Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

A flock of birds flew across the sky as dawn arrived, the morning sun casting down a particularly bronze glow. Farmers toiled tirelessly at the rice fields, harvesting the fruits of their labour in the form of golden paddies that ripened during autumn.

Firecrackers popped loudly as celebration and festivity filled the air. The whole village was coloured red for the wedding ceremony between the youngest Wei son and the youngest Hua daughter, an auspicious union between the two families via marriage.

It was a joyous occasion for everyone, including the couple, whose names were Wei Dingshan and Hua Xiu, but especially for the bride and groom’s respective parents.

The Wei family had a similar background to the Hua family. The fathers of the newlyweds were both veterans who became farmers after the war ended. The only major difference between the two households was that the Wei family had two sons while the Hua family had two daughters.

It was rumoured that Hua Mulan was supposedly the one who should have married into the Wei household since she’s the eldest daughter, but now due to her merits in the military, invitation to the Emperor’s Guard, and her popularity as “saviour of the dynasty”, her current status was considered far too high for the Wei family or anyone in her home village.

In fact, everyone treated Mulan as their most esteemed “guest of honour” during the wedding ceremony, as if she were a wealthy visitor from a faraway city and hadn’t been living in the same tulou as them her whole life.

Really, the highlight of the wedding should be given to the couple getting married, yet the bride’s unmarried older sister who saved the Emperor received the most fanfare that evening. It didn’t help that Mulan’s mother A-Li liked advertising her highly-accomplished, super great and filial daughter to everyone in public by making a bigger praising party out of her heroism than what Mulan felt was necessary, on the day of her other daughter A-Xiu’s wedding no less. Maybe A-Li thought it would increase the chances of Mulan getting matched with somebody from who-knows-where one day.

Embarrassed from the whole ordeal, guilty for taking away A-Xiu and her husband’s special night and exhausted by a whole day of polite greetings and smiling for others, Mulan decided to detract herself entirely from the wedding celebration using the excuse of needing to go to the loo.

Using the free moment to get some fresh air, Mulan relished in the chilly breeze blowing at her face and the serene landscape facing outside the tulou. The weather was cool tonight without any sign of rain, and tall grass was swaying gently to the mild gusts of wind. Such good weather would be ideal for Mulan to ride on Black Wind and gallop across the fields for fun, enjoying the sense of freedom.

Not too long after, Mulan heard the telltale sound of walking cane and feet clomping against the wooden floor and realised she was followed by her father Hua Zhou, who came closer and settled next to her.

“I see you staring outwards for so long, you must be wanting to go to the capital.” Hua Zhou suddenly brought up, as if it was a statement of fact.

“How long have you been watching?” Mulan asked back, a tinge of surprise in her voice.

“Twenty years.” Hua Zhou answered almost offendedly, but quickly laughed it off and patted his daughter’s shoulder.

“It’s been a month, and I haven’t decided yet.” Mulan answered seriously. That was how long since Commander Tung and his troops came to the doorsteps of Mulan’s village with a new sword and a second offer from the Emperor.

Mulan had thought long and hard about whether she should go to the capital. The prospect of moving across half the country for a brand new life in an unfamiliar place would no doubt be troublesome in the short run, but the long-term benefits seemed endless in Mulan’s eyes.

“You haven’t decided yet, or you are not brave enough yet?” Hua Zhou shot back fondly.

Mulan hesitated, then she decided to be frank, “I will be leaving you alone again.”

After running away from home to go to war because she wanted to, Mulan didn’t want to repeat the same mistake and make her entire family worry for her once more. Hua Zhou understood Mulan’s meaning.

“It was wrong for you to run away from home the last time, but look at where that got you.” Gaining Mulan’s full attention, Hua Zhou proudly continued. “You have brought home the greatest honour the Hua family could ever receive. You have saved the Emperor and the dynasty.” He took Mulan’s slender hand and gently patted it with his wrinkled one. “You want to do great things outside, you shall have my blessing, and your mother’s.”

Mulan stared back at Hua Zhou in the eyes, the two sharing a quiet but familiar moment between father and daughter.

With an officer’s position in the Emperor’s Guard, Mulan would be earning a regular income in the form of fiefs, and given enough time, she could use her accumulated savings to buy a private residence in the capital for her elderly parents to move into. Her mother and father won’t have to continue working in the rice fields in order to sustain their livelihood, but instead enjoy the rest of their twilight years comfortably without worries or burdens.

Given even more time, Mulan could invite Hua Xiu’s husband Wei Dingshan to the capital to find work and eventually move the entire family, including her little sister and in-laws, to live together in the same city with her. And finally, Mulan herself could happily retire with enough money to take care of her parents and herself without having to go through the hardship of working in the farms in her old age.

What commoner could pass such an irresistible opportunity to move up the class ladder, especially one that was bestowed by none other than the Emperor himself?

Reaching that goal would be a long arduous journey, Mulan knew. Travelling was an issue on its own, but the location of the Imperial Capital wasn’t as north as the army camp or the northern border. Money, on the other hand, was the true elephant in the room. In the capital city alone, everything was priced at a much higher rate.

This was different from registering and enlisting in the army to fulfil one’s conscription duties. Because it was a draft decreed by the Emperor, everything from food to shelter was provided by the military. Mulan would be all alone to feed and fend for herself if she decided to enter the capital city.

With seemingly no other connections other than Commander Tung and the distant reassurance of the Emperor, Mulan would face an uphill battle if she wanted to secure financial and social status. It was already a difficult task for a man of common background, what more it would be for a woman of common background? It could take up years and years of hardship before she could be in a safe position to move her parents over to the capital.

But Mulan had been through wars before, Mulan told herself. She had been through the toughest training drills. She had fought with Rouran soldiers head on in the battlefield, and gathered a body count greater than any woman could possibly achieve in the history of her country.

How harder could moving to the Imperial Capital be?

Just like that, the wedding ceremony of her sister Hua Xiu and her newlywed husband passed by in a flash. The merry cheers and party noises from the previous night all quietened by the next morning. It seemed as if a day hadn’t gone by, the sun hadn’t moved an inch from its position in the sky.

With certain determination pervading her mind, Hua Mulan considered her options and finally made her decision.

......

In the Hua residence, the clear sounds of metal and leather being worn could be heard from within. Armour was donned and leather belts were being buckled. The process of wearing military attire was completed in no time.

Dawn hadn’t broken yet when Mulan opened up the window. She tried to make out the sky above her to the best of her vision, and let out a pleasant hum at the sign of no clouds.

Mulan then went to make breakfast for herself and her parents. The woman had learnt the hard way the lesson of not travelling on an empty stomach when she first ran away donning her father’s armour. By the time A-Li and then Hua Zhou woke up, their eldest and still-single daughter had already prepared three bowls of white rice with three eggs, two vegetables and a dish of chicken meat on the dining table.

“Wah. You never woke up this early in your life before, A-Lan.” A-Li exclaimed. “And you cooked us breakfast too!”

“Haha, hopefully my cooking skills don’t disappoint you, Mother.” Mulan simply laughed in response. She had to remember that in the Imperial Capital, there would be no Mother cooking meals for her anymore, and a commoner like Mulan couldn’t afford herself a chef to do the work.

Both A-Li and Hua Zhou’s exchanged looks between each other before sitting at the dining table quietly, Hua Zhou’s walking cane resting by the side of the table, all while the couple’s gaze studied the look of their daughter with a man’s topknot and in a military officer’s uniform.

“Look at our daughter. All grown up and mature and wise, ready to venture into a new life.” Hua Zhou said with a proud smile and eyes filled with pride and admiration.

Returning a glance towards her father, a smile slowly appeared on Mulan’s face as she took her own seat as well.

“You have been wearing armour since you woke up? Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable walking around in that all the time?” A-Li asked, her tone more curious than concerned.

“Not to worry. Once you’ve gotten used to it, wearing armour would never be uncomfortable at all. It is meant for soldiers to wear to battle, after all.” Mulan answered.

“This new set feels a little heavier, but it’s manageable.” she added.

This set of armour given to Mulan wasn’t too tight and was quite comfortable, but it was less flexible than the one she previously wore as the lowest ranked cavalry soldier in the Imperial Army. The way the armour wrapped around her body was reminiscent of the feeling of wearing Hua Zhou’s rusty armour on that fateful night, and the many golden carvings on it reminded her of the armour Commander Tung always donned. She could imagine how much more fitting this particular set of armour would be for either of them than for herself.

