Raven was a peerless warrior and magician in the modern world of magic, a devil in the shadow with her skills working with the dark. Her peerless knowledge she can do whatever she want but of course she got bored, with nothing to do, she stayed insi...
Ugh….My head hurts, what happen last night? All I can remember is that guy with the wolf mask and my chest was burning hot. I feel wobbly like I’m laying down on an open carriage.
“Oh! You're awake.” Chen said with a smile. “You had me worried there, you've been out for a week.” She added. For a week!?
“Why?” I asked, Chen shrugged like she doesn't know, I can't blame her.
“So, what happened while I was knock out” I asked.
“A lot of things, we manage to find a lot of survivors and salvage a lot of leftovers, found some of the horses that run away from the fire. Right now, my 4 thousands strong soldiers are reduced to 100.”
“Big sister…..”
“Don't feel bad about it! It's mine to bear, not yours. This is my responsibilities as their leader.” She said with a smile, how could she say that? If my big sister is in pain, then I’ll be also in pain.
“Your highness, we're here.” Fang said.
“Here? Where?” I asked
“Where else? We're about to make our way through the city of Zhou to the Imperial Palace of course.” She said with a smile.
I see, we're here. I would rather wait when we get to the imperial palace. Might as well wait to explore the city, I’m still pretty tired but I’m kinda excited to meet uncle. What's he like I wonder?
“We’re here!” Shi said in excitement as she knock on the wood of the carriage. That was quick, I got off the carriage. I was greeted with stairs leading to an imperial palace. It's huge! “Come on! Come on!” Shi was so excited that she was pulling like a sack of potato.
There were many steps to just reach the entrance of this grand palace. It was also wide, I’m pretty sure, 300 people will able to go up at once to the palace but such occurrences are rare, it will only happen when something big is happening like a royal marriage.
We walked up all the way to the top, I could’ve just jump but where’s in the fun in that? Shi was already out of breath when she reached it, she needs to work on her stamina. “Come on let’s go sisters.” Chen said, when did she came here before us? Such a cheater. “Come on, don’t look at me that way. It takes a while to walk up here besides I already had my taste of this monstrosus stairs.” She laugh, she offer me a hand and I grabbed on to her. We walk the widest and longest hallway, it was so spacious, the pillars that and are supporting this building were vertically line up to the entrance to the end which is probably where the courtyard is.
The floor we walked on was covered in red luxurious rugs,. The banners of Zhou which symbolize a red dragon surrounding a white celestial tiger hangs on the walls. The sounds of our footsteps echo throughout the hallway. Guards were standing like statues to our left and right, they were standing beside the big pillars.
Although this looks just a hallway leading to the courtyard, this hallway is spacious and lot of doors, they probably lead to the other places of the palace, I’m interested in exploring this place. There might be secrets passages. There has to be, Royalty lives here, there’s a secret escape route and/or a hidden room full of their treasure.
Wouldn’t the treasure belong to me? I mean, Big sister Chen and I are sister by blood, my uncle is king, meaning my mother was a princess. So, I’m royalty hence the treasures is mine. “You better not to anything stupid okay? Like searching for treasure like I did, that ended badly.” Chen smiled at me, Ugh….Her stare pierces through my plan like an open book.
“Welcome to the Imperial palace.” Chen said as she introduces to the wide courtyard filled with people, they were doing meditation, and martial arts. “The royal palace is just not a home for the royalties, there’s a section of the palace to the east where it’s dedicated to nurturing young martial artist like yourself to become stronger.”
“A school?” Shi asked.
“Yes, a school for the elites.” Chen confirmed, Shi right now was in awe. “We can talk more about this later. Uncle wanted to see you girls first before you run around but first, we need you girls to look like beauties in the court.” Chen added.
We followed Chen to the changing room, there, we were greeted by a lot of lovely ladies, they were smiling at us like tigers, preparing to bounce on us. “Now my servants, have fun!” Chen smiled as she slowly closes the door of this pen.
Through all the stripping of our clothes, and the makes-up which I’m not particularly fond of, I actually wipe them out because I don’t need them. It makes my face heavy. We were wearing Chinese hanfu which is equivalent to a Japanese kimono, I like it. It’s so soft, smooth, and comfortable to move around. I feel like gliding through the air.
There’s was a lot decorating on this Hanfus. If my memory serves me right, The more decorating your hanfu has, the more influence you have in the court. Hmmmm….I should’ve taken my history classes seriously. I feel bliss.
When we were done changing, Chen picked us up and she lead us to the two tall great red doors that leads to the throne room befall us was intimidating, although I’m meeting uncle, well, our uncle, he’s still the emperor of the Zhou empire. I couldn't help but gulp my own saliva. I’m ready, let’s meet uncle.
A/N
This chapter is pretty short but the next one will be more eventful.
(It was hard finding a Hanfu that was just on display, so I kinda just gave up searching for it. So enjoy the beautiful pictures of the Hanfus and the pretty ladies.)
(Mei's Hanfu)
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(Shi's Hanfu, personally my favorite.)
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(Qing's Hanfu)
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