In the last couple of weeks, Min Li hadn’t bumped into the crown prince due to the great active both were making to avoid each other.

What wasn’t so straightforward however, was completely banishing Fenhua from her thoughts.

Until she had to avoid Fenhua, Min Li didn’t know how much thinking about the man and speaking about him took up her days. Min Li was starting to miss him. In fact, if truth be told about the matter, Min Li had started to miss the crown prince from the very moment that she had decided after eavesdropping that she should avoid him.

It frustrated Min Li that it seemed that the crown prince wasn’t having such difficulties in avoiding her. As much as he had seemed solemn in his conversation with Joe on not speaking to Min Li, it didn’t show in his actions.

Not that Min Li had seen Fenhua at all. Lily, who never missed a chance when she wasn’t working to follow the crown prince around so she could pick up some extra details about him, had told Min Li all about the man’s ghastly deeds.

Fenhua had apparently been going to the bathhouse extremely frequently and there was said to be more servant girls than normal who served him there. Truthfully, Fenhua had always taken baths frequently and so the news at any normal time wouldn’t be shocking, but as Min Li wasn’t currently talking to him, she felt that his taking baths and not mourning the loss of their friendship instead was gross negligence of her feelings.

Fenhua had also done other things that added to Min Li’s sorrow.

He had called another servant girl into his chambers to help serve him when he was working, pouring tea and fanning the man down. At that point, Min Li was nearly broken. She didn’t think that he needed someone to help him with such things. When she herself had taken up the role, she had done so just due to pleading for forgiveness. She was sure the servant girl who served him this time hadn’t done anything bad enough for her to need to plead for forgiveness.

There had also been a get together between the noblest families in Xilin. The heads of each quarter of the kingdom besides the king himself had met up together for the sake of bonding time.

Yes, Min Li had taken it upon herself to refuse the invitation, but no, she hadn’t thought at the time that the families could split up after lunch.

She hadn’t thought that Jess’ mother and the queen would have conspired together to use the free time as a type of blind date.

There was no way that Lily hadn’t exaggerated some of the stories. However, even with this knowledge, Min Li was still bothered by the occurrences.

Min Li tried to tell herself that it was all a big coincidence that the only things that truly annoyed her about Fenhua were incidences with other women.

And of course, Lily hadn’t known what was going on between Min Li and Fenhua. She would have nagged, given Min Li a headache and practically have forced the two of them to make up. For that reason, Min Li thought that it was best not to go into details about what had happened between her and Fenhua. Min Li could see that Lily was curious about what was going on, but she didn’t offer up any information that could prove harmful to her own head.

Eventually, Lily yielded to her curiosity and had asked Min Li why she and the crown prince hadn’t spoken to each other as of late.

According to Lily, her audience, which were mainly all the other wistful servant girls, were not happy that they couldn’t get the latest instalment of ‘the crown prince and the maid’.

Min Li having decided to only give Lily a surface statement, had just told the girl simply that unless she used only her imagination, she would probably not ever be able to write another instalment of the story.

Apparently even only that information was too much for Lily. Instead of comforting her friend, Lily let out a loud wail and immediately went into mourning ripping perfectly good clothes and running wailing into the servant quarters refusing to open the doors. She had cursed Min Li with words that were not suitable for a lady to copy.

…..

One day that same week, Min Li had been assigned the back portion of the gardens around the power tree to clean.

With the area around the power tree being as big as it was, the rest of Min Li’s crew being Rose, Lily and Tom, had come along to help her.

Together they all worked on some very extensive bushes near the area. Tom and Min Li were in charge of clipping the straggly parts of the bushes, and Rose and Lily were in charge of picking up any of the fallen leaves under the bush ready for disposal.

When they had all finished their set tasks, they turned to their biggest opponent in the gardens, the power tree.

Min Li had left the power tree for last. Although she was fond of the beautiful tree and enjoyed meditating near it, she was tired of always being repelled by its invisible force shield when she got close to it.

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It was slightly unnerving to not be able to see something and yet it still zap her unto her behind. The tree’s shield seemed indiscriminate to whatever tactics she used to approach the tree so she could clean as much as possible.

She had tried everything. She had approached the tree slowly, so the shield would think she was a leaf. She had approached the tree fast, hoping that it didn’t recognise her in time. She had approached the tree head bowed to the ground trying to show her respect to the tree. She had approached the tree shoulders back with boulders of confidence, trying to get the tree to respect her.

And lastly, she had also cooed and battered her eyes for the tree. The tree’s shield never faltered. It was extremely unnerving. They say ‘talk to your plants’, in Min Li’s mind such advice was a load of rubbish. What if your plant was just a complete nincompoop?

Min Li’s rate of success when she batted her eyelids was nearly 99%. Of course, she would expect the tree to yield to her kindness.

Well that wasn’t completely true, her rate was 99% except from with Betti the head maid. And with the queen. And with Fenhua. And with Lily.

Thinking back to the time when the king had let Kit the bovine, boorish brute choose her as a prize, maybe even the king seemed as if he had learned to get over her charms.

