After visiting the music stores, Guangfeng escorted Yuelan’s carriage back to her Crystal Moon Residence before returning to his palace with promises to send her the betrothal gifts very soon. He made sure she safely went through the gates of her residence before mounting his horse, which had been left waiting for him, and heading back to his own palace.
Yuelan went straight to her conservatory and sat down at her mother’s guzheng to start playing. At first she played well, but before long she started getting distracted by the events of earlier. Nothing had really happened while shopping for scores with Guangfeng, but she still felt strange. In the end, she just picked at the strings absently, not playing any particular song, while she thought over the things that had happened earlier.
Did she love Guangfeng? She didn’t think so. The man was a frustrating flirt who loved to make her angry. Of course, he could also be quite sweet when he wanted to be and she knew he cared. He’d made it plenty obvious when she’d accidentally ended up with the army and was shot in the shoulder saving his life. If that had been the only time he’d been obvious about his feelings perhaps she could have ignored it, but he’d also left some pretty obvious hints before he left about how he felt, and she hadn’t saved his life yet then.
Yuelan sighed and leaned against the back of her chair as she picked at the strings in front of her. She stretched her legs out underneath the instrument, sitting in a way that would have had smoke billowing out of her instructor’s ears if he’d ever seen it. Why had she agreed to the engagement if she didn’t actually love Guangfeng? What was it that had made it feel like she had to accept him in that moment?
Her mind kept going in circles, around and around, asking the same questions, for an hour while Willow sat nearby to keep her company. Camphor had gone to handle the businesses and accounts and Laurel seemed to have disappeared while Yuelan was in the palace.
After a few more minutes Yuelan’s contemplative expression turned into one of frustration and she abruptly stood and left the conservatory to track down Long He. “He!” she called. “He! I want to go to the library!” she called out.
Long He appeared not far from Yuelan’s side and studied her, one eyebrow raised. “Master...what are you going to the library for?”
“I want to talk to my father,” Yuelan answered. “He should know about the engagement and I haven’t seen him in a couple of months, so I miss him.”
“Alright. How long do you plan to be there this time? We should inform your new fiance so he doesn’t embarrass himself by bringing betrothal gifts to an empty residence,” the dragon replied calmly.
“I don’t know,” Yuelan answered, looking grumpy. “He can just do what he wants. He always does anyway.”
Long He chuckled. “First you agree to marry him, and now you’re angry with him?”
She frowned at Long He. “I’m not angry. I just want to go home and talk to my father. Also, somehow you managed to make it so that nobody noticed us while we were flying back from the military camp, right? Can’t you do that again and fly me to the library so I don’t have to take that carriage?”
“Certainly,” the dragon answered. “It isn’t anything difficult.”
Yuelan nodded and took a few steps back to give Long He room to transform. He shimmered in front of her and then suddenly a large, silver, serpentine dragon was tightly coiled where he had just been. He held a giant, clawed hand out and Yuelan stepped onto it and sat down before Long He lifted himself into the air and flew toward the library.
The trip only took a few minutes, instead of the hours that it usually did in the not-quite-comfortable carriage. Yuelan ran into her room and pulled out the diamond earrings she kept in the library just in case, put them on, and then concentrated. Seconds later she was in Kilin’s version of the library. A cell phone on the dressing table waited patiently for her, and Yuelan picked it up to call her father and ask him when he would be able to come meet her. They scheduled a time for him to pick her up and he even promised to take her to dinner, making her smile a bit.
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Yuelan put the phone back down after the call ended and started to change her clothes and remove her hair accessories. She folded the ancient style dress she’d been wearing and neatly placed it in the wardrobe, then pulled out a pair of dark blue skinny jeans and a water-blue, long sleeved, ruffled blouse. The diamond earrings went with anything, so those she left alone and added a simple, pink sapphire necklace and tied her hair up in a bun with a pink, chiffon bow barrette she pulled out of a wooden box in the wardrobe set above the bun as decoration.