What bothered Mulan the most when she first wore it was the shape of the chest plate. No matter how she tried adjusting it, it couldn’t quite fit nicely with her breasts. She thought binding her chest would solve the issue, and surely enough, she felt much better after wearing that.

Clearly, all armour produced by the military was designed to accommodate the body shapes of men. When she figured that out, Mulan was shocked but not surprised by this.

Her mother A-Li couldn’t make up a response, staring at her daughter as if she was stunned by her words. A-Li only did that whenever she felt fed up reprimanding Mulan, but this was definitely not the case. Eventually, she sighed and picked up her egg with her chopsticks to give it to Mulan, “You should take this. You will need all the food you can get before you travel.”

“Mother, I really don’t need–” Mulan immediately protested.

“Listen to your mother, Mulan.” Hua Zhou intercepted his daughter’s speech as he also put his own egg into Mulan’s bowl. “We old folks couldn’t eat too much, so just eat whatever we give you.”

“Father, I already have enough–” Mulan retorted again.

A-Li: “Have some more vegetables. It’s good for your health.”

Hua Zhou: “Eat more chicken. It will make you strong.”

A-Li: “Yes, eat more chicken. It will fill your stomach.”

Mulan: “Mother, Father, please. Is my cooking that bad? The food is meant for you two–”

......

The sun had risen by the time Mulan stepped out of the confines of her house, unprepared for the unexpectedly loud burp that escaped her mouth at that moment.

“Ugh, I have eaten so much that this armour may not fit my stomach soon,” she complained to herself as she patted her full stomach.

“Eh! Don’t go off running and then forgetting to bring something important. Your clothes, food, water, documents, the extra money I gave you.” A-Li suddenly reminded Mulan from inside the house, her voice travelling loud and wide.

“They’re all packed, Mother.” Mulan replied likewise, glancing at the backpack she was carrying on her shoulder. Her other hand was holding a military-issued helmet, and hanging by her waist was the new sword gifted by the Emperor, its sheath a jade-like green colour, and its blade engraved with four virtues: loyalty, bravery, honesty, and filial piety.

“Jiejie!” A familiar voice called out. Over the opposite side of the tulou lived the Wei family and their new family member Hua Xiu. Hua Xiu was in the middle of doing a chore and was heading out of her husband’s house when she spotted Mulan in shining new armour that she had never seen before.

The sight of her little sister made Mulan call out with equal excitement, “A-Xiu!”

In a blink of an eye, the two sisters ran towards each other and met with their arms wide open, ready for an embrace.

“You look so good in this.” Hua Xiu exclaimed, glancing up and down at the attire her older sister was donning.

“Thank you.”

“You look so handsome. If you were really a man, you are going to woo so many women.”

“Don’t speak nonsense, A-Xiu. Are you really going to say that your sister is not a woman?” A-Li cut in sharply, coming up from behind Mulan.

“Nonononono, Mother.” Hua Xiu hastily shook her head. “Jiejie also looks very beautiful as a woman. Being handsome makes a woman doubly beautiful, just as being beautiful makes a man doubly handsome.”

“A-Xiu!” Mulan shushed, wanting to stop her giggling little sister from continuing joking and embarrassing her with praise.

“Jiejie, you are really going off to the capital now? Are you not going to say goodbye to me?” Hua Xiu now asked in a serious voice.

“Of course not,” Mulan eagerly replied, “I would be knocking at your door if you hadn’t noticed me. It must have been this armour that caught your eye so quickly.”

Hua Xiu only giggled at that.

Standing a distance away from them was Wei Dingshan, who was watching over the two Hua sisters by his house’s door. His expression looked neutral, blank, and nothing exceptional, but his eyes had a timid, gentle air to them even from afar. He was a little shy, Mulan remembered her sister telling her before.

Hua Mulan made a glance at her brother-in-law for a moment, then asked her sister quietly, “Is Dingshan taking good care of you?”

“Yes. He has treated me well, and he’s a good person.”

“Hearing that from you, jiejie’s heart can be relieved.”

She then proceeded to wave at Wei Dingshan, “Brother Dingshan.”

The man hesitantly waved back.

“Eh! Is it Hua Mulan?” Someone called her. Mulan looked around to find the Wei family’s mother, Wei Dingshan’s mother and Hua Xiu’s mother-in-law, peeking out the window of their house before dragging her elderly husband out to see her.

“Hello, Wei Uncle and Auntie.” Hua Mulan politely greeted the two elderly as they approached her.

“Wah, you are so tall and so handsome! You are going to save our country again, aren’t you?” Auntie Wei began showering her with praise.

“I wouldn’t dare, thank you.” Mulan laughed and brushed the compliments off, her set of reactions in response to this kind of flattery already a familiar routine by now. Luckily for her, Uncle Wei nudged his wife with an elbow to stop before she could continue. Auntie Wei snapped back with a ‘I know, I know’ but refrained herself from actually slapping her husband with force in front of Mulan.

“Oh right, you are going to the Imperial Capital, aren’t you?” Auntie Wei asked.

“Yes.” Mulan replied.

“That’s just too good! Our eldest son is in the Capital too!” Auntie Wei then handed out a piece of rolled paper to Mulan, “We’ve been keeping in touch with him through letters, but you know how expensive delivery service is. We would be grateful if you could pass this to him when you reach there.”

“How would I know what he looks like?” Mulan asked honestly. It had been quite a long time since she last saw the eldest son of the Wei family, Wei Dinghe. She couldn’t remember him coming back to his hometown for the Lunar New Year Festival every year. If he had been in the Imperial Capital all this while, it made a lot more sense.

“He is also a soldier.” Uncle Wei provided before Auntie Wei could say anything.

A soldier in the Imperial Capital… Could he possibly be working in the Imperial Palace too?

If she was lucky, maybe knowing this fella Wei Dinghe would be helpful to her. Either way, Mulan figured it wouldn’t hurt anyone doing the Wei family a favour. “Alright, I will take it to him.” Mulan sighed as she took the letter and threw it into her backpack, Auntie Wei thanking her profusely.

“Mulan.” Hua Zhou called out, his voice gravely but spirited. “Your horse is ready. He’s all yours.”

To Mulan’s surprise, the horse Hua Zhou had brought out was not Black Wind. Instead, it had a body covered in chestnut colour from head to toe and a bright reddish flowing mane. The fiery appearance of the horse mesmerised Mulan for a second.

“Father bought a new one?” Mulan asked with a gasp.

“Of course. You are entering the Imperial Capital. You must want to make a good first impression when you reach there.” Hua Zhou explained.

Mulan patted the brand new horse’s muzzle, receiving no resistance for her act. It looked young and energetic, docile yet full of spirit. She thought they would get along very well very soon.

“Father doesn’t have to do this for me.” Mulan told Hua Zhou. Her father must have paid quite the amount for such a fine horse.

“It’s nothing we cannot afford.” Hua Zhou merely brushed it off. “Besides, don’t you think Black Wind is getting too old to get involved in your shenanigans, my little flower?”

“Right.” Hua Mulan bashfully conceded. Black Wind had saved her life countless times during the war with the Rourans. It certainly deserved a break.

Right after she said that, Mulan stepped away from hugging the horse to hug her father instead, startling him so much that he almost dropped his walking cane.

“Thank you, Baba.”

Hearing her thanking him, Hua Zhou could only return his daughter’s hug in kind. Feelings of adoration flooded his heart.

Seeing Hua Mulan and Hua Zhou hugging each other, A-Li and Hua Xiu walked up to them and joined in the embrace. They remained hugging for a long while, staying close to each other for as long as they physically could.

A minute later, Mulan broke away from the embrace and said full of determination, “As soon as I get there, I will find a way to move you all to the Capital. I promise.” She even gave a glance to Uncle and Auntie Wei as she made that promise.

“We will miss you, A-Lan.” A-Li tearfully told Mulan, her hand gripping onto Mulan’s arm. Mulan nodded, then gently released her mother’s grip from her.

When Mulan gave her little sister a gentle caress to her cheek, Hua Xiu’s eyes were framing red and spilling with emotion.

Grabbing the reins and pulling herself up onto the horse’s back, securing her backpack by her side, she was about to turn the horse around away from the tulou when she heard: “What are you going to name him?” Hua Zhou asked.

