The King's Dancer

Chapter 7

"Uhm!", Xie Lian exclaimed dumbly. "I- I just meant- that is to say, I- you shouldn't, I mean Your Majesty should-"

The king interrupted Xie Lian's flustered mess of a sentence with a resounding "pfft", followed by a bound of laughter. Xie Lian kind of wanted to die.

"Alright", the king told the children, after he'd calmed down again. "Since your gege seems to be a good person, I'll allow it."

"Xie-gege is a very good person!", Banyue confirmed fiercely. Which didn't help Xie Lian's blush that was already spread out over his whole neck.

"Yes, yes. But I do want to have a word with that good gege of yours, so you two keep practicing while I'll talk to him."

Banyue nodded, and turned to leave, before she decided to turn around again, and hugged the king's legs, before she quickly scurried off. Pei Su had simply bowed in the meantime, and followed after her at a more sedate pace.

"Come with me", the king ordered, and started walking towards one of the benches in the courtyard.

Xie Lian followed hesitantly, with no small amount of trepidation.

The king sat down on the bench, and looked at him. Xie Lian didn't know what was expected of him, because he still wasn't sure about the etiquette when it came to dealing with the king of WuYong, so he didn't dare to assume he had the right to sit next to him, as if he was his (albeit perfunctory) owner's equal.

"Sit", the king invited, though it sounded like an order more than anything in Xie Lian's ears.

Xie Lian was half thinking the king was testing him with this, and half thinking that the king was trying to set up a trap. However, before he could decide which scenario was more likely, the sudden thought came into his mind that maybe the king just didn't like to look up at people. It was why he decided to kneel on the ground before the king, as a first attempt at getting etiquette right.

The king raised his brow in what seemed like surprise at the action, but didn't comment.

"So... gege", the king snickered. "I heard you're taking your role as a big brother rather seriously."

Xie Lian blinked, not having the slightest idea what the king was trying to get at.

"Your Majesty?", he asked, sounding about as confused as he felt.

"I already knew Banyue was getting bullied, as well as the fact that you intended to teach her a little bit of martial arts. Do you know why I never saw the need to do anything about either of those things?"

Xie Lian wasn't sure, but he could take a few guesses for himself.

"I don't know, Your Highness."

The king narrowed his eye at him.

"Really now? Why do I not believe that?"

Xie Lian suppressed a sigh before he replied. "Perhaps you didn't have the time. Perhaps you didn't think the bullying was bad enough to intervene. Perhaps you didn't expect I would go through with that promise. Perhaps you wanted to wait and see how the situation developed by itself", he threw out some of those guesses.

The king smirked.

"You're incredibly straight on the mark."

"Does Your Majesty not care about the wellbeing of that little girl at all?", Xie Lian couldn't help but ask, feeling somewhat angry that Banyue had to endure such injuries even though the king had known about the bullying.

"What do you mean?", the king asked, narrowing his eye at him again.

"I mean... since you knew about the issue, why did you let it get so far out of hand? Banyue could've very well ended up beheaded that time she was attacked with the knives. Do you realise what kind of trauma a child can get from an expe-", Xie Lian stopped talking when he noticed the look on the king's face had turned incredibly cold and dangerous, and wondered if he'd overstepped the line and had been too informal. So he stopped talking.