Morning came all too quickly for those that chose to sleep that night, Xue Huayu was dragged from her sleep by her second brother. Covers were thrown from her and she was pulled from the bed by her ankle.

This was the way she usually woke up if he rose before her. Dragged onto the floor with a loud groan before finally getting up and allowing Qing Xiashu to tie and braid her hair in all the elaborate buns, knitting in beads and ribbons as he went.

This routine was carried out by a half asleep princess and her wildly amused retainer of a brother.

"Xue Xiaojie, your breakfast is ready already and if you take much longer it will be cold by the time you arrive, so please get dressed quickly." Qing Xiashu said with a small chuckle as he tied the last bead to one of the braids that remained over her shoulders instead of tied up. They would be riding today so these braids were the only thing left down aside from her bangs.

"Of course, of course..." Xue Huayu waved a hand, effectively dismissing him as she stood to change from night clothes into day clothes.

Qing Xiashu chuckled again as he left the room, heading over to where his own room technically was, only to find Xue Feiyi settled behind the little huan girl, slowly working a comb through her horrifyingly tangled and matted hair. He must have stolen some oil and rice water from breakfast to ease the process. All the while the child patted Hefeng's head. The dog seemed to be thriving, half curled around the child. She had likely slept snuggled up in a similar manner. "How is it going?"

Xue Feiyi glanced up from his work to give Qing Xiashu a small nod in greeting. "Quite slowly I fear." He noted as he carefully picked through the hair before him with the tips of his fingers.

Qing Xiashu nodded before walking closer to crouch down before the girl. "How about we take a little break for breakfast, hm?" He asked the child kindly, petting Hefeng's fluffy ears in lieu of a proper good morning.

The little girl nodded quickly as she continued to lean this way and that to alleviate all the tugging on her hair. Xue Feiyi sighed and relinquished his hold, rinsing her hair one last time with the pitcher beside them. As the child bounced up from her seat, the king wandered from the room, relaxedly looking for something that could clean his hands to his satisfaction.

Qing Xiashu just smiled. "Let's go then A-Ying, we'll bug Xue Xiaojie to make sure she gets a move on too." He said as he took her little hand and led her from the room towards the kitchen. Right to Xue Huayu's room.

Only for the door to fly open as he was about to knock.

"I'm going, Er-ge! I'm going." She said with an exaggerated yawn.

"Very well Xue Xiaojie." Qing Xiashu said with a teasingly polite tone. The three of them walked to where Qing Xiashu had left their food set up and found that Xue Feiyi had beaten them there and was drinking freshly brewed tea.

Qing Xiashu poured Xue Huayu a cup of the tea, and one for the child. Lastly one for himself before settling into the quiet scene of breakfast.

He already knew to expect it to be filled to the brim with more of the siblings instructing the child on her etiquette. So much so that she'd likely know it all by the end of the morning. Yan Hesheng even helped at times, giving helpful tips on chopstick holds. Even explaining a way he taught his adult friend how to use them in the West.

Quickly after breakfast was finished they prepared to set off north for Chaoting.

They would work on the little child's hair when they arrived at either their next hunt destination or the palace itself. It depended on if they heard word of trouble during their travels.

Yan Hesheng gave them a bow to see them off as their horses trotted away from the cold sleepy town.

A town that was now one major issue lighter.

Traveling in the snow on horseback wasn't much of a pain to the trio of siblings. But the little child currently riding in front of Qing Xiashu found it uncomfortable.

And boring.

So very boring.

"A-Ying, you can't squirm so much, Yun-Qiu can't walk as easily with you moving all about."

The girl frowned and tried to steel herself for the long journey.

Visibly she was trying, but only a few hours in she was practically trying to climb Qing Xiashu just as entertainment.

Qing Xiashu let out the longest sigh his lungs could produce before looking helplessly to his brother.

Xue Feiyi was watching with obvious amusement. "We will stop in the village ahead, she can help you search for anything suspicious going on. If there is anything of interest, Qing Shidi and his charge will find an inn."