Mulan considered it for a moment, then she gave an answer, “I think I will name him: Autumn Wind.”

With a whip and an urging ‘Ha!’ to move, Hua Mulan gallantly rode off to the Imperial Capital, her mother, father and sister, her entire family watching on as her back disappeared into the horizon.

Chapter Text

Fifteen days and fifteen nights of travelling alone was what it took for Hua Mulan to get a glimpse of the Imperial Capital. She had seen before how big the capital city was when she proposed to rescue the Emperor from Bori Khan, but it wasn’t until now that the sheer scale of it finally sunk into her head.

Standing fifty miles away from it, she could already see the periphery of the city and the growing traffic towards it. It must be fifty times, no, maybe a hundred times bigger than her tulou was, covering an area greater than all the rice fields from her home village combined. This was truly the strong beating heart of the dynasty, and Mulan for the first time was unsure whether a countryside girl like her could ever get used to it.

The front gates of the capital city were as wide as those of the Imperial Palace, but even so it couldn’t quite accommodate the traffic of carriages queuing to get inside.

Once she had entered the Imperial Capital, there was nothing but bustling crowds around her. The new environment was overwhelmingly loud; alleys, paths and roads intersect everywhere; this big, big place felt so narrow and congested. Out of this endless sea of people, Mulan was seemingly the only one wearing a soldier’s armour.

With the war with the Rourans over, Mulan had no idea where troops usually gathered in the Imperial Capital. How could she find directions to report herself to the Imperial Palace?

Leading herself and Autumn Wind through the moving masses, she tried to absorb as much sight and sounds as she could, looking left and right, front and behind, for any signs of Imperial troops.

Within the first fifty steps she came across a puppet show telling the legend of Hua Mulan, the woman who disguised herself as a man to take her father’s place in battle, crossed mountains and rivers to report herself and fought valiantly alongside her comrades without anyone discovering her identity for twelve years. That last detail was too exaggerated for Mulan’s taste; the war with the Rourans lasted so shortly that she felt like she was in battle for only twelve days.

One thing she appreciated about the Capital City though was that nobody could recognise who she was. People were too busy minding their own business to even take in the faces and names of those passing by them on the road. To them, she was just a regular soldier wandering the city on his own.

“Come get your big promotion! Buy two for one copper, buy five for three copper! We sell every vegetable you know! Buy two for one copper, buy five for three copper!”

Stepping into the marketplace, one particular stall caught Mulan’s eye. It wasn’t only the promotion that attracted her attention. Peering through the small crowd gathered at the stall, the seller was a middle-aged man with grey hair, a loud voice and a friendly face. Maybe he would be friendly enough to give her directions.

“Boss, your carrots are at the same price, right?” Mulan approached the stall owner. Glancing at the array of vegetables on display, the carrots looked fresh and appetising.

“Yes, young lad. Buy two for one copper, buy five for three copper.” The elderly seller replied.

“I want five carrots, please.” Mulan ordered.

“Alright!” The man assented. Sealing the deal, he packed five carrots for his customer and Mulan pulled out three coppers for her purchase.

“Thank you, boss. Do you know where the Imperial Palace is?” Mulan asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe ask someone else.” The man swiftly answered before attending to another customer.

Not wanting to stay at the stall for too long, Mulan turned away and headed further down the marketplace. She was a little disappointed that she didn’t get any directions, but at least she bought herself some carrots.

“Buy two for one, buy five for three! Come get your big promotion! Buy two for one, buy five for three! We sell every vegetable you know!” The seller promoted his stall again from afar.

“Come, Autumn Wind. Eat this.”

When Mulan offered Autumn Wind a carrot, it munched on the carrot and finished it within seconds. The speed at which her horse ate shocked Mulan and made her laugh.

“Woah, what’s so special about this?” She ruffled Autumn Wind’s mane and proceeded to take a bite out of a carrot herself. “Nghm, it’s very sweet.” Mulan said to herself as she chewed. “I guess only the best would be allowed in the capital to sell.”

Further exploring this bustling city, Mulan was halfway chewing through her carrot when she noticed a familiar silhouette twenty steps ahead of her. He had a tall, slim figure, dressed in the fine clothes of a wealthy scholar, and was holding a fan in his hand.

“Honghui?” Mulan’s eyebrows perked up.

Seeing Chen Honghui’s figure unknowingly moving further away from her reach, she kicked off her steps and strode quickly towards where the man had left, pushing her way through the traffic of the marketplace.

“So you went to the Yang Province too?” Some person asked to their friend amidst the crowd noise.

“Ah!” A shout rose next to Mulan’s ear as they fell onto the ground.

Much to her shock, Mulan had accidentally bumped into someone and knocked them to the ground.

“Gongzi!” Someone else shouted. “Gongzi, are you alright?” They were about to bend down to help lift their friend up, but Mulan was faster.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Mulan kept on apologising, “I’m sorry. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” The Gongzi finally answered. Despite the initial shock of being tripped onto the ground, he easily got up from the ground without much of Mulan’s help. Dusting off the dirt on his clothes, this small young man looked younger than eighteen years old, his cheeks round and soft, and his voice high-pitched but unique. Wearing a black cap, black boots, and bright loose robes, he had the looks of a wealthy young master.

“Gong… Gongzi.” The other person spoke up. He was also a man in similar wear as the small young master, but older and taller, around Mulan’s height. He had a sharper face, the way he carried himself lacking any childish air his younger friend might display.

“Gongzi, are you alright? It’s my fault I didn’t catch you earlier.” His friend’s voice trembled a little. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No. I’m totally fine, Yue… Yue-gege.”

Looking at the two of them talking, a mischievous idea suddenly popped into Mulan’s mind: is that a girl in male disguise?

Taking a closer look at the young master and then his older friend, catching onto possible feminine features cleverly hidden under the male disguise, that idea slowly solidified in the mind of the woman in man’s armour.

“Hey! Why are you staring at us like that?” The small young master’s words snapped Mulan out of her reverie.

“Oh, uh…” She quickly casted her eyes downwards and bowed her head, “Deep apologies for tripping you. If only I had paid attention to the road, I would have avoided you. This careless one owes your forgiveness.”

Out of Mulan’s gaze, the young master’s lips twitched into a strange expression. She had never seen a soldier speaking this many words and so humbly just for such a minor hangup.

“Since it is just an accident, please do not take this incident to heart.” It was the young master’s friend who forgave Mulan. “You look like you have some place to go. We apologise if we’re delaying your business.” They added a beat later.

“This one is not in a rush. Many thanks and farewell to both sirs.”

Once Mulan gave her salutation, she pulled the reins of Autumn Wind and ran off in a hurry, leaving the two young men alone.

“That person is strange,” Gongzi complained.

“He’s surprisingly a nice guy,” Yue-gege mildly commented.

“What’s a lone soldier doing in this part of the capital, anyway?”

Gongzi let the question she posed slide away as she saw something that perked her interest and pointed a finger ahead, “Look! A new puppet show!” Not waiting a second longer, she caught Yue-gege’s hand and pulled her down the road, getting an indignant squawk from her friend.

As the two young ‘men’ exchanged more words back and forth, they soon forgot the soldier they had just met going in the opposite direction from them.

......

Weaving through rows and rows of people for who knows how long, Hua Mulan was about to give up searching for Honghui, thinking that she had lost him. Sighing out in disappointment, she caught Honghui’s back around a junction when she was going to turn around.

Almost not believing her luck, Mulan loudly called out from where she stood. “Chen Honghui!”

The man turned his back, trying to recognise the person who called him until his eyes lit up with surprise, “Hua Mulan!”

Mulan strode quickly towards her friend, their smiles widening as the distance between them got closer and closer.

“It’s so good to see you after such a long time.” Honghui greeted Mulan.

“It’s good to see you too.” Mulan happily replied.

Taking a closer look at what each other wore, Chen Honghui sported expensive silk in various shades of blue with light green, red and white embroidered onto his sleeves, collars and skirt in swirly patterns. He wore an ivory white crown to secure his topknot, a matching belt with a red tassel hanging on it, and held a plain paper fan. With such an eye-pleasing look, his face seemed to turn fairer and the young man looked even prouder. This was a far cry from the upstanding but dirty look Mulan remembered from her soldier friend.

