The panic which had started inside Min Li’s belly rose up to her chest and neck.
Min Li’s mark burned.
It hurt so much that she was nearly more worried for herself instead of the man who was about to be beheaded in front of her. She was in so much pain that she could hardly even think. Never before had Min Li had so much pain running through her mark, not even in the very worse of her nightmares.
With that thought, even more anxiety and fear flooded through her whole system.
Fenhua lost his smile as he looked at her.
Then, something seemed to hit him and hit him hard. Fenhua held his neck. His mouth was pursed tightly as if he was holding back a screech that was begging to be released just in case his ancestors had the ability to hear him and release him from his pain.
The crown prince’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head.
In pain, Fenhua opened his mouth.
Battling her own pain, Min Li wondered why no one was running to help Fenhua; he was a prince for goodness sake. She lamented on whether it was because it was too late. Whether there was no chance of saving him. Whether the angel of death had visited him and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Though tormented, Min Li tried to focus on the words that were coming out of the crown prince’s mouth as they seemed to be directed to her.
His last words, they must be important, she thought. And he is wasting them on me. A tear threatened to tip out from the corner of Min Li’s eyes.
Fenhua’s mouth opened and closed, and Min Li paid attention to what he was mouthing. He doesn’t even have the energy left to say what he wants out loud, Min Li thought.
He kept on mouthing the same thing, but Min Li couldn’t quite decipher what he was saying. Wanting him to save his energy Min Li opened her own mouth to say just that. That was up until she finally realised what he had been mouthing.
It looked like he had told her to “stop worrying.”
She was here using the last of her energy on him when she was in pain, and he was using the last of his energy when he was in pain to say something so silly.
Min Li shook her head lightly feeling sorry for Fenhua thinking that the man must be in a delusional state now he was dying.
But Fenhua just kept on mouthing it in between some groaning, showing no signs of stopping.
Not of her own accord, Min Li started relaxing not as worried as she once was. His instruction to ‘stop worrying’ was awfully easily since he had now knocked her into a state of confusion.
Min Li took a second to survey the scene in front of her.
There was one thing that was most peculiar about the situation.
Kit, who was still standing up over Fenhua, had his head tilted. His face was no longer lit up in victory but lit up in confusion.
There seemed to be something coming out of Fenhua.
There was something bright in colour shining around Fenhua’s neck.
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Was it blood gushing out of a clean cut from a blow that Kit had delivered to the prince?
Now she was in a more lucid state, she realised that no, the colour that was shining around Fenhua’s nape wasn’t red, rather it was a pink colour In fact, Min Li could now clearly see that it wasn’t possible for blood to come out of Fenhua’s neck, the very confused Kit hadn’t brought down his sword yet.
The first thing that Min Li thought was how could the prince show people what was on his neck so easily?
Min Li had worked so hard to try to see what was on Fenhua’s neck, diving out of trees and risking her good reputation sneaking into bathhouses to try and catch a glimpse and she was still yet to have a close up look at it.
It seemed rather irresponsible of the man to let people who hadn’t done anything of the sort see his nape at the same time that it was revealed to her. Was there not an orderly queue that people should have to line up in for first dibs to look at his mark? She huffed, absolutely outrageous.
The second thing that Min LI thought of was how remarkably like her mark seemed the mark of Fenhua’s neck from where the pink glow flowed.
In the nightmares Min Li so often had, her birthmark had glowed the exact same colour. She wondered whether such a freaky situation could be a coincidence, or whether some sort of nursemaid had dropped both her and Fenhua on their necks as children.
Min Li heard some on the onlooking nobles gasping.
“Wow, look at his neck. A statement piece,” one of the onlookers said.
“Ooh how fashionable, do you think that is a ruby or maybe even amethyst? I can’t really see it from here.”
“Oh. I don’t know. But whatever piece of jewellery it is, it is very fashionable.”
“Where can I acquire one for myself?”
Before Min Li could think about what was happening a little bit more, Fenhua who seemed to not be in as much pain now, rolled over to the side and tied his garment properly again covering the pink glow up completely.
As if snapping out of it and realising that his chance to take down the prince had departed, Kit the bovine, boorish brute started bringing down his sword wherever he saw the crown prince.
Unfortunately for Kit, the crown prince seemed quite versed in rolling out of the way to save his life.
At that point it seemed as if the crown prince had enough of all the struggles he had to go through in the match.
With a slight groan, Fenhua jumped up suddenly pushing away the sword from the hand of the unsuspecting opponent who had been too busy focusing on trying to cut the prince in half to see that the prince was about to get up.
The sword flew out of Kit’s hand and before Kit had a chance to retrieve his sword or to react at all to the situation, the crown prince had kicked the back of the man’s knee causing him to fall down and placed his knife upon the man’s throat.
Breathing a little bit heavier than usual, the crown prince cleared his throat, “Surrender now.”
Seeing as he had no chance to turn the match around Kit looked at Min Li then down at the ground resigned to his fate. “I surrender.”
Everybody in the crowd at that point took their first deep breath since the match had started. They clapped happily, excited that their crown prince would be crowned as the strongest fighter in the kingdom, a warrior prince’s rightful place.
The queen also looked absolutely delighted that her son had won. She looked at Min Li and winked, proudly looking upon the scene. It was like she had forgotten the predicament that she had put Min Li in when she had been practically serving Min Li up to Kit on a silver platter. Min Li remembered to store in her memory that if she did nothing about her very sorry marital situation that the queen would be ready to do it for her..
The king had jumped up out of his chair and was doing his characteristic chuckle, the slight bump of his belly heaving in happiness for his son.
“I AM PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE WINNER OF THE MATCH BETWEEN OUR GREATEST WARRIORS IS… THE CROWN PRINCE.”
The crowd let out a roar.
“SINCE HE DIDN’T ASK FOR ANYTHING, HE WILL NOT BE GETTING ANYTHING. EXCEPT FOR...” the king stopped to make sure everybody was listening to the great thing he was about to bestow upon his son, “MY RESPECT.”
The audience was silent for a second.
As was Min Li, she thought that at least if Fenhua was not going to get rewarded at least she should have been. She had worked so hard to not make the biggest scene when she was being offered up to Kit. Hardly a peep had come out of her and she believed that she deserved at least a pretty dress for that.
In respect for their king and in joy for the crown prince, the audience eventually went wild again. Jess’ face was the only in all the rows of happy little faces, that was not completely happy. Min Li snorted; the girl would have sold her out of the kingdom if she could manage it.
Finally, at that point surveying the room the crown prince let out a smile. At the very same time, the tenseness that Min Li didn’t even realise that she was still holding faded away. Relief and happiness flooded through her. And instead of pain raging through her neck, she felt the sweet feeling of satisfaction.