Yin & Yang

二

I wasn't able to go to sleep that night. Tossing and turning in my bed trying to get the face of that guard out of my head. Why would he have that necklace? I don't know him, I've never even seen him before today. Maybe the missing piece goes to someone else, maybe he has a sister or something. I've had enough of this. I got up and threw on a random ruqun to lazy to even look at which one it was.

I headed to the royal gardens laying in the center of the palace. I would usually go here if I had trouble sleeping, which was most nights. I laid down in the grass surrounded by the smells of the plum blossoms and camellias. I studied the night sky, recognizing the different constellations made by the stars. "Can't sleep either?" Someone said from my side.

"No, you?" I said without taking my eyes from the sky. I knew it was Xiao. 

"Couldn't sleep either." He said as he laid down beside me throwing me a bag of candied almonds he probably stole from the kitchens. We sat in comfortable silence for a while just staring at the stars, breathing in the scent of flowers and eating candied almonds. 

"MingMing there's something I have to talk to you about." Xiao said breaking the silence.

"What is it?" I asked while turning my head to look at him, meeting his eyes.

"My family-" His words were cut off by the sound of yelling and people running. What was going on? We both sat up and started walking towards the commotion. People turned and looked at us. As the recognized our faces they quickly bowed and moved to let us through. I quickly spotted a maid sitting on the floor crying her eyes out while other people were trying to comfort her. I looked around the outside of the room, I know this room. Wait. I look inside the room scared of what I was going to find.

I slowly walked inside of the room, my eyes landing on the body laying in the middle of the floor. I started to go dizzy, not because of the body but because of who the body belonged to. I grabbed onto Xiaojun's arm to steady myself. Why was she there? Why was I here? Why were we in her room? I wasn't going to see her until tomorrow. Is it tomorrow? What day is it? All of a sudden I felt extremely light headed, I can't see anything my vision is swimming in and out of view. Was someone saying something? I couldn't tell what they were saying, it was like someone had shoved cotton into my ears.

I woke up inside my bed, that's weird I'm pretty sure it was evening just a few minutes ago. I don't remember anything besides me and Xiao laying down in the gardens. I looked around and found him sitting in a chair besides my bed. What was he doing here? "What happened?" I asked

"You fainted." He said while looking up at me.

"Did we actually go to Yanmei's last night?" Yanmei was the concubine who raised me inside of the castle, the person who taught me how to be who I am today.

"Mingzhu," Oh no, did something happen to Yanmei? Xiao only used my actual name when something serious was going on. "Yanmei's dead."