Stealing the Wrong Bride

7

2 Weeks Later

After escorting Zhu An to the shed in Luse garden, no one else came to visit him, aside from the servants that the Great Emperor order to prepared food for him. Zhu An had tried to ask the servants questions about where he was and even attempted to escape a few times, but he never managed to go very far before becoming lost or caught by a guard. However, thru his escaping attempts, Zhu An did manage to kind of paint a partial mental map of the huge, complex garden.

Nonetheless, being held captive in an unfamiliar place was still very scary and Zhu An had spent many nights crying helplessly until he finally forced himself to accept his situation, since that's the only thing that he could do.

After accepting that no matter how hard he tries, he will never be able to successfully escape and that no one will come to his rescue or probably miss him, with a dejected and dampened spirt, Zhu An decided to distract himself with all the beautiful and odd herbs, flowers, and plants within the huge garden.

This worked well because all the things inside Luse garden were new to Zhu An and even helped him forget his situation for a while. It wasn't until he had a question about a plant and realized that no one is there to answer him that he remembered his dreadful captivity.

...

Like most days, today, as Zhu An stared at a stalk of glowing, light pinkish blue plant, he really wanted to know what it was and wanted to asks someone, but per usual, no one was around. Not even a small animal is seen.

So all he could do was carefully lift the soft yet glass like petals of the small stalk of plant with a tiny stick and sigh aloud as his head rested on his knees.

"I wish you could talk to me... I have so many questions." Zhu An quietly voice aloud to the plant.

"What questions?" A cheerful voice beamed from above Zhu An.

Surprised, Zhu An immediately turned his body to face the direction of the voice, and saw a pretty young girl with a warm smile.

"What questions do you have, I might be able to answer them for you." The young girl cheerfully said.

Ever since Zhu An had been brought to the garden shed, aside from the servant who brought him food and the guards who caught him during his run away attempts, he saw no one else. So to see a person other than the servant and guards really surprised Zhu An. Furthermore, since his arrival, Zhu An was able to figure out that all of the people in this strange place does not like him, though he was still not absolutely clear on why. So to see the pretty young girl smile at him and nicely speak to him... Zhu An felt his eyes begin to water and pursed his lips.

"Ah. I.. um. I really didn't mean to scare you. Um.. Please don't cry. I, my name is Tain Na." Tain Na awkwardly crouched down in front of Zhu An and pasted an apologetic smile on her face.

Zhu An stiffly nodded his head and brought his dirt cover palms in front of him but still said nothing.

"Do you like that plant? You know, it's actually an herb for light bruises. Oh, and it's also very pretty, and pretty easy to maintain, unlike red claw flowers. Those are really annoying to grow even though their potency is the same." Tain Na happily spoke as she smiled towards the stalk of pinkish blue plant.

Following Tain Na's line of sight, Zhu An nodded again but still said nothing, and as Tain Na shifted her gaze from the plant to Zhu An, he immediately casted his head down.

As Tain Na stare at him for a while then turn back to the plant, she quietly asked Zhu An, "Do you like plants and herbs too?"

After a few short second of silence, without looking Tain Na in the eyes, Zhu An gave a timid head nod.

Since Zhu An's head was still down he did not see Tain Na slowly stretched her lips into a excited smile and just heard her ask in an animated tone, "Do you want to learn? Do you want to be my apprentice? Even though I'm not as good as my father or mother, I am the third best Divine doctor here. I'll be a great teacher. Hm?"

As soon as Zhu An heard, "Do you want to learn?" he abruptly lifted up his head and stared at her with wide, sparkling eyes.

"y.. you'll really t..teach me?" Zhu An nervously and shyly asked

"Of course. I'll teach you everything I know if you become my apprentice." Tain Na confidently grinned.

Now of course Zhu An was eager to immediately accept, but he was not a fool and questioned internally why she would talk to someone like him and even offer to teach him.

However, even though the question popped into his head right away, it actually took him a few minutes to be able to voice it aloud and even then he was only able to say, "w..why?" before quickly lowering his head again.

With a warm smile on her face, Tain Na clasped her hand together in front of her knees, Tain Na tells him, "You remind me of my friend's little brother, well he's probably more like a child to Lui, but meh. And I have always wanted to have an apprentice. You know, all great doctors are not truly successful until they pass on their skills."

Zhu An was stunned when Tain Na mentioned Lui's name and again, suddenly, lifted his head and stared at her with big round eyes. He wanted to confirm if she really knew Lui, but seeing how enthusiastic she was, he let her finished before shyly asking, "You..You really know Lui?"

Tain Na raised her sharp brow up then furrowed her brows slight before nodding her head in a questioning manner. "You know Lui too?" Tain Na cautiously asked.

Quickly switching from sitting on his butt to his knees, Zhu An nodded his head as his lips curved into a happy smile. "I met him thru Aixin. Were you talking about Aixin earlier?"

Astonished at how small the world must be for all of them to know each other, Tain Na smiled and nodded her head.