On the other hand, Hua Mulan wore a simple reddish-brown inner shirt as well as black trousers under her glaringly new golden armour, the jade green of her sword sheath hanging awkwardly by her side. Her cheeks had seemingly shrunk since the last time they met, and tiny stray hair clung onto her skin due to sweat. Despite this, she exuded confidence like never before. The little soldier Honghui remembered now looked more like an upgraded warrior, the hero who saved the dynasty.

“Wow, you look all shiny.” Honghui exclaimed.

“And you look all fancy.” Mulan responded in kind.

“That’s a beautiful horse you have.” Honghui pointed his open fan towards Mulan’s animal companion.

“My father bought it for me. I have named it Autumn Wind.”

“Autumn Wind, a simple but suitable name.” Honghui merely commented.

Mulan chuckled. “If you say so.”

A beat of silence later, Honghui asked, “What are you doing here, Hua Mulan?”

“I’ve accepted His Majesty’s offer to join the Emperor’s Guard.” Mulan answered.

“You accepted?!”

“Yes,” Mulan confirmed, then she added, “His Majesty asked me to reconsider the offer, even sent me a new sword as a gift. So now I’m here, to report myself to the Imperial Palace.”

“You must have been tired from your journey,” Honghui said pointedly. “If you’re not in a hurry, I hope you won’t mind having lunch with me.”

Seeing the welcoming smile Honghui had shown her, Mulan couldn’t refuse the offer, “That would be wonderful.”

As such, Chen Honghui brought Hua Mulan to a popular restaurant where they provide caretaking services for horses. They were lucky to find an undisturbed corner on the top floor to sit. After Honghui ordered their food and drinks, the waiters quickly filled their table with a pot of tea, ceramic cups and bowls, as well as mouth-watering dishes within minutes.

“So, Hua Mulan, how do you find the dishes I’ve ordered?” Honghui asked once they finished their meal.

“Very good, very good! The capital city is truly full of delightful dishes. The tea is also fine and delectable.” Mulan had nothing but praise.

Honghui only kept a small smile on his lips. “We should toast, Hua Mulan. For success and fortune in your career.” He raised his own teacup and declared.

Mulan raised her cup as well. “For peace and prosperity of our country.” She proclaimed.

‘Clink’ knocked their cups before they drank the contents entirely with sighs of satisfaction.

“So, what have you been doing after the war ended, Honghui?” Mulan curiously asked.

“Ah. You see, now that the war is over, His Majesty sent everyone who had been drafted back to their homes. When I returned home, I had to face punishment from my father for running away to enlist in the army. He grounded me for sixty days and sixty nights, the exact amount of time I had been away from home.”

Mulan blinked twice in disbelief at Honghui’s answer. She couldn’t believe the war with the Rourans only lasted for two months, whereas the Rouran war her father fought in lasted for years. She also couldn’t believe that a valiant son like Chen Honghui could ever be punished by his parents, but she didn’t know what else to expect either.

“That’s… That’s awful,” she reacted with a pitiful tone.

“Nah. It’s nothing too serious, Hua Mulan.” Honghui waved off. “I was completely fine with it as it was. It was my mother who took pity on me and argued with my father on my behalf to shorten the punishment, on the condition that I study for the capital and palace exams. In the end, I have been grounded for only thirty days and thirty nights. So, I’m free, at least for the moment.”

“What are the capital and palace exams for?” Mulan had heard of the capital exams before. She knew was that it was one of the highest tiers of the Empire’s examination system, but there wasn’t anyone in her village who managed to pass to get to that level, let alone study for it. She hadn’t heard of a palace exam before, though. Do the Emperor’s Guard need to sit for this exam? Would there be an exam once she arrive at the Imperial Palace? Mulan needed to make sure, and hoped her question sounded curious in the right way.

Figuring Mulan might not be familiar with the exams given her lowly background, Honghui decided to explain to her anyway: “For anyone who wishes to be a scholar-official, there are three tiers of exams they can sit for: provincial, capital and palace. The lowest tier and easiest of the three, the provincial exam, takes place in the province capital and lasts for half a day. Then, the second tier exam, the capital exam, is held in the national capital and lasts for three days. Finally, the most difficult one, the palace exam, takes place in the Imperial Palace itself and lasts for a whole day. Anyone who wants to enter the Imperial court are required to sit up to the palace exam. You had to pass the previous rounds in order to move up the next tier. And since it happens every three years, everyone is putting in their utmost effort lest they let their opportunity slide away.”

Taking in the details Honghui revealed, Mulan’s jaw dropped little by little. She didn’t know that the path to become an official was actually more scary than fighting the Rourans themselves. She didn’t dare to imagine the competition her friend would face in the future.

“That must be a lot of pressure on you in order to pass.” Mulan remarked once the shock had subsided and she could move her mouth.

“It is.” Honghui bluntly conceded.

Mulan sipped another cup of tea before she asked, “So, when will the next capital exam be?”

“Next year, probably,” Chen Honghui answered.

Mulan nodded in acknowledgement before confessing to Honghui, “I already have some suspicions about where you came from since we enlisted together in the same camp. What I couldn’t imagine is that you ran away from home to join the army. I thought your parents would support you.”

“It’s more complicated than you think it is.” Honghui simply replied.

“Speaking of parents, I actually need to find a residence in the capital city where I can move my family here.” Mulan finally voiced out her top priority since she came to the Imperial Capital.

“How many are there in your family?” Honghui asked, curious and seemingly eager to help.

“There are four of us. My father, mother, a younger sister and I. I plan to move my parents into the capital as soon as I’ve settled. As for my sister… She is already married. If it is possible, if I work myself up to a better position in the Emperor’s Guard, I want to– I want to move my sister’s family here as well.”

A silence fell between the two friends. Honghui considered Mulan’s words for a while before he answered: “There is an estate on the east side of the capital, a residence with three courtyards and two halls, big enough to house your parents and host a few more guests. If you think you like it, I can show you around and transfer you the papers of contract. I believe your salary as the Emperor’s Guard will be enough to pay for the residence and feed your family comfortably. Once you sign the contract, you can move your family into the house with no problem.”

Mulan was struck speechless by Honghui’s offer. Not only had he invited her for a meal, he was also willing to give her a house with a drop of a hat! Just how rich he actually was!

“That’s too much to ask from you, Honghui.” Mulan protested.

“Hua Mulan.” Honghui raised a hand to stop her. “Your care for your parents and little sister has moved me deeply. You are my old comrade too. It is the least I can repay you for saving my life on the battlefield the other day.”

If Honghui didn’t mention it, Mulan would almost forget the time she rescued Honghui from the piling snow of the avalanche. Now that it had been brought up, it felt like ages ago since the days Mulan, Honghui and their friends trained and fought together.

“You are complimenting me too much, my friend.” Mulan refuted sheepishly, but Honghui simply ignored it.

“You can think through whether you want it or not. Once you have decided, you can head for the eleventh residence on Dongyang Road. There will be someone in charge of taking care of it there, who has the contract papers.” Honghui reaffirmed his sincerity.

Silent once again, Mulan considered Honghui’s gift for a while. As much as she wanted to claim the residence right away, she felt it would make her look impolite and greedy to do so. Waiting for a few days might best show Chen Honghui her sincere appreciation of his gift.

“Thank you for your generosity, Honghui. I deeply appreciate your kindness, and will consider your offer.” Hua Mulan finally answered, bowing her head and raising her hands to give a salutation of gratitude.

Seeing his friend’s response, Honghui burst into laughter. “Cut the formalities. We used to be comrades on the battlefield.” Then, he waved the waiter over, “Bring over the bill! I will pay for everything on this table!”

“Yes, sir.” The waiter bowed and quickly went off.

......

“Come on. I can lead you to the gates of the Imperial Palace.” Chen Honghui offered Hua Mulan once they stepped out of the restaurant.

“That won’t be necessary. You can just give me the directions.” Mulan replied as she collected Autumn Wind’s reins at the stable nearby.

“The Imperial Capital is big and wide. A newcomer like you will easily get lost.” Honghui tried persuading his friend, giving the caretaker his money.

Mulan didn’t say anything, considering for a second before she tiredly sighed, “Alright, but please take me through the fastest route. The sun is going to set soon. I do not want to report myself too late.”

“Of course, Hua Mulan.”

