinched his waist. “I haven’t seen those abs in a while.”

“I could sweep the inner courtyard.”

“Oooooh!”

“But not today.”

“Aw. Speaking of clothes, what exactly did you not like about my clothes last night? You know, when you covered me with a cloak.”

He blushed and stammered, “Y-You we-were…”

“Yes?”

After a lot of nervous fiddling with his sleeve, he blurted out, “You weren’t wearing anything under your clothes!”

I laughed. “Oh, I hate to break it to you, but all people are naked under their clothes.”

“I mean, you weren’t wearing another robe under it.”

“That’s what you were worried about? I was concerned about nothing then.”

“It’s improper,” he insisted.

The people in this world were so uptight about propriety. I suppose he considered it improper because I wasn’t wearing at least three layers of clothing. “Okay. I understand.”

“What am I going to do about you…?”

I grinned at him. “I’m sure you can think of something!”

The two of us burst into laughter.

When we finished laughing, I remembered he was supposed to tell me a long story. “Wait, weren’t you going to tell me about your mother and father?”

“I changed my mind. I don’t want to tell you because it’s stupid. You’ll probably think I’m whining.”

“It’s fine. I know you want to tell me.” I knew that he probably didn’t have a lot of people that he could voice his complaints to because of his rank.

“Well…”

“Go on.”

“You haven’t really asked me much about why I was alone in the cave when I was sick. The truth is, it all goes back to my parents' situation. You see, practically from birth my mother was said to be the future leader of the Westerlands.”

“From birth? Really?”

“It was because of her conformation. You know about conformation?”

I nodded. “You mean her physical characteristics are close to the ideal for the White Tiger clan.”

“Yes, and by the time she was an adult, she was unanimously chosen by the clan leaders as the next Lady of the West.” He sounded really proud. “You see, she’s the strongest by far of her generation. She’s the only one whose zidan could encompass the entire Westerlands.”

He smiled down at me and oh so casually took my hand in his.

I nodded to indicate that I understood. “Zidan” was their word for power and territory, and a strong zidan was the prime qualification needed to become a ruler.

“When she declared that she was going to marry my father, there was a big commotion. Pretty much all of the clans were against it, except for my father’s clan.”

“Why?”

Prince Baiyu gestured at the grassland all around us. “Because of this! Five generations ago, a disaster happened, and many clans lost their ancestral lands. Now they are considered fallen clans.”

“Do you mean that they lost their zidan?”

“What? No!” His face paled. “You must never suggest that about anyone. Losing zidan is like…”

I hastily corrected myself. “I mean, they lost their territory?”

“Yes, they lost their original territory, and a lot of prestige, but don’t say that they lost their zidan, that’s just…” Once again, his voice trailed off.

It seemed that the concept was so terrible he didn’t want to speak about it.

“Sorry, I misspoke,” I said.

“That’s okay. Anyway, because of this,” he said, gesturing around us once again. “Father’s clan is considered… weakened, but they were able to claim territory farther north once things settled down.”

“Ah.” I squeezed his hand encouragingly. His palm was calloused from wielding a sword, and his skin was warm.

“I am not sure that humans know this about us. We tend to be rather superstitious, and the fact that these lands are cursed means that almost everyone also considers the masters of this territory as cursed.”

“So that’s why someone said that you're descended from a cursed bloodline? And your father punched him?”

He laughed. “That was so satisfying!”

“At least you had some fun,” I said.

“I did, actually. I know I complained a lot about the people who were needling me about my qi overload problems, but it wasn’t all bad. A lot of my cousins told me they felt relieved that I’m not perfect after all.”

“I think you’re great.”

“Thank you. I feel a lot more relaxed now that I don’t have to keep up that flawless façade.”

“Good for you!” I leaned closer to him and tried to give him a peck on the cheek. Unfortunately, he was too tall so I couldn’t reach his cheek until he bent down. I missed the mark and kissed him on the chin instead.

Suddenly, I heard someone behind me coughing. I turned around and saw that it was Lord Yulin.

Oops.