"Yes Shixiong." Qing Xiashu heaved with a withering sigh. The village ahead of them had been in view for the past few minutes, but by now they were nearly to the town gates.

Qing Xiashu itched to jump from Yun-Qiu's back, but instead slowly climbed down with the little girl. After he'd set her on the ground he tied the reins to Xue Huayu's saddle and gave them a small wave of farewell.

"A-Ying, let's find a vendor to ask, maybe one who sells treats?" Qing Xiashu suggested as the little girl appeared from her smaller form and latched onto his hand.

"Why does Beifang Dianxia call you Qing Shidi?" The girl asked while they walked through the busy market and searched for a suitable stall to start.

"Politically speaking, I can't be his real brother or I would be second in line for the throne, but that wouldn't be fair to Xue Xiaojie, so I have to be lower in status than them by a certain amount."

"Will you call me Shidi when you give me a name and teach me?"

Qing Xiashu laughed lightly and shook his head. "No no, you'll be my Shimei in this case, but I'll still be Shixiong." He explained as he steered the girl towards a stall that made sculpted sugar sticks, buying her one to chew on while he talked to the vendor about current happenings.

"Oh." She almost sounded disappointed, but she didn't seem to care all that much with the treat in her hand.

"Ah, cultivators, I believe we've had some trouble suitable for your kind. Though I'm not sure who would foot the fare for your services." The elderly man hummed to himself before explaining further. "There's been an issue with ghouls in the river for some time now, though the mayor refuses to send for cultivators. I suspect he simply doesn't want to pay the commission price. He's a greedy man you know..."

Qing Xiashu waved his hand and shook his head. "We aren't in search of a commission. Payment isn't our goal. Thank you for your information nonetheless." He said with an appreciative nod, handing over a number of extra pieces of silver.

"What will you name me?" The girl questioned when they began to move again.

"Eager aren't you?" He chuckled, watching the girl's bashful expression. "Don't worry, I pestered Shixiong for hours before he came up with something on the spot just to placate me."

That wasn't entirely true, he'd only asked twice before Xue Feiyi came up with "Qing Xiashu".

Which had definitely been on the spot...

"What about Hei Xianying?" He asked as he greeted another vendor. This time he bought the little girl red hair tassels for as soon as her hair was free of tangles. It was as expensive as all things dyed with the national flower were, but he certainly thought it was worth it. "Have you heard anything about the water ghouls?"

"I heard they appeared after that boating accident last year."

"Boating accident?"

"There was a wedding procession on the river and they say the bride capsized her own wedding because she wasn't in love with the groom but was being forced to marry him."

Qing Xiashu nodded slowly as he scanned through the other colors of ribbons, picking out a yellow one for himself. Not that he needed any more light yellow hair ties. "Do you know anyone who survived or any relatives that weren't present?"

"No no, I'm afraid not, no one knows who the bride's family was, and the groom's family was present, but there's a farmer on the edge of town that was said to be the bride's lover." The woman gestured toward the side of town they were already headed for.

"Thank you very much." Qing Xiashu said with a nod, again handing over some extra coin.

"So what do you say?" Qing Xiashu asked the girl. "Do you like the sound of Hei Xianying?"

"I like it!" Hei Xianying said with the brightest little grin on her face.

"Let us find Xue Shixiong and Xue Xiaojie then."

"Ok!"

Finding Xue Feiyi and Xue Huayu again took no time at all. He relayed the information he'd gathered and waited for the consensus.

"I find the governor's behavior suspicious. I will look into it when our hunt has concluded." Xue Feiyi mentioned arms crossing. Irritation seemed to radiate off of him at the idea that one of the territories was suffering silently due to the greed of one of his own minor officials.

Xue Huayu nodded. "We should be able to start immediately, water ghouls remain active during the day so we won't have to wait until nightfall."

This was generally accepted as the plan for the group. Qing Xiashu was to find them rooms at an inn and stay there.

