Romancing the Son of Heaven

Stratagem 25: The Perfect Spouse (1)

Qiu Ling couldn't necessarily be called a patient man. Also, he wasn't too eager to try something new in front of an audience. So after Xiang Yong came over, he only managed to try playing for a few more minutes before he gave up in a bad mood. "Whatever. I'll practice a bit more later again."

Xiang Yong looked up, his expression wavering between hopefulness and terror. If he understood this correctly, this meant that his king wanted to stop playing now. That was definitely something to look forward to. Unfortunately, it also sounded like he wanted to pick up the instrument again later on. That was something he definitely didn't want to see or rather hear.

He hesitated for a moment but then cleared his throat. "Your Majesty, are you sure that you want to do this?" He wasn't quite sure but he felt that his king probably didn't have any musical talent.

Unfortunately for him, Qiu Ling was serious about this. "Jing He loves music. Of course, I would put in the effort and time to make this work. Just wait. I'm sure that in a few weeks, I'll be able to play something nice for him." In any case, it didn't need to be difficult. His beloved would probably be happy to hear a slightly simpler tune as well. Or maybe he should just try to learn one melody and play that? Ah, no, he should definitely have two or three in his repertoire that he could perform for him depending on his mood. If he wasn't able to play anything else, that wouldn't be a problem. This was just for showing off once. Although maybe he could learn other tunes later on so he could play for him again. Yes, this idea wasn't bad.

Xiang Yong had no idea what Qiu Ling was up to but he still didn't like the thought of him practicing anymore in the dragon king's palace. By all right, this place was Qiu Ling's but there were still other people living here. The dragons weren't like the gods after all where every titled god had a palace of their own. No, the important people of the dragon race all lived together in this very building. So did their king really need to torture them every day from now on?

He cleared his throat and then tried to have a conversation about the problem. "Your Majesty, I really don't think it's a good idea to practice here."

Qiu Ling furrowed his brows. "What are you talking about? What's so bad about practicing here?"

Xiang Yong wasn't quite sure how to answer that for a moment. He didn't think that his king was necessarily the type of person that would actually care about what others thought of how well they were able to live their lives. Thus, he couldn't try to explain it with that. If he did, his king would likely just harrumph and tell him that these people should probably better get used to it or something.

No, if he wanted him to listen, he could only bring this back to His Highness. Somehow, that was the only type of explanation that his king was willing to listen to. "Well ..." He drew out the sound, trying to give himself a bit more time to think of something.

Qiu Ling's brows slowly rose. "Yes?"

Xiang Yong cleared his throat in a last attempt to gain another second before he started with the best explanation he had been able to come up with. "Well, this is supposed to be a surprise for His Highness, right? In that case, is Your Majesty really willing to risk the surprise element of gaining this new talent by playing here? If somebody who didn't know that this was supposed to be a surprise was to talk about it and it reached His Highness' ears, then wouldn't that ruin your great idea?" The longer he talked, the more confident he became in his idea so he just went on after making the first point. "Also, don't you want to make it seem like you have had this skill all along? In that case, wouldn't it be better to not let somebody hear your ... diligent practice in the early days? Otherwise, if word gets out that you were only starting to practice now, His Highness might have different thoughts on this."