As promised, Chen Honghui led Hua Mulan through the Imperial Capital, showing Mulan and explaining to her anything interesting that they came across whenever he had a chance. Chen Honghui knew that this might be the last time Hua Mulan would ever experience the splendour of the city before she would formally induct herself as part of the Emperor’s Guard, probably staying in the Imperial Palace for the rest of her life.

“Ai. This is where we have to give our farewells.” Honghui sighed as they reached two hundred steps away from Mulan’s destination. “If you go straight down this road, you will see the gates of the Imperial Palace right ahead. You may enter from there.”

Mulan looked at Honghui, then up and down the road. As they travelled together, she noticed the increasing presence of Imperial soldiers in the capital, and how there was a singular road that was oddly the widest cutting through the centre, but now knowing that it led to the Imperial Palace, it made much more sense. She wondered how she didn’t realise this earlier.

“Thank you for the meal, and for the hous— for the gift offer, and for the directions. I appreciate the time we have spent together.” Mulan gave her thanks with a salutation of farewell.

This time, Chen Honghui returned the salutation.

Straightening her back, she was about to set off to the Palace on her own when she heard Honghui speak behind her: “Again I’m seeing off my noble friend, finding myself full of parting feelings.”

Mulan wasn’t educated enough to know what Honghui was actually saying, but deducing the changing intonation of his voice, he must be quoting some line from a poem, and a sentimental one at that. This evoked sentimental feelings from her heart, so she turned around and said to Honghui directly, “May we see each other again.”

Thus, the two friends parted ways, one going up into the shadows, the other going down into the light.

Chapter Text

Mulan mounted Autumn Wind and called it to tread towards the gates of the Imperial Palace at a suitable pace.

Seeing from afar some sort of construction taking place along the outer wall of the Imperial Palace except for the giant gate, her first thought was these must have been the damages caused by the Rourans during their infiltration into the Imperial Palace, but she thought the repairs would be done by now, and it was too quiet for it to be called a construction site.

Within twenty strides, patrols had already spotted the man in golden armour riding a horse with a fiery chestnut coat towards them. Mulan stopped Autumn Wind five strides or twenty-five steps away from the gates, which had two patrol towers on both ends of the giant metallic door.

“Who is there?” A guard from one of the patrol towers shouted.

Hua Mulan looked up to face the tall towers and saluted, “This lowly one, Hua Mulan, reports to accept her position in the Emperor’s Guard.”

“Do you have proof?” The same guard questioned.

Mulan took out a scroll from her backpack and lifted it above her head for the guards to see. A man was quickly sent to collect the document from her before running back to hand over to the guards.

“This pass had the Emperor’s seal itself!” One of the men gasped before announcing. The others gathered around him to confirm and exchanged surprised glances with each other. Only His Imperial Majesty had the right to hold the Emperor’s jade seal; anyone in possession of it was granted the power to rule the dynasty. Basically speaking, this pass from Hua Mulan was issued by the Emperor himself.

“By edict of His Imperial Majesty, Hua Mulan is granted entrance into the Imperial Palace.” The same guard from before finally announced. “Open the gates!”

“Many thanks to these sirs.” Mulan gave a gesture of thanks.

The giant door opened a fraction of its width to allow Hua Mulan to enter. At the same time, a lowly troop came up in a hurry and kneeled in front of her on the floor.

“Officer Hua, this lowly one is being sent to escort you to meet our leader Commander Li. Please do not mind if Officer Hua could hand over the reins to this lowly one.”

Taken aback by the servile greeting for a moment, Mulan eventually passed the reins of Autumn Wind to her escort.

Mulan’s eyes stayed wide all this while as she soaked in the sheer magnificence of the Imperial Palace. In fact, there weren’t one but many palaces erected within the gates of the ‘Imperial Palace’. The entire compound felt more like a city instead, except there were much fewer people to be found, replaced instead by the number of fresh gardens and pools and birds hopping between trees, making the place look even more spacious and majestic than it already was.

After a few twists and turns, Mulan’s escort knocked onto a metallic door, not a palace but a huge estate nonetheless.

After some back and forth, the escort dismissed himself and handed back the reins to Mulan while another person from the inside opened the door for her. She just dismounted from Autumn Wind when the man who opened the door asked to take her horse somewhere else. Autumn Wind neighed loudly, reluctant to be separated from its owner, but Mulan patted her horse in reassurance, for Autumn Wind and for herself, before she could finally let it go.

At the centre of the building was a wide courtyard that served as a training ground for soldiers. Moving their bodies and shouting ‘ha!’ in unison, the troops’ forms were overseen by a young man a few years older than Mulan. His golden armour flared brightly under the sunlight, and his bright red cape fluttered as he strutted past rows of sweating half-naked men.

Sensing someone’s gaze towards him, the trainer turned his attention away from his soldiers and towards Mulan, finding a slim figure in an officer’s uniform staring blankly at him. Noticing their body subtly shrinking in intimidation at the scene, this fellow already looked like a pathetic man at first glance, if the trainer hadn’t known that it’s actually a woman.

“Hold!” The trainer commanded. The men stopped as ordered, then the trainer called one of his subordinates to overlook the training in his place. The soldiers continued their forms as if nothing had happened, their focus unbroken, unlike this new officer that came in today.

“So you are the new guy. Officer Hua Mulan. Soldier of the 5th Battalion.” The trainer approached Mulan, giving off an aura that would make anyone submit to him instantly.

“Yes, sir. I am.” Mulan bowed immediately in his presence. She didn’t expect such a young man to stir up so much fear from her heart when she never felt this way when directly facing much older men in greater positions of power like Commander Tung, or dare she say, even the Emperor himself.

“I am Commander Li Shang, officer of the Emperor’s Guard and commander of the Imperial Guards before the Palace. You can call me Commander Li.”

“Yes, Commander Li.” She answered compliantly.

Studying Mulan’s figure closely, Li Shang exhaled a sigh and began briefing on the role of the Emperor’s Guard:

“The Emperor’s Guard is one of the kingdom’s most elite military troops. Only the best of the best soldiers are invited. You, as a woman, had personated as a man to enlist in the war in your father’s place. That, in itself, is a cause worthy of expulsion. However, since you had killed the leader of the Rourans and saved the Emperor’s life, His Majesty pardoned you of your crimes, even offered you a position in the Emperor’s Guard. In the Emperor’s Guard, we give our allegiances to the Emperor and his royal family, even at the cost of our lives. Discipline, etiquette and loyalty are the qualities we value and uphold. I hope you know what it takes to be part of the kingdom’s most decorated warriors. You wouldn’t want to disappoint His Majesty’s expectations of you, lest you be seen as ungrateful of His Majesty’s mercy, do you?”

Now, Li Shang was properly glaring down at Mulan, waiting for her answer as she kept bowing her head.

“No, sir. I do not.” Mulan replied at an appropriate moment.

It was at this moment Li Shang let out a tired sigh. “You came from a commoner’s background far away from the capital, unfamiliar with the inner workings of the Imperial Palace. At Commander Tung’s personal request, he had asked for me to be your guide and mentor for a temporary period of time. He said that he believes in your capability and intellect to pick up the formalities and protocols expected of an officer of your rank.”

Hearing what Commander Tung had done for her, gratefulness overflowed from Mulan’s heart. She remembered Commander Tung being kind to her back in the training camp during the Rouran war. Even though their interactions are little and Commander Tung hadn’t treated her any differently from other soldiers to imply favouritism, she knew that he cared about her enough because she was the child of Hua Zhou, an old friend of his back in their young days as army recruits.

“You and I may be of the same rank in the Emperor’s Guard, but I am more senior than you, so you will have to work as my subordinate in the Imperial Guards before the Palace. Whether you stay here under my watch, it is up to how you decide to behave. Even officers like you will not be spared. Do you understand everything I’ve told you, Hua Mulan?”

“Yes, sir. I do.” She replied with more spirit.

“Good.”

Mulan could hear a trace of relief in her superior’s words.

Li Shang rubbed his chin in consideration before he asked, “Tell me, what kind of duties were you assigned to when you were in the 5th Battalion?”

“I volunteered myself for night guard duty after training sessions.” Mulan answered.

“Wonderful. You shall start with that tonight, Officer Hua. I will put you in charge of 200 men.” Li Shang declared with a surprisingly pleased tone.

“Many thanks to Commander Li. I will do my very best.” Mulan replied gratefully.

