The Librarian and the Fox Princess: a Donghua Dijun and Bai Fengjiu story, V.I

Chapter 41 - Perceived Safety/Perceived Threats

A/N: That picture above of Zhe Gushao in the Candle In the Tomb series has absolutely nothing to do with this story. It's just Monday where I live and I thought it would be a good way to start the week :)

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Zhong Lin hurried to Si Ming's room to try to wake up the Star Lord and to prepare him for the task the little highness had given them.

He knocked on Si Ming's door but there was no response. Zhong Lin quietly opened the door figuring his friend had overslept. He knew that Si Ming was up late still thinking he was in a dream. He walked in to find Si Ming face down on the floor drowning in a pile of ash. There was a large crater roughly a meter wide in the the ground that was almost a foot deep. The tiles on the floor were blown to smithereens. Apparently, some explosion had occured in his room in the middle of the night.

He rolled the Star Lord over who was still breathing. Fortunately, the injuries were not fatal. His eyebrows were burnt off and the ash had formed a powdery grey mask over the Star Lord's face. His white night robe had been singed and burnt through with holes.

He opened his eyes and tried to sit up.

"Zhong Lin ..." He began gasping for air and clung to his friend desperately. "Thank the Heavenly Mother you're here. I'm stuck in a nightmare, this is a nightmare, I tell you!!!!"

"What happened to you? How did you get hurt like this?" Zhong Lin looked around in disbelief. Tai Chen Palace was an impenetrable fort. Nothing menacing could ever get in, not under Dijun's watch and certainly not now with his beloved little fox princess staying here.

"I ... I ... tried to blast those bells to hell," he sputtered. "But ... the bells fought back!! They fought back!!" Si Ming was yelling so maniacally Zhong Lin thought his friend had lost his mind.

Zhong Lin looked at where Si Ming was pointing and sure enough, laying in the pile of ash were the bells that Dijun had created for the Star Lord, still shiny and immaculate as the day Dijun had told them to put them on.

Zhong Lin let out a gasp, "you tried to destroy Dijun's bells? What in the Nine Heavens is wrong with you?"

"A pink explosion ... a pink explosion ... like an energetic watermelon had exploded in my face," Si Ming was waving his hands frantically in front of him, babbling and on the verge of sobbing.

Zhong Lin grabbed Si Ming by the collar and gave his friend a decent shake. 

"Look, you have got to pull it together. This is not a dream or a nightmare. These are the real days of our lives in Tai Chen Palace and you have just tried to destroy Dong Hua Dijun's property. You are lucky you only lost your eyebrows, you fool."

Si Ming had never seen Zhong Lin act like such a thug before. He had no choice but to be impressed, if not intimidated and deferred to what his friend was telling him.

"So, ... so ... this is all ... real?" Si Ming's eyeballs kept frantically moving left and moving right as if they were trying to find the nearest exit out of his head. 

"Yesss..." Zhong Lin hissed. "Every bit of nonsense that you have impudently, compulsively, and flippantly spewed out since last night was all very real. I heard it ... Dijun heard it ... and Princess Feng Jiu heard it," Zhong Lin said emphatically.

"You ... you mean when they were fighting in the courtyard ... that was all real, too?" asked Si Ming breathlessly. He pointed up at Zhong Lin, "you were trying to fly a kite."

"Yes, and when you talked about placing bets on them ...that was real, too, unfortunately," nodded Zhong Lin.

"Who won?" asked Si Ming his mind in a fog. "The tails! I saw her tails!" he cried out enthusiastically.