And Qing Xiashu frankly hated it.

Usually it was Xue Huayu at the inn and him on the hunt. She'd been too young, but to him she still felt far too young.

Knowing Xue Huayu was out hunting and he was nowhere near close enough to help put him in an uneasy state of anxiety.

The only thing that eased his mind was knowing that Xue Feiyi was with her. Arguably she was much more safe now than she would be with anyone else. Himself included.

He was still worried.

"Why are you upset?" Hei Xianying asked curiously when he made his second circuit of pacing the center of their room at the inn. This one was equipped for multiple people staying in it so there was a central table as well as multiple rooms with beds.

"I'm not upset, A-Ying, I'm just a little worried about Xue Xiaojie."

The child accepted this answer. "Why do you call her Xue Xiaojie instead of Shimei, or meimei, even though she calls you Er-ge?"

"Is A-Ying just going to ask me about everything?" Qing Xiashu wondered as he settled down on the opposite side of the table from her. "Xue Xiaojie is the princess, so even though she's younger than me, she still ranks above me in seniority. But calling a six-year-old Shijie was just too weird so I called her Xue Xiaojie instead." He felt like he was explaining more than conversing sometimes, but he didn't mind satiating her ravenous curiosity.

"Will you teach me to write?" She asked, gazing at the inks.

Qing Xiashu blinked. "Ah, that's a bit too large of an undertaking to be taking on tonight, maybe let's paint for now. You can learn to write when we have more time."

Hei Xianying sighed but accepted this, letting Qing Xiashu help grind the ink for her and show her how to hold the brush without dipping her sleeves in the ink already on the paper. While she worked on her masterpiece, Qing Xiashu settled down behind her to continue working through her hair.

The monotonous task of carefully separating strands of the child's hair, wetting and rinsing, gave Qing Xiashu time to ease his nerves. Plus the litany of questions fed to him by Hei Xianying gave him something to think about.

"Why do you have red on your forehead if it isn't your eye?"

"It's called a huadian. It's traditional in the North, they're made to look like the gods. Inner disciples are required to wear it."

"You mean you weren't born with it?"

"No, A-Ying. I paint mine on with a special paint."

"A special paint?"

"Mm, it's made of a pretty red flower that grows far far up in the mountains. You know, it's the only dye east of the wilds that gives you such a vibrant red. It's so rare that people pay lots of money for it. That flower also makes yellow but that's easier to get."

"Yan-gege wore bright red." She argued, loosely gesturing to her collar line, where a lower layer of red had been exposed when the baihu gui moved.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"That's right, but Yan-gege is from west of the wilds."

"Why is there only lots of red there?"

"Every locale has its own environment, and each environment produces its own stuff to make colors. Here in the North we make lots of black and blue from rocks and clay. In the South they make green and yellow mostly from plants. In the East they make lots of orange and yellow from plants and rocks. The South can make pink and the East can make red-orange, but no one else can make real red. The Western Kingdoms make theirs from a special mineral, it's common over there but rare here."

"Oh, why is Yan-gege here?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but I think something happened in his home."

"Oh. What's an inner disciple?"

"An inner disciple is someone who's good at cultivation or related to the sect leader."

"Are you the sect leader?"

"No, the Northern palace sect is run by Shixiong instead of a Sect Leader. I'm not sure why it's set up that way, but as of right now, if he died or stepped down. Xue Xiaojie would become the queen and I would become the Sect Leader. So basically, she'd control the politics and I'd control the military."

None of the resident sects were very straightforward to be truthful. Kings in the North and South acted more like clan heads typically. While in the East there wasn't even a hierarchy within the sect itself, the royal family held all of the positions.

"Do I have to cover up my eye?"

"No, A-Ying, in the North it's indistinguishable from anyone else's."

"Oh." Her quest to ravage his knowledge seemed satisfied for now, focusing more on whatever she was painting while he worked apart the mats in her hair.

