Wuxia Tale: Hua in Bloom

Long Awaited Meeting

(PRINCE JIN)

General Wang's lover is everything I expected yet not what I expected at all.

It's a complicated feeling.

The rumors didn't give any justice on the impact the man's presence brings to me.

He is pleasant to look at. That indeed was true. Master Dayu is a man of average height and lean frame. His face's features are interesting. Round eyes, long nose, moles on his chin and under his left eyes. Full lips. And a stern expression.

He looks...unassuming yet dangerous at the same. If you see him along the market, you will not notice anything unnatural about him at first but then when you stared long enough in his eyes, you would realize, this man is an enigma and you must be wary because you don't know what he is capable of doing.

Well, lucky for me, I have a little idea of what this man can do. He can kill sixty able bodied rebels all on his own.

And he is looking at me like he is contemplating on the method he will use to skin me alive. His eyebrows furrowed a little like he is thinking where I will fit or what size of a hole will be sufficient to hide my body.

"How dire is your situation?" He finally spoke. I frowned, "What...do you mean, my situation...?"

"Your struggle with the Empress and the First Minister. The battle for the Crown Prince position," Master Dayu explained his question.

Ah...I nodded. That situation.

"I see..." I winced.

"Do you need to be the Crown Prince?" He asked while we stand inside a room that is almost empty except for some scrolls and...I swallowed when I realize what this place could be.

"Yes," Master Dayu nodded when he saw me looking around the room. "This is the room where Mei teach his students. Like me, my cousin likes teaching children about the movement arts we learned when we were young too."

I nodded, "So you are a movement art teacher too. Aside from tutoring and teaching Wang Dao and Wang Hua to read."

"I have a special student...of course." Master Dayu nodded.

He is obviously talking about Wang Dao. How fast the general's son produced that dagger still amazed me even though it's been over a week since that incident on the bookshop involving Wang Hua.

Wang Dao is probably training under this man's guidance.

I nodded.

"So your situation, how dire is it?" Master Dayu asked again.

I winced, "Of massive proportion..."

I could die. The Empress can kill me if she is given enough reason to feel threatened. Being a Crown Prince is not my issue in the palace. Staying alive is more important.

"Yet you like to drag my daughter into that messy situation. Why?" There is a calmness in Master Dayu's tone that is unnerving me and making me sweat.

I close my eyes, "I don't want to drag Wang Hua into anything..."

"The palace is a dangerous place, don't you agree? General Wang and I both decided to not let Wang Hua enter that palace through marriage to any Princes. She will not fit that place..."