After all of that was done, Yuelan carefully applied makeup to make herself look as though she’d been sick for a while. Since her father had informed everyone that she had contracted a serious illness and could rarely leave the place where she was recuperating, she needed to look the part. It wasn’t until after she was certain everything looked right that Yuelan stepped out of her room and headed into the main part of the library to read while she waited for her father’s arrival.
Long Ansheng arrived at the library to pick up his daughter about two hours later. He headed straight over to her at the table and put his hand on her shoulder to get her attention, chuckling when she jumped.
“Daddy!” Yuelan scrambled to her feet, nearly tripping over herself as she reached out to hug him. “I missed you!”
“I missed you too, Yuelan.” The prime minister smiled. He returned the hug and patted her head. “Are you ready to go to dinner?”
“Of course! There’s something I want to talk to you about, too...can we get a private room at the restaurant?”
“I already reserved one at your favorite Caladrian restaurant. I thought you might appreciate eating something a bit different from normal today.”
Yuelan stepped out of her father’s arms and hugged one of them, beaming up at him. “Daddy knows me best!”
The prime minister of Kilin chuckled and patted her head, then escorted her out of the library and into the waiting, black SUV. The driver headed into the busy streets of the capital city and Yuelan leaned against the back seat and closed her eyes, acting the part of a frail and ill girl. It wasn’t until they were seated in the private room of the restaurant and had ordered that Yuelan dropped the act and turned serious.
“Daddy...you remember me telling you about the different princes, right?” she questioned. She waited for her father’s nod before continuing. “Well...The third prince, Guangfeng, proposed earlier today. I don’t really know what I was thinking, but I said yes right in front of the emperor.”
Long Ansheng studied his daughter’s expression, which was frustrated and a bit confused, and smiled. “Do you like him?”
Yuelan snorted, crossed her arms, and leaned back. “He’s so frustrating! He’s always teasing me and saying I’m cute when I’m angry. And when I accidentally went to the military camp instead of the capital he wouldn’t even let me out of the tent for a whole day!”
“But do you like him? I’m not asking if you love him. I think it’s still a bit too soon for you to really know the answer to that for certain,” Long Ansheng replied, smiling a little.
Her face turned a little red and she let out a huff. “I don’t know. He makes me so angry sometimes, but when I couldn’t see him for months I wanted to see him. I wanted to fight with him and show him how angry I was that I couldn’t stop thinking about him.”
Long Ansheng chuckled and ruffled his daughter’s hair gently. “Yuelan, that’s a form of ‘like’ too,” he said gently. “You missed him. You’ve always been embarrassed easily and tend to act angry when you are, even though you’re not actually angry. Just don’t always be angry or he’ll probably start to think you really do hate him. How soon will they want you to get married?”
Yuelan’s face flushed even more. “I asked the emperor to let me turn eighteen first,” she explained in a low voice. “So not until the end of next year at the earliest…” Her eyes turned upward to look at her father. “I want you to be there,” she said quietly. “I’m working hard on learning how to use magic with Long He. Hopefully I’ll be able to bring you to the wedding.”
The prime minister smiled. “I appreciate that.”
Their server arrived just then and started passing out their food, setting a plate of chicken alfredo in front of Yuelan and lasagna with meaty marinara sauce in front of her father.
Yuelan unfolded her napkin and placed it neatly in her lap then picked up her fork and knife and started eating, suddenly feeling much better. “Thank you, Daddy,” she said quietly.
“It’s what I should do,” Long Ansheng replied. “Perhaps you could bring him here to meet me? It might help him understand you better, as well.”
She blinked, looking a bit startled. “I--maybe...I’ll ask Long He…” Her face turned a bit flushed again. “I hadn’t thought of doing that…”
The prime minister chuckled. “Well, if you can then I’m sure it will prove to be an enlightening experience for him.”