While progress remained slow, Qing Xiashu could finally start to see the baby soft strands begin to slowly wave and curl. Eventually he was finally, finally, able to run his fingers through without snagging anywhere. It was very dark by now and she'd gone through something like twenty-five pieces of parchment. Under normal circumstances that would be horrifyingly wasteful, but when it was on the king's paycheck, Qing Xiashu couldn't find it in himself to feel all that bad.

"What have you painted this time?" He questioned while he braided up the top portion of her hair with the red tassel he'd gotten for her earlier. It was probably the most expensive thing she'd owned to date. But if he got a say, it wouldn't be the last thing dyed with the xue xue hua she'd receive. She wouldn't need as much of the stain as he and the rest of the disciples did, but he could still help her place it under her eyes the way they all did, and tie it into her hair.

The yellow tassels, that decorated Touming and contained his hair, were dyed with the yellow of the same xue xue hua that the red tie in Hei Xianying's hair was made with.

In a way they matched!

It amused him.

"Birds." The little girl held up the paper so he could view it easier. He peered over her shoulder at it and smiled at all the childish details.

"It has three legs." Qing Xiashu observed.

"Sanzuwu." Hei Xianying clarified, setting the paper back on the desk. "When I lived in the under-city I lived there with a sanzuwu friend, she was really pretty."

"You lived in the under-city?" Qing Xiashu hummed, moving back to the opposite side of the desk, letting her pat the back of her hair to feel how smooth her hair was now.

"Uh-huh, I lived there for a long time. It's weird up here, everything looks and smells different."

"I see." He wasn't sure at all how old this child was, yao could age at wildly different rates from humans But she was certainly under ten, most likely under seven. "How long have you been up here?"

Hei Xianying seemed to need to think about that, counting on her fingers before going back over them a number of times. "Thirty-six days. Oh. Thirty-seven now."

Thirty-six days in captivity. Over a month under the thumb of that thing.

Thank the gods it was gone...

"Tell me more about your sanzuwu."

"I miss her, she's my best friend. We lived on the corner together with our other friend until the masters took us." She explained, pulling on a strand of her hair with a small frown. "If I find them will you fix their hair too?"

Qing Xiashu smiled at her as he picked up a brush and parchment. "Of course." He shifted to steer her gently from the sombering topic. "Do you want to see what your name looks like?"

Hei Xianying nodded quickly, sitting up on her heels to look closer at his hand while he wrote out the characters. She mimicked the strokes to copy down her name, writing it out a number of times.

"Er-ge!"

Xue Huayu threw open the door to their inn room and startled both of its inhabitants to the bone.

The princess was whining the whole way. Xue Feiyi strode in behind her looking both tired and amused.

The little palace mistress was drenched. Her hair stuck to her cheeks and her robes were dripping across the floor.

Qing Xiashu practically sprang up and rushed to her. Carefully grabbing her arms to pick up her sleeves and ring them out. "Oh, oh you're soaked!" He fretted, taking a loose strand of her hair that should have been braided and squeezing the water out of it. "Xue Xiaojie what did you do? Did you fall in? Did it go well?"

"Shidi."

"Did you talk to the man on the edge of town? Did you make sure you burned the bones dry?" Qing Xiashu tipped Xue Huayu's face from side to side to check for any bruising, running his thumbs over her cheeks when he found nothing.

"Qing Shidi."

"Were you dragged in? How many were there? Are you hurt? Are you both ok?"

"Qing Xiashu."

"What?" Qing Xiashu's eyes finally separated from Xue Huayu to look at the king.

"It went well, she slipped in as we reached the bank after we were done." Xue Feiyi said with an amused smile.

"It was so embarrassing!" Xue Huayu wailed, slouched as she moved to find a basin to store the damp outer layers she was stripping off.

Qing Xiashu blinked. He tried not to laugh, he really did. But he was barely able to help her untie the rest of her hair through the rolls of his amusement. "Oh thank goodness, I thought you almost drowned."

"Stop laughing, Er-ge! It was awful! You're supposed to be the supportive one! Even my kongjian bags got wet!"

