TIAN GUAN CI FU Fan fic stories

BURN LIKE THE SUN

The first time Xie Lian sees the boy, he thinks he imagines it.

He is nine years old, wandering the palace after escaping from his guoshi's lessons. He enjoys his lessons usually, especially when they cover things like sword fighting and war history, but today's lesson is simple calligraphy, and his writing is fine.

It had felt thrilling, sneaking out without the help of Feng Xin and Mu Qing. He is enjoying his victory when suddenly, halfway down the hallway, he thinks he feels a pair of eyes watching him. He turns, seeing only a member of the household guard standing at one of the entrances to the gardens.

Frowning, he sees nothing out of place, and turns in time to see movement behind one of the huge silk tapestries that is lining one of the walls. It flutters against the wall, and Xie Lian notices a pair of mismatched eyes looking at him through the end of the tapestry.

Intrigued, he marches over, small fists reaching for the silk and tugging it away. It's heavy, and he doesn't move fast enough - the person is quicker, moving along the wall just outside of Xie Lian's sight and reach as the tapestry falls back behind them and hides them from Xie Lian's view.

Struggling in the silk, Xie Lian moves forward anyway, batting the fabric away until he emerges on the other side of the tapestry to find a hallway just as empty as it had been when he first walked through.

"Hello?" He asks, looking around with confusion, his heart beating fast in his chest with excitement.

No one answers, although the guard glances at him briefly. Shoulders slumping, Xie Lian returns to his wanderings, confused at what he has seen.

He is so sure he saw a person!

It carries on in this way, with Xie Lian feeling as though someone could be watching him at odd hours of the day. He feels eyes on him even when sitting in the gardens with his gold foil palace, or when he wanders through empty corridors in search of something to do.

It is only weeks later, when Xie Lian has infuriated his guoshi with his idealistic responses to his questions and subsequently absconded from his lessons a second time, that he finally meets the person who has been watching him.

He is walking very briskly down one of the hallways when he hears his guoshi following, calling out his name. Xie Lian knows that when he is caught his punishment will be more laps around the gardens, and possibly even a ban on sparring for the next week, so he picks up his pace.

It'll be better if his guoshi complains to his mother, because then he might escape discipline altogether.

As he turns a corner into the hallway where he first thought he saw the boy, he notices that one of the wooden panels has been pushed open, creating a doorway in the wall that had not been there before. Xie Lian runs for it, slipping through into the darkened corridor beyond and pulling the panel shut behind him.

To his surprise, he collides with another boy once he has shut the panel door behind him.

The space behind the panel isn't large, so neither of them fall to the floor, but Xie Lian is still shocked to find anyone behind here in the first place. Judging by the look on the boy's face, he is too.

The boy is young, definitely younger than he is, though there's something about his skinny frame and slim face that makes Xie Lian think that he could be older than he looks. He peers up at Xie Lian in surprise, his eyes widened in shock, and Xie Lian can clearly see even in the low light that one is a deep brown and the other a crimson red.