That was the main reason why Min Li had called her friends with powers to the tree. She was ready to fight back against the invisible shield of the tree if it annoyed her and she thought it would be kinder to people with powers.

Her three friends evidently did not feel the same. They were standing nearly as far away from the tree as they possibly could and were noticeably shivering just at the mere thought of being near its force field.

They obviously remembered the times where they too were subject to the tree’s hostility, and they were thrown on the ground.

Not that it was anybody’s fault, when Min Li had thrown her friends towards the tree previously, it had been for the purpose of a scientific experiment to get a better understanding of the tree. And she had apologised after, she wasn’t a total monster.

Anyway, as the chosen one’s chosen friend, she had taken it upon herself to make them face their fears for the sake of their friend, her. She didn’t get the title of the chosen one’s chosen friend for nothing. She had made sacrifices. And now she was teaching her friends to make sacrifices too so they could achieve the sort of status that she herself had. And along with that they could also learn how to take one for the team.

Min Li stared her friends down wondering how she was going to convince them to do something that she didn’t really want to do herself.

Making sure that she looked confident and like a leader with her shoulders back, she got started.

“You guys are going to have to help me... if you are willing... to clean around the tree.”

Min Li’s friends blinked emptily at her.

“I am not doing this for myself. I already have my award. I am already a fantastic friend.”

Min Li stopped abruptly at the sound of her own words.

She nearly retched.

Her words reminded her of one of her and the crown prince’s teachers. Min Li still remembered the day. During one of their tutor lessons way back in the day, Min Li and Fenhua weren’t listening. Correction, Min Li wasn’t listening, Fenhua was trying to listen, Min Li was trying to distract him, and she was semi-succeeding.

The teacher had said something like, ‘this is not about me. I am here for you. I get paid either way. You either listen or you don’t. I have already passed my exams.’

As if he didn’t know who he was talking to. Besides of course, it was just an exam. Fenhua, a crown prince and only son of his dad, the king, meant that nothing that the crown prince did short of mass genocide would change his lifestyle. Especially something as little and futile as failing an exam on the value of faeces to the environment.

So, feeling utterly offended, Min Li had spouted off her usual narrative, ‘Off with his head. To the dungeons. Feed him to the lions.’

And just like the usual narrative, no one had paid any attention to any of Min Li’s cries.

It seemed that no one was concerned that the man had offended her. It wasn’t enough that the man had unremorsefully offended one of the most powerful people in the kingdom... and the crown prince of course, she couldn’t leave him out.

If the teacher should see her now, she was now the chosen one’s chosen friend. Min Li would bet that the man would no longer look her in the eyes when she was talking to him. Just thinking about it made Min Li want to accept her natural given birth role as the chosen one’s chosen friend.

All Min Li's friends were still looking at her like she was mad. They obviously were not buying anything that she was selling, in fact they were hardly even looking at what she was selling. Min Li wouldn’t even buy what she was trying to sell.

Min Li tried her very last card.

“You don’t even have to go near to the tree. You can stay over there and blast it with your water powers... Please.”

Min Li had realised what it was that she had done so wrong before when testing the shield with her friends. The tree was a power tree and so it must respect power.

“Pretty please,” Min Li said blinking prettily whilst trying to remember the definition of coercion.

“Oh, that’s scary.”

“Does she have something in her eyes?”

“Is she going to keep on doing that?”

“I hope so. it is kind of fun to watch her beg.”

“But not like that. She looks like an adult but is acting like an overgrown toddler.”

“Definitely not her most becoming.”

“No wonder the crown prince is avoiding her.”

“Tom, would you avoid her too?”

“No. I wouldn’t avoid her.”

Rose and Lily stopped their uttering and looked at Tom in betrayal. It seemed as if he was so slow witted that he didn’t understand that the other two were teasing her.

Min Li smiled at the man, the full set of her teeth showing.

Tom continued on looking at Min Li with wide eyes.

“Uh uh, I definitely wouldn’t avoid her. She looks too scary for that. I would do exactly what she tells me to do exactly when she tells me to do it. But, if I had the powers of the crown prince, then maybe I would have enough confidence to avoid her.”

She had smiled too soon. Apparently, he understood what they were saying. He just wanted to find a way to hurt her even more.

The two girls whose names, Min Li had decided didn’t suit them, they weren’t as flowery and rosy as they looked on the outside, burst out laughing.

Min Li nodded sadly finally getting it. She wasn’t as good as being cute as she thought she was. My 99% win rate is probably a bit more like 9.9%... Okay if you insist... 0.99% rate.

Thankfully before Min Li had time to go down a spiral of her thoughts, one of the three friends in front of her, or maybe she should call them foes, stopped laughing.

“Sorry. Whew. I’ll help you when I catch my breath.”

“Me too,” the next foe wheezed out.

“Me three,” the very last foe managed to squeeze out.

Yes. Result. Min Li had to stop herself from pumping a fist into the air happily.

She sat down in the shade and waited for her friends to stop laughing.