"Alright, alright, alright, I'm sorry... A-Ying, could you hand me the white and gold bag next to you?" Qing Xiashu said across the room to Hei Xianying who bounced up to hand him the bag.

"Here, Shu-gege." Her voice was a bit more reserved in the commotion than it had been.

"Thank you, A-Ying." He dug around in the little pouch until he found a towel, dropping it over Xue Huayu's head. "Xue Xiaojie, you really should be more careful." He laughed.

"You scum." Xue Huayu scoffed as her entire face was smacked by the towel. That said, she didn't stop him from gently squeezing and patting out as much river water from her hair as possible.

"You adore me." Qing Xiashu hummed as he pulled the towel away and hung it over the privacy screen.

"Who could know why though." Xue Huayu huffed with a dramatic eye roll.

"Here, get changed." Xue Feiyi sighed as he handed his little sister a dry set of sleeping robes. "Maybe I should carry the clothing from here on out, you two end up in the water all too often." The king decided.

Qing Xiashu only snickered as Xue Huayu disappeared behind the privacy screen to get into dry clothes.

"Are you learning to write your name?" Xue Feiyi asked Hei Xianying, arms tucked behind his back while he peered over the table covered in her drawings. "Hei Xianying, that's a quite pretty name."

"Shu-gege gave it to me." She said quietly as she settled back down at the desk to continue drawing more sanzuwu in flight.

"Shu-gege." Xue Feiyi echoed with an amused expression, glancing at Qing Xiashu. Only to see the younger man shrug with a little smile.

•••

They left very early the next morning. Fighting through morning routines and eating breakfast in relative peace.

They arrived before lunch and all three spent most of their ride watching Hei Xianying's antics. The girl had been tucked carefully against Qing Xiashu's chest the entire time that they rode towards their abode, but since the palace had first come into view over the trees, she grew antsy.

"Uhg, I'm starving." Xue Huayu complained, leaning back dramatically on her horse as they rode through the gates.

"You ate less than six hours ago." Qing Xiashu snorted, shifting Hei Xianying in his lap to gently jostle her from her unsettled freeze. Sometimes he forgot how intimidating those towering spires had once been to him too. "It's fine." He promised her quietly, patting her head.

"And yet it's lunch time! You just don't want to cook." The princess continued to complain, whining in the way some spoiled children tend to.

Xue Feiyi finally stepped in to put a stop to the whining. "I will cook. Qing Shidi will prepare Hei Shizhi's room."

"Thank you, Beifang Dianxia is so considerate!" Qing Xiashu chirped.

Xue Feiyi shot his adopted little brother a quick glare. "Don't call me that."

Qing Xiashu tossed his head back in a laugh. "Sorry, Shixiong, sorry." He said as he leapt off his horse with Hei Xianying safely tucked into his arms. "We'll get you new clothes and some good shoes."

Hei Xianying gave a nervous little smile and clung to his shoulder, anxiously glancing back and forth between him and the palace.

"It's not so scary inside I promise." Qing Xiashu led the girl carefully by the hand inside the large building, behind him he heard Xue Feiyi and Xue Huayu whispering.

"Is it truly that scary looking?"

"Da-ge. It looks like a snow monster's lair."

"... Does it...?"

Qing Xiashu could only chuckle at them.

He took Hei Xianying through the less populated halls to reach their destination, overwhelming her too early was a terrible idea. "Shu-gege?"

"What is it, A-Ying?"

"Will you be far away?"

The head disciple shook his head. "No, you won't be rooming with the other disciples, you'll be in our hall, there's only me, the king, and princess there. So there won't be anyone to bother you."

"I'll be in the same place as you guys? But they're royals, and you're their family so you're basically one too. Is that allowed?"

Qing Xiashu snorted again. "That's not that important, you're not going to hurt any of us. Besides, on paper, you'll be my daughter. Can't get much more family than that."

Hei Xianying had quite the owl eyed expression on her little face.

