Tears Of Kai Yuan

-9-(Edit)

9

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Li Mei

I was more than happy to find Jiayi sitting by herself, a small wolf-pup on her lap and nothing else.

This was my chance.

Without hesitation, I made my way over to her to finally meet the girl who most likely would be my future sister-in-law.

"I've never been able to catch you by yourself." The pup began barking as Jiayi craned her head to the side to see me. She leaned forward in a slight bow. "Princess Mei."

I moved to take a seat beside her before giving my attention to the furry creature on her. "He's adorable, have you named him?"

"Not yet, we found him a few days before you arrived."

I nodded at that before petting the pup on its head. "Jiayi, what do you think of my brother?"

She tensed visibly, confusing me as she cleared her throat and shifted over. "What do you mean by that?"

I smiled. "I mean, what do you think about Li Xiao? Would you want to marry him?"

Jiayi let the pup jump off her lap and scurry off somewhere. "I don't think that I should be the one being asked. I heard that he was intending to marry Eldest Sister, wasn't he?"

I raised a brow. "He was?"

She looked at me calmly. "That's what I've been told."

-

"You lied to her, didn't you?"

Wu-Ji reached up and tightened the reigns on his horse before sparing me a glance. "By the orders of the great General Li Xiao of T'ang, yes, I did...didn't have much of a choice though, did I Ah-Xiao?"

I turned to glare at Second Brother before storming up to him. "Why would you do that?"

"I had my reasons."

Huffing in exasperation, I crossed my arms tightly. "And what may those reasons be?"

Li Xiao brushed past me, but not before flicking my forehead lightly. "Reasons, now get inside the palanquin, we have to be back at Chang'An before the end of this week."

I grimaced, still unable to understand why Li Xiao would lie to the person he clearly had shown interest in during our entire stay at Qi Zhao Manor. I also couldn't understand why Wu-Ji would go along with it and why Jiayi would even believe it.

I was positive that I wasn't the only person seeing the blatant picture in front of me...

Was I?

-

As much as Luoyang had been a sight to see for sore eyes, returning to Chang'an was a relief. I had grown too attached to this Capital city to be apart from it for too long, nearly a week was more than enough.

Sister Ang-Bao was more than impatient to hear what I had to say, yet exhaustion had gotten the better of me the night before and my tale of supposed wonder ended with a yawn and goodnight.

Now we all sat together in the main hall, Father and Mother waiting to hear what we had to say on the Zhao daughters...I smiled at Jin as he began to speak first.

"Baba...You sending us to Qi Zhao Manor to find a wife for Ah-Xiao, was there a specific purpose for it?" Father chuckled deeply before nodding. "Both Bixia and I decided it best for Li Xiao not to marry one of the Li house or of Han Royal status. The chaos that would occur from that is more than I want to see." The nine of us children laughed at that, Li Xiao simply huffed his agreement as the reasoning continued.