Hearing Mulan’s thanks, Li Shang sighed again and called for a lowly servant, “Come over. Show Hua Mulan where her room is.”

“Many thanks to Commander Li.” Mulan responded. She also wanted to ask him to pass her thanks to Commander Tung on her behalf, but Li Shang had already turned around and walked off in a ‘swish’. As her superior returned to the training ground, an elderly man approached her instead.

“This old servant greets Officer Hua. Everyone here calls me Lao-Ding.” The elderly man politely greeted Mulan. His hair was fully white, his skin full of blemishes, and his hands wrinkled due to old age.

“Greetings, Lao-Ding. I thank you for the trouble of showing me around.” Hua Mulan greeted back with a salute.

“Just follow me.” Lao-Ding beckoned as he started walking at a speed considered fast for his age, expecting Hua Mulan to trail after him.

......

As Hua Mulan learnt from Lao-Ding, there were a total of eight permanent estates designated for the ‘Imperial Guards before the Palace’ situated at eight corners of the Imperial Palace. Each estate had ten companies of troops that were rotated every five days, and each company would be assigned one of six shifts throughout the day: dawn, morning, noon, evening, night or midnight. With such a water-tight schedule and a high rate of rotation, no one guard was stationed at one place for too long within the same year, and no one could ever dare to think of penetrating through the walls of the Imperial Palace. However, when Bori Khan managed to sneak inside and abducted the Emperor himself, it spoke to how powerful Xianniang’s aid truly was.

The responsibility of the Imperial Guards before the Palace was to protect the Imperial Palace exclusively, while the safety of the capital city outside fell under the hands of the Imperial Capital Patrol Guards, whose duties include the nightly curfew patrol. Both had their own Commanders, as did the Imperial Army in the northern and southern borders and the Imperial Navy in the east sea. The Emperor’s Guard specifically was an exclusive unit comprising the most accomplished soldiers and military officers selected by the Emperor himself. It was first formed in the middle of the first Rouran war, the one fought by Mulan’s father Hua Zhou in his younger days and where he had gotten his injured leg.

All these made up the country’s military which was led by none other than Commander Li Shang’s own father, the Grand Commandant Li Zhao. Commander Tung Yong and his deputy Sergeant Qiang served directly under Grand Commandant Li’s command, and all three were appointed to be part of the Emperor’s Guard, as they were crucial handles to the Emperor’s reign.

Lao-Ding gave Mulan a tour around the Imperial Guards before the Palace’s West Estate: the numerous canteens, kitchens and bathing pools on the ground floor, the sleeping halls for the troops, and finally her office room on the topmost floor.

The room was separated into three sections: at the centre was a wooden desk facing the door and a book shelf behind it, to the left was a bedroll and a small bedside drawer, and to the right was the changing area and a bathtub. The room itself wasn’t wide, but Mulan didn’t expect much for herself, and she appreciated that the three spaces were cleverly sectioned off by paper curtains.

“Commander Li had specially requested Officer Hua’s room to have windows facing towards the outside and far away from the training ground and bathing pools, so that no man can leer into your room… Since you are a woman.”

Mulan’s jaw metaphorically dropped when Lao-Ding told her that. After the scary first impression she had of her superior, she least expected Commander Li Shang to give such thoughtful considerations to her because she was a woman.

“Please help me thank Commander Li on my behalf.” Mulan responded with a salutation a moment later, her tone reeking of gratefulness.

“Dinner will be served within the hour. If you need hot water for the bathtub, you can just inform me ahead of time.” Lao-Ding informed Hua Mulan.

“Thank you, Lao-Ding.” After that, Mulan sent Lao-Ding out of her room and began unpacking her belongings: an old brush and a scratched ink block on the desk, three sets of clothes in the changing room, a soap bar next to the wooden bathtub, and the cloth acting as her backpack unwrapped to form a makeshift blanket.

Mulan looked through the few reading materials long placed on the bookshelf when she first came into the room (practically given to her) and selected two pieces of work among them. One was a map of the entire Imperial Palace with labels on different locations, the other was a small book on the structures and systems that kept the Imperial Palace moving.

Settling down in front of her desk, Hua Mulan began studying the map with the book in hand, memorising as much information as she could.

......

Sunset arrived sooner than she expected, and so marked the time for dinner. Mulan headed out for the canteen with her armour and sword. She would need all the energy she could get to carry out her first assignment.

The queue was long and all the seats were taken, with no signs of other officers appearing here. When it was her turn, the portion and the type of food given was not dissimilar to the military’s rations during the Rouran war. Quietly exhaling a sigh of disappointment, Mulan decided to suck up her emotions and grovel up her meal while standing in an unoccupied corner.

“Eh, you done eating or not!? Clear up the table for us!”

The loud shout was directed towards the long table at the centre of the canteen. No one from the table dared to move away for an inch, but when another sound of ‘clear up!’ threatened them, everyone instantly got up and left.

A group of arrogant, proud-looking men came in to take over the empty table, their laughter and loud conversation spreading across the whole canteen. The fire of anger in Mulan welled up at the sight of such a scene. What pissed her off more was that this group of bullies was led by an officer, someone of the same position as her (at least in the Imperial Guards before the Palace). She noticed this from the way the rest of the group gathered around him and listened carefully to every word he said.

Taking a closer look at this officer, she somewhat recognised the large, bulky man with a moustache and a beard. Cooling herself down, Mulan returned her empty bowl before approaching this particular officer.

“You seem to be an officer too, sir.” She greeted after she tapped his shoulder to get his attention. “This one is new here. My name is Hua Mulan.”

The soldiers surrounding him gasped at the name and muttered amongst themselves, but their leader seemed to be totally unaware of the person in front of him.

“Hey, Hua Mulan! So you are new here!” He returned a couple of hard slaps to Mulan, who tried hard to not falter from impact. “I am an officer too! My name is Wei Dinghe.”

“Wei Dinghe?” Wasn’t that the name of Hua Xiu’s brother-in-law, Wei Dingshan’s elder brother?

“Does Officer Wei happen to be from the same village as Mulan? The Jinmei Tulou in the south?” She politely asked to confirm.

“Oh, yes we are!” Wei Dinghe seemed genuinely surprised, and slapped Mulan another a couple of times. “We are from the same village! I didn’t forget our village’s name.”

Hearing that last sentence, Wei Dinghe’s lackeys wordlessly exchanged looks of suspicion between each other.

“Officer Wei, I have heard that, your little brother Dingshan, and my little sister Hua Xiu, had married not too long ago.” She informed Wei Dinghe.

“Really?! How come I didn’t hear about it?” The man exclaimed.

Mulan swiftly pulled out the letter from her belt and presented it to him, “Your parents wanted me to pass you...”

Before she could finish her sentence, Dinghe snatched the letter away and almost tore it as he opened the scroll.

“Oh! Now I get it!” He shouted a second later after barely scanning through the letter; Mulan doubted he even read it. “My brother is already married! My brother is married!” Wei Dinghe bodily shook the tablemates on his two sides back and forth until they were seeing stars. “See, I received the letter.” He waved the paper in Mulan’s face with a grin.

“We can be considered as family now, Officer Wei.” Mulan conceded with a forced smile.

“You are right! We are family now!” This time, Wei Dinghe pulled Mulan down to his level by the shoulder. “When we are back home, you are going call me ‘dàbǎizi’!” Wei Dinghe laughed out loud, while Mulan nervously chuckled at the very wrong address.

“It’s… a pleasure to meet you, Officer Wei.” Mulan politely pulled herself away from Wei Dinghe’s touch. “I shall excuse myself.” Mulan gave her farewell with a salutation before walking away. She could hear Wei Dinghe laughing non-stop behind her.

“That’s Hua Mulan.” Then, a sudden beat of silence followed by a change in tone, “That’s Hua Mulan! Saviour of the dynasty! I am related to Hua Mulan now!”

Wei Dinghe’s laughter only got louder and louder. Hua Mulan could only huff out in frustration as she headed back to her room.

Chapter Text

Once Mulan reached her office, she closed the door harder than she liked to and immediately leaned against the door. She tried rubbing away the exhausted features on her face as she exhaled a deep breath to calm herself down.

The night had not ended for her yet, but Mulan felt like she had no energy left to carry on. She had faced worse kinds of people before, bloodthirsty, murderous, leery people who had no qualms with assaulting, objectifying or straight-up killing her, yet a bumbling guy like Wei Dinghe just drained all of her patience and made her day ten times worse.

Hua Mulan was not as strong as she wanted herself to be. This was not the first time she was far away from home, from her family, yet the homesickness came flooding in once again. This was not her first time in the Imperial Palace, yet she felt so out of place. Hell, she was even lucky to see her friend Honghui once again who offered a house for her parents to claim, yet she felt lonelier than ever. She fully understood the point of being here and prepared herself mentally for any challenges, yet her brave exterior just broke like that.

Mulan tried redirecting her thoughts to more optimistic ones in an attempt to realign herself to the present. This was just her first day in the Emperor’s Guard, so she had a lifetime of chances to prove herself. Commander Li Shang scared her at first but treated her with more respect than she could ask for, and she hoped to gain his respect too. Honghui lived in the Capital City, so there could be a second chance of meeting again. It seemed improbable for her to meet the Emperor His Majesty once more (and she quietly hoped to stay that way), but seeing Commander Tung someday didn’t look too out of reach in her mind, no matter how far apart their rankings may be. Somewhere along those lines of thought, Mulan began wondering how her old comrades from the army were doing. Speaking of comrades, Wei Dinghe had reminded her of Yao, but while Yao had Ling and Chien Po and others to keep his loud, annoying personality in check, Dinghe only had yesmen following him around.

With such reasoning, it made more sense why Mulan didn’t like him from the start, and feeling her spirit reinvigorated bit by bit, she slowly peeled away from the door and lit up a lantern for her room. The meal from the canteen wasn’t too satisfying for her stomach, so she finished off the remaining three sweet carrots she bought today.

Mulan was just chewing off the last bite of her carrot when she heard a knock on the door.

“Come in.” She beckoned with a calm, authoritative voice.

It was Lao-Ding who cracked the door open. “Officer Hua, Commander Li sent me to inform you that your men are ready.”

“Really? Isn’t it not time yet?” Mulan got up from her seat with a jump. The lantern candle hadn’t even burned half an inch yet.

“Not yet, Officer Hua. It’s just that… Commander Li would’ve liked to personally transfer his own men to you around your duty time, but something urgent came from his father’s estate, so he had to hurry home.”

Mulan’s eyes widened a little at the information that Commander Li Shang wouldn’t be available tonight, but also at how careful he was in delegating his tasks before attending to his other commitments. He took his duty very seriously, which made her appreciate him more as her superior and gave her something to strive for.

Hua Mulan straightened her back and arms to give Lao-Ding a salutation. “Thanks for informing me, Lao-Ding. Please help me tell Commander Li’s men to wait for me in front of the estate gates and make sure that they have eaten full for the night.”

Mulan’s respectful act was too much for Lao-Ding’s personal taste, but her thorough consideration for her men on the first day of her work managed to surprise the long-serving old servant. “Yes, Officer Hua.” Lao-Ding returned compliantly.

“Can I ask you another favour, Lao-Ding?” Mulan asked with an embarrassed smile, as if she suddenly remembered something.

“Yes, Officer Hua.”

“By the time I return from my duty later on, could you have the hot water prepared for my room?”

“As you wish, Officer Hua.” Lao-Ding answered a beat later.

Seeing Lao-Ding bowing as he dismissed himself, Mulan bowed back in thanks. The woman exhaled a sigh as she sat back down in front of her desk. Scanning through the scattered documents across her desk, she realised there was a lot more she must absorb. There were too many building names to memorise, some words she hadn’t seen before and didn’t know the meaning of, and other words she could infer from context but couldn’t pronounce. She learnt from her father how to read and write from a young age, but it would have been more helpful if she had a dictionary or tutor by her side.

Regardless, Mulan made use of her free time learning as much as possible until the gong for the next rotation of guards rang.

…...

“Greetings, Officer Hua. The 8th Company of the Imperial Guards before the Palace, at your service,” came the respectful greeting when Mulan stepped out of the gates of the Imperial Guards’ West Estate. The leading man had a beard and looked to be in his thirties.

“You must be Commander Li’s men then?” Mulan inquired with an authoritative tone.

“Yes, Officer Hua,” the leader replied.

“What is your name?”

“This lowly one is Liu Yi, Captain of the 8th Company,” came the answer, accompanied with a bow.

“Were you one of Commander Li’s assistants?”

“Yes, but today Commander Li has transferred us to your command.”

“Since you are more senior than me, let me humbly call you Liu-gege. Today is my first day of work, so this officer could only ask Liu-gege for guidance at the moment. I apologise in advance for any troubles I may give you in the future.”

Mulan’s words, especially the address of ‘Liu-gege’, stunned Liu Yi for a moment that he barely managed to gather back his composure, “Yes, Officer Hua.”

Mulan raised her gaze and raked through the fifty or so men behind Liu Yi, some of them carrying lanterns in their hands. She remembered Commander Li assigning two hundred men to her earlier in the afternoon. “So I’m guessing, this is your patrol team?”

“Yes, Officer Hua. The rest of the company are already at their respective stations along the Western Wall.”

“Alright. Tell the men to carry out their usual patrol duties. Liu-gege, a few of you shall follow me and show me around the Western Wall. I want to see and get to know how things are done here.”

“Yes, Officer Hua.” Liu Yi shouted back his response as Mulan started walking ahead of them.

The Imperial Palace was a giant rectangular complex enclosed by three layers of walls that separated the Outer Court, the Middle Court and the Inner Court. The outermost wall was pierced by a gate on each side. The Southern Gate was the widest and the largest, consisting of two protruding arms and a total of five gates with the middle one forming part of the Imperial Way, a stone-flagged path leading out to the Capital City where only the Emperor could walk or ride on it. That was why it was aptly named as the Meridian Gate.

As Mulan learnt about this, she realised that the route Chen Honghui showed her to the Imperial Palace had been towards the Eastern Glorious Gate, leaving her both relieved and pleasantly surprised at Honghui’s prior knowledge, though she reasoned to herself that it would be common knowledge for someone like him who planned to take the Imperial Examinations, which would be held within the Imperial Palace itself.

Officer Hua’s small party walked through all four levels up the Western Glorious Gate, each level being equipped with military weapons, Imperial guards on duty and a row of windows facing outwards to the Capital City. Upon reaching the top floor though, the twinkling dark sky above and the cold winds biting into Mulan’s skin felt like fresh air compared to the relative stuffiness of the floors below.

The quick yet controlled march Mulan applied prior slowed down into a leisure stroll as her eyes savoured the beautiful nightscape of the Capital City from above. She had never seen so much loud activity and brightness from anywhere at this moment at night. Not even the night of the eve of Lunar New Year back at her home tulou was ever this lively.

“Was the Capital City ever this beautiful?” Mulan seemingly asked with awe, like a country girl who never came to the city before ogling at the colourful lights like a child.

A few seconds of stunned silence followed her words, but Liu Yi eventually answered hesitantly, “This is a usual sight for us, Officer Hua.”

“Isn’t it lucky that you get to have this scenery every night?” Mulan said distractedly as she leaned her elbows against a battlement of the wall.

“Most of us have gotten used to it, Officer Hua.” Liu Yi’s voice sounded timid, mostly out of fear of saying the wrong thing to Mulan.

Mulan allowed the jovial noises of the Imperial Capital to fill the air between them for a while until she remembered that she was a military officer, of the Emperor’s Guard nonetheless, and straightened herself.

“Are you familiar with Commander Li?” She inquired. Mulan still leaned against the battlement but her posture was straighter now, her awestruck gaze already retrieved into a more stoic and far-seeing one.

“No, Officer Hua. Commander Li only stepped in just two months ago.”

“What happened to the previous Commander in charge?”

The question made Liu Yi’s expression twist into something akin to fear, but he still answered Officer Hua with a shaky tone, “His Majesty punished the previous Commander for allowing the Rourans to slip into the Imperial Palace the last time and dismissing all Imperial Guards from their duties during the Rourans’ coup.”

“What kind of punishment?”

“Execution. Him and his entire family.”

The answer shocked Mulan, especially the family part. She had thought His Majesty would be more forgiving given that Bori Khan had a shape-shifting shaman on the Rourans’ side while infiltrating the Imperial Palace. Mulan didn’t say anything until a few moments later, “Commander Li Shang must have a lot of expectations to keep up. Now I understand a little more about the way he acts.”