"My little A-Ying you are being thrown into the most dramatic transition you will probably ever have to deal with." The head disciple laughed as he opened the door to one of the many empty and unused rooms that was set to handle guests but never really did.

The little girl stared into the new space. The room dripped with more luxury than she'd probably ever personally laid eyes on. "Shu-gege, is this real?"

Qing Xiashu frankly had been wondering that for the entire time he'd been here. "Why don't you go find out." He suggested as he walked with her into the room, seating himself on the bed to watch her explore. "Xue Huayu sent a crow ahead of time so you should have new robes ready soon. There will only be three sets at first but that should be plenty. There's the disciple set, a formal set, and sleeping robes. The disciple set is kind of a uniform, but it'll be just yours."

"Will I get paint?"

"To paint with? Sure, if you'd like."

Hei Xianying shook her head. "Like your eyes, I don't have that."

"Ah." Qing Xiashu stood up and walked to a small shelf, picking up a brush and something that looked like a rouge palette. "This is xue xue hua stain, and it will stain everything, so make sure to never get it on your clothes." He explained, putting a few drops of water on the dry pallet and swiping the brush over it a few times as he moved to the silver mirror. In a well practiced motion, he reapplied the stain to his own forehead and under eyes. "And then you let it dry and wipe the leftovers off with a wet stain cloth, you know they're stain cloths if they're all patchy and pink. And that's it." He looked back to see her gazing at the pallet in fascination.

"My turn?" She asked, climbing up onto the desk to sit in front of him. Qing Xiashu smiled, turning her face with one hand so he could carefully paint the stain onto her skin. "Is it pretty?" She asked hopefully.

"A-Ying is very pretty." Qing Xiashu said, patting her cheek and straightening up again.

Someone knocked on the door, arriving with the robes, which Qing Xiashu took and set on the desk beside Hei Xianying. "Why don't you get dressed, and we'll go see Xue Shixiong and Xue Xiaojie."

"Should I call her Xue Shijie?" Hei Xianying asked as Qing Xiashu wiped her face with a pink cloth, his own as well.

"That's up to you, though, not many people call her Shijie so she might like it. I'll wait right outside ok? Get dressed." Qing Xiashu instructed as he stepped out of the room.

He could hear the girl shuffling about, and simply waited.

Qing Xiashu hoped she wouldn't feel like he had when he too had first arrived. Alone and frightened with no understanding of what was going to come of his life. He had been terrified after the initial wonder had worn off and Xue Feiyi had been in too exhausted of a state to directly care for him.

It had left him lonely to an unparalleled level.

But he'd be there with her at every moment she needed.

Sometimes Qing Xiashu wondered how he'd gotten here. Before he had been sold, in another life really, he'd been an only child. He was equipped with only a poor relationship with his mother and a long missed father.

Yet somehow here he was with a quite comfortable and caring sibling network.

Xue Feiyi was the older sibling he'd wanted all along and he got to be that same kind of protective big brother himself. And now there was Hei Xianying, and arguably he was going to be in a parental position as well as an older sibling. Something that was still just utterly wild to him. He was going to "mother hen" this little girl into happiness even if it were to kill him.

Hefeng bounded over to Qing Xiashu from down the hall, bouncing and wiggling the whole way like a little ball of floof. She didn't make a sound but rolled at his feet, laying on his boot and sticking her legs up.

"Well well, did someone get bored sitting in silence waiting for Shixiong to drop something?"

The dog only wiggled her legs in the air at him, causing him to cave and crouch down, rubbing her soft tummy until the door beside him opened.

"Help..." Hei Xianying murmured, she was holding the sash of the disciple uniform tight so nothing could slip. But based on her slightly flustered expression, she was struggling to tie it.

"Ah, having a hard time with the belts?" Qing Xiashu held his hands out for the edges of the sash, still crouched down, and carefully wrapped and tied the garment.

Maybe this wouldn't be as hard as getting him used to the palace. She asked him for help in a way he would have been too terrified to back then.

