Jin Siyu saw her move and immediately raised his knee to block it. There was another dull *bang* sound as their knees collided hard in the air. Jin Siyu suddenly let out a groan in pain.
Feng Zhi Wei let out a sly smile and touched her own knee.
Jin Siyu pressed his hand tightly on his kneecap and abruptly looked up at her. Under his fingers, a trace of blood had seeped out.
Feng Zhi Wei flipped over and got up, and was all smiles as she innocently lifted the corner of her robe towards him, and flattened out her pants.
There was something hard with square edges showing through her pants, obviously, something foreign had been added.
“Sorry.” She said sweetly, “I was practicing martial arts a few days ago and was afraid of getting injured, so I kept wearing these iron knee pads. You shouldn’t have been so anxious when you kidnapped me that you forgot to take them off.”
Jin Siyu frowned. When he abducted Feng Zhi Wei, he naturally searched her body and had even taken away the soft sword she usually wore on her waist. But for some reason, he didn’t discover this thing on her knee, and through the pants, he can’t tell what they are. How many strange things are on this woman’s body that are difficult to detect?
Feng Zhi Wei smiled slightly and raised her hand. The chain on her wrist drew a long white arc in the air. It didn’t look exactly like a chain but more like a strangely shaped bracelet. She then turned, appearing to be ready to walk out the door without a care.
However, she had only taken one step when her body was yanked right back. She tugged but couldn’t free herself.
She turned her head and saw that Jin Siyu had already sat up. As for the other end of the chain, it had at some point been secured to an iron ring protruding from the floor.
“Did you think you can leave just because I took off the lock?” Jin Siyu said as he rubbed his knee, his smile a bit cold. “Even if it’s not locked on my hand, it can still be locked to anything, anywhere. The floor of this cabin has been specially modified. There are iron rings like this one all over, made of the same white steel. I can lock you to these anytime, anywhere depending on my need.”
Feng Zhi Wei stared at him. After a while, she let out a smile. The smile was exactly the same sort that had been on Jin Siyu’s face.
“You see.” Jin Siyu said with a gentle expression, though his voice was laced with a coldness, “We are the same kind of people. We even react similarly when we are angry.”
He stood up, still rubbing his knee, and limped toward the door. As he opened the door, he called out, “Bring a chamber pot.” before turning back and smiled at her, “It’s a draw.”
Feng Zhi Wei looked at him quietly. When he was about to turn around and leave, her body suddenly tilted and mimicked the limping gesture he had.
Jin Siyu’s face turned black in an instant.
************************
After Jin Siyu left, Feng Zhi Wei calmly climbed onto the chamber pot and took care of one of life’s great necessities. While squatting there, she cheerfully hummed a few lines of a song. The lyrics roughly expressed gratitude to the pot for bringing one such great relief.
The chain, for convenience, was fairly long, about five feet. It was just enough for her to reach the bed to sleep but not enough to reach the window to escape.
Feng Zhi Wei didn’t even bother trying to get to the window. She wandered around on the floor for a while. Once the maid came in to clean the chamber pot, she climbed directly onto the bed, and dug through the bedding to pick out all the walnuts, red dates, peanuts, lotus seeds and other things. After eating all of the food, leaving a pile of shells on the floor, she lay back down comfortably on the soft golden-silk mattress as she mused that since she was sent on this diplomatic mission to Xiliang, with one trouble after another, this was the most comfortable and most enjoyable moment so far. (It’s a wedding custom, to stuff the newlywed’s bed with various food that symbolize joy and prosperity. Ie. seeds= children, red dates=sweet long lasting marriage.)
She pondered a few thoughts, then closed her eyes and went to sleep, perfectly at ease. She had no fear that Jin Siyu would come in and force himself on her— in this world, the more a man understood her, the less he would dare to try such a thing. If she encountered a reckless man who didn’t know her…then that’s when she would need to be cautious.
After sleeping comfortably for a while, Feng Zhi Wei heard the sound of the door opening and someone making an effort to walk in without limping too obviously. She didn’t open her eyes. The person picked up the lock from the floor and with a click, snapped it on his own hand before sitting down beside her on the bed.
The cabin was very quiet, and it seemed to be daytime now. The faint sound of the sailors’ shouting from above could be heard, as well as the sound of the waves crashing against the side of the ship. Somehow, it sounded hollow and desolate. With her eyes closed, Feng Zhi Wei recalled someone once describing to her the sea at Anlan Valley. He had said that the sound of the sea was clear and silent. He said that when sailing through the sea in the middle of the night, the crashing of the waves mirrored the turbulence in the human heart, until one forgets where one is, or whether it was day or night.
Ha…actually, he was wrong. People like him and her will never truly forget where they were or what day it was.
Their greatest pain had always been that they lived far too clearly, too soberly.
“…What are you thinking about?” After a while, someone asked softly by the bed, the tone was calm and gentle.
Feng Zhi Wei didn’t open her eyes and replied lazily, “Thinking about this sea and that sea. How fundamentally, they are really not that different between the two.”
Jin Diyu didn’t say anything for a moment. Feng Zhi Wei’s seemingly nonsensical words should’ve been something no one would be able to understand, but he seemed to understand. After a bit, he sighed and said, “All things in this world remain the same. The only thing that ever changes is the human heart.”
Feng Zhi Wei opened her eyes, just as Jin Siyu turned his gaze on her as well. Across the chasm between the leap from the citywall of Pucheng to their conflict in Xiliang, this was the first time the two of them met each other’s gaze calmly. In each other eyes, they both saw something deep and cold before each immediately turning their eyes away.
“Your Highness, is of such noble birth. I wouldn’t expect you to concern yourself with such idle thoughts.”
“These are not idle thoughts” Jin Siyu said mildly, “Whether as a prince or as a lowly commoner, the only difference is in status. Yet, the pain we suffer while traversing through this life is the same, or perhaps, it might be even heavier on the former.”
Feng Zhi Wei agreed with his words, but didn’t want to discuss it any further. She gave Jin Siyu a casual glance. This person is different from Ning Yi who had never been favored since youth and had fallen from great heights. Jin Siyu, in every sense was the true prince of the Dayue’s imperial family, the emperor’s most beloved son which allow him to excel above his mediocre brothers. With real power in his hands now, he not only is beyond the imperial court’s control, Dayue will very likely end up being his as well. Who would have thought he too would harbor this delicate glass-like pain, a hidden fragility that can’t be touched.
But then again, imperial children, no matter how high or how low their status are, who among them had not rolled and crawled their way through an ocean of blood, through traps of conspiracy?
“Peony.” Jin Siyu lay down beside her, pulling half of the quilt over himself. After a bit, seemingly still lost in thought, he said “I know you are unwilling to dug deeper regarding me, I know you are unwilling to be with me. It might be said that it is meaningless for me to force you to stay now that we have gotten to this point. I may not be the brightest of the bunch, but I haven’t gotten to the point of demanding someone’s heart against their will. But towards you, just this once, allow me to be shameless— you remember this, no matter what, I will make you stay.”
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