A moment of silence passed between them before she raised another question to Liu Yi again, “Have you seen any other officers around except me?”

“There’s Officer Wei, who takes care of the evening shift.”

“Are there more?”

Liu Yi had to swallow before answering, “There used to be, but His Majesty had punished many officers as well. Now, the Grand Commandant offered his men to fill in the empty positions temporarily.”

“Commander Li Shang’s father, Grand Commandant Li Zhao?”

“Yes, Officer Hua.”

Mulan nodded. “The safety of the Imperial Palace should be of utmost priority, no matter if there’s a war or not. The lack of manpower guarding His Majesty may put the entire kingdom at risk of falling again. So, let us all do our best, to protect the Emperor and the kingdom.” She declared firmly.

While Liu Yi was still deciding whether to nod along or not, one of the patrols suddenly interrupted both of them.

“Officer Hua!” The patrol bowed his head as he reported, “Officer Hua. We caught someone trying to enter through the Western Wall. They kept looking for hidden doors along the wall and were avoiding from having to get through the main gate.”

An intruder? Anyone trying to intrude into the Imperial Palace was a serious crime in itself, but Mulan didn’t want to blow this case out of proportion.

“How many?” She asked.

“Just one person.”

Hua Mulan inhaled sharply before she sighed with acknowledgement. “Alright. Don’t need to make a big deal out of it. Take me to see what’s going on.”

“Yes, Officer Hua.” Hence, the patrol quickly led both Officer Hua and Liu Yi downstairs to check on the situation. By the time they had reached the scene, the ‘intruder’ was already surrounded by guards. The guards had already tried shooing the intruder away many times, but the person donning a black hood wouldn’t move at all. A few guards even began questioning the intruder’s identity.

“There’s no need to hide yourself. Take down your hood.” Mulan ordered the intruder with a commanding tone that hopefully could make Commander Tung proud.

With a quiet sigh Mulan could almost hear, the person let down her hood and turned her face towards the military officer. Just one exchange of looks was all it took to realise and recognise each other.

“It’s you!” The girl exclaimed.

“It’s you.” Mulan exclaimed too.

It was the girl in male disguise whom Mulan accidentally knocked into at the marketplace earlier today. Her facial appearance remained the same with no makeup like before, but without the black cap, her black hair was tied into a simple bun closer to a woman’s hairstyle. It still surprised Mulan to this day how a simple change of hairstyle and headwear could flip people’s perception of someone’s gender.

Mulan remembered she was called ‘Gongzi’ by her friend back at the market, but at this moment, she didn’t know what to call her by.

The two kept staring at each other until Liu Yi interrupted by exclaiming, “It’s Her Highness… Her Highness the Fenghua Princess Gongsun Mei!”

Shaken by this revelation, the rest of the guards immediately went to kneel as quickly as possible.

“Your Highness the Fenghua Princess, please forgive us!!!”

Gongsun Mei sheeshed at the loud apology from the soldiers to no avail.

Everything went so quickly that Mulan almost couldn’t catch up with what was happening. Looking back at Gongsun Mei, she reworked her jaw that had been stiffened from shock and got down on her knees, bowing her head as low as possible.

“Your Highness the Fenghua Princess, please forgive us.” Officer Hua repeated her men’s plea of forgiveness word for word.

Many moments of silence passed by unbearably. Gongsun Mei was obviously peeved, not much by the act of getting caught herself but rather the subservient reactions of these soldiers once they found out her identity. “No, it is none of your fault. It’s me who should apologise for making you worry. Please rise up.”

“Thanks to…”

“Quietly!”

“… Your Highness.”

Mulan and the guards got up from their kneeling position, yet they didn’t dare to move away a single inch. It was so quiet that one could hear the Fenghua Princess’s chest heaving in and out almost angrily (or in frustration).

“Your Highness, the sky has gotten dark and the night cold. Would Your Highness like to be escorted back to the Imperial Palace?” Mulan worked up the courage to ask respectfully with her head bowed.

“Not the Imperial Palace. The Princess’s Palace.”

“It is this subject’s mistake. Would Your Highness like to be escorted back to the Princess’s Palace?”

“That…” In spite of her soft-spoken voice, The Fenghua Princess sounded very fed up dealing with the propriety of it all. Within that minute of silence as she quietly considered something without saying a word, cold sweat began breaking on the guards’ foreheads until the Princess took a step towards Hua Mulan with a hand out.

“Lend me a lantern.”

“What?”

“Lend me a lantern.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Liu Yi voluntarily stepped out to pass over his lantern to the Fenghua Princess. Once she grabbed it, she held the lantern closer to Mulan’s face as she asked:

“What is your name?”

Mulan almost choked herself at the question. “This subject’s name,” a pause, “is Hua Mulan.”

Only then did Mulan dare to lift her gaze up towards Gongsun Mei. She had noticed the slight surprise on the Princess’s face before she ordered:

“You, come with me.”

“Your Highness?” Mulan asked confusedly. “This subject alone or…?”

“You alone. You are temporarily relieved from your post to escort the Fenghua Princess back to her Palace. The rest shall never speak of this incident.”

The guards: “Thanks to Your Highness’s grace.”

Mulan: “Thanks to Your Highness’s grace.”

The guards dismissed themselves and returned to their duties while Hua Mulan followed the Fenghua Princess to the Princess’s Palace. Mulan made sure to be a step or two behind the Princess, keeping her head facing the ground at most times. From the way Gongsun Mei navigated this particular path through the Imperial Palace with ease without arousing suspicion from other guards, she must have done this multiple times, which made her wonder how long she had sneaked out of the Imperial Palace without getting caught.

“Your Highness, this morning at the marketplace, when this subject accidentally bumped into you on the road, this subject had no idea that it was Your Highness all along. Also, none of this humble officer’s guards knew beforehand that Your Highness would be outside roaming in the Capital City, so they captured you under the suspicion that Your Highness was an intruder instead of welcoming Your Highness’s return. This subject could only wish for forgiveness, not only for this subject’s rudeness and lack of propriety, but also for this subject’s blunder and incompetence.”

The glare shot back at Mulan felt as if it burned through her helmet and scalded her head. She could imagine the annoyance, frustration, anger, maybe bitterness or disappointment, radiating from the Princess’s large, watery, clear eyes at anyone’s apologetics and excuses. But from Mulan’s point of view she didn’t seem to have any other choice as a lowly subject.

The revelation of Gongsun Mei’s true identity should be a terribly happy coincidence, yet it weighed down on her mind like a stone disturbing the stillness of a lake.

If Mulan deemed herself as an honest, righteous, true person, better be sorry than be right when facing the royal family of the Empire, because the truth would prevail in the end, right?

Judging by how the Fenghua Princess didn’t say a word in response, Mulan stopped herself from saying anything rash or careless for fear of offending the Princess again and further making herself into a fool.

“This subject apologises for bringing it up.” Mulan said in the end, taking back whatever she had confessed.

A moment later, Mulan heard the Fenghua Princess letting out a sigh.

“At first, when I bumped into you I had really thought that you’re a man. It wasn’t until the second time I saw you that I realised, you are the famous Hua Mulan, the girl who served in the war in her father’s place as a man for twelve years, before she revealed herself as a woman. That’s why you could look through my disguise back at the marketplace, am I right?”

Gongsun Mei’s straightforwardness and informality utterly took Mulan aback and cut through all of Mulan’s presumptions about her. The Fenghua Princess consoled her less like a ruler towards his subject and more like between two acquaintances, two equals even.

“Yes. Your Highness is right.” Mulan conceded before she added, “Actually, I didn’t serve for as long as twelve years, but only a few months instead.”

“Aha, I knew that puppet play was too exaggerated! No wonder you look much younger than I imagined.” Again, Gongsun Mei’s blunt attitude surprised Mulan to no end, plus the fact that she brought up the puppet play from the Capital City.

“Your mannerisms are not like the other soldiers here,” Gongsun Mei continued. “You carried yourself more like a scholar than a warrior. Not even the top generals and aristocrats at the heart of the capital could match your sheer politeness.”

Politeness was a milder word than obsequience, but it still got the point across. One thing Gongsun Mei left out though was a particular moment of discomfort she felt when Mulan’s stare was directed at her chest area back at the marketplace, but that particular fear was dispelled once