It brought him relief.

Then again, she was younger than he had been. She'd bounce back much faster and hopefully less of her memory would stick.

"There you are, a perfect little palace disciple, you'll fit right in with the others." Qing Xiashu said, patting his legs as he released the loose ends of the sash bow. The disciple uniform was a bit like his own clothing, similarly colored and layered, though Qing Xiashu's clothes were edited to make a show of his status as head disciple.

His leisure wear was all over the place but that's another issue altogether.

"Is it lunchtime yet?" Hei Xianying asked, holding her arms out and spinning in a little circle to watch her robes flare out.

"I doubt it, Xue Shixiong takes his sweet time cooking, but we can head that way regardless." Qing Xiashu said as he smiled down at the child, watching her admire her fancy new robes.

The huan nodded and began to skip down the hall towards the kitchen.

Qing Xiashu chuckled but stood to follow her. "How come you know it's this way? What if the kitchen was the other way?"

Hei Xianying giggled and shook her head, then pointed to her nose. "You can't lie to me, I can smell it from here!"

The head disciple blinked. "From here? You must have a good nose then." The girl giggled again with a proud nod in response.

Note to self: Make sure not to over power the kid with perfumes or other strongly scented things.

"A-Ying, what's your favorite food?" Another important question.

"Spicy rice crackers." She answered instantly with a firm nod.

"Spicy rice crackers." Qing Xiashu echoed, well that would be a slight struggle, he wasn't much of a baker. "I'll see what I can do."

"Yay!" Hei Xianying bounced along the hallway towards the kitchen, Hefeng pacing the child and bounding along like her match.

In the kitchen they found Xue Huayu hovering over Xue Feiyi like a buzzard waiting for an exhausted animal to drop.

"Xue Xiaojie, what exactly are you doing?" Qing Xiashu snorted.

"Being a pest." Xue Feiyi sighed, handing the teen a carrot to crunch down on like some kind of tasty treat.

Xue Huayu snickered as she held her snack, dancing away a few steps. "Er-ge~! Guess who got a carrot~!"

Qing Xiashu couldn't help but snicker. "Congratulations, Xue Xiaojie."

"Xue-jiejie got a carrot?" Hei Xianying asked curiously, peeking past Qing Xiashu's long sleeves to see the princess and her apparently prized possession.

The aforementioned princess seemed momentarily shocked before melting in an instant, quickly crouching down and cooing. "Oh my goodness, I just love you." Xue Huayu broke the carrot in half to share it. "Here, this is the best snack you'll ever eat."

"Sheesh, but you never share your carrots with me? I'm hurt." The head disciple complained, resting a hand on his forehead dramatically.

"Mm, that's because you're not cute enough."

"Ah! Bullying! I'm being bullied! Shixiong!"

"You know the rules, Qing Shidi. Handle it yourself. No blood shed or exchange of blows." Xue Feiyi answered calmly, slicing turnips into the large pot before him without so much as glancing up at his bickering siblings.

"Yes yes, no grievous bodily harm."

Hei Xianying was glancing back and forth between Qing Xiashu and Xue Huayu before giggling to herself and devouring her bit of carrot. The little girl was entirely unconcerned when Xue Huayu scooped her up and settled her on one hip. "You're just jealous, Er-ge."

"Bah!" Qing Xiashu tossed his hands up.

"You want carrots but you get no carrots."

"Both of you please go show Hei Shizhi around the palace and leave me to cook." Xue Feiyi said over their bickering, giving another of his short lived glares.

Xue Huayu snickered and quickly dashed away with Hei Xianying, disappearing into the expanses of the palace. Qing Xiashu shook his head slowly. "Kids." He said, to Xue Feiyi.

"A-Shu." Xue Feiyi said slowly in a low tone, ominously tipping his head to look up at Qing Xiashu.

"Oop! I'm going!" The head disciple chirped, spinning on his heel to follow Xue Huayu and Hei Xianying, chuckling to himself as he jogged about to find the two girls.

•

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