The Snow Emperor and the Little Plum

Chapter 5

"Oh, Let me go!" the little plum struggled in Di Xúe's grasp the moment they were away from prying eyes. His face was red and twisted up into an unsightly expression not suited for the lover of the Emperor. Not that anything about this little plum was suited for him. Di Xúe smirked and let go when the little plum wasn't ready and he fell onto the floor with a loud thud.

The little plum grimaced and rubbed his sore bottom before glaring at Di Xúe who felt unusually satisfied at the moment. Lin Hai hurried to help the little plum up and Di Xúe could not help but to frown at Lin Hai's gentle expression. His eyes were gleaming with a warm and tender light as he cared for the little plum.

"Lin Hai? Shaofu!"

Lin Hai winced and turned to Di Xúe with a polite bow. "Huángdi?"

"Did you find any abnormalities among the guests?"

"Not anything of note. Wang Yu Jían's appearance was the strangest one," Lin Hai replied still sneeking peeks at the little plum when he thought that Di Xúe wasn't looking.

"So my uncle is the prime suspect?" said Di Xúe with a grimace. He liked his uncle growing up but he knows better than anyone the depth of his uncle's mind. There were few people on the continent of Tiandi who could rival his intelligence.

"That is just ridiculous. His nephew hasn't showed any indication of interest towards women and suddenly he chose a Zhiji. It was obvious that he would come to take a look at me and that test-"

Di Xúe froze as he heard the little plum's words. "What test?"

"The painting with a poem. He wanted to see if I understood it."

"Why?"

"Most likely to measure my intelligence."

"How could a painting do that?" asked Lin Hai gently and the little plum pulled out the scroll and threw it to Di Xúe who frowned as he catched it. Has the little plum no concept of value? This was a treasure not to be treated lightly.

"Tell me what you see?" the little plum said with a dull expression.

Di Xúe inspected the scroll along with Lin Hai. It was clearly beautiful and the poem...

"It is unsigned!" Di Xúe paled as realization hit him. "How did you recognize the creator?"

"I have studied poetry and paintings enough to recognize Lu Dongbin's handwriting and some of his special attributes in the strokes of his brush," the little plum said with a shrug like it was only natural. Di Xúe watched the little plum with complicated eyes as he could not help but to wonder if this boy was a genius or a fool.

"And you told him this?"

"Of course, he wanted to see if I had the intelligence to identify the painting."

"So why did you?! You could have hidden this fact and acted like a fool."

"Why? This will make me seem more of a threat and I am curious if he will try to warn you, Huángdi."

"Warn me?"

"Well, he most likely wanted to test me to see if I was a threat to you. Now that he has some clue, he might want to warn you, thinking that I might want to kill you," the little plum yawned and stretched as he ignored Di Xúe's eyes. "Of course, if he is the traitor then he will just ignore the obvious threat to your life and it will give us a reason to be suspicious."

"Are you setting a trap?" asked Lin Hai.

"No, more like a test. It is only fair that we should test him after he did the same with me. I might seek him up to throw out some more bait to ensure that he has no other choice but to pick one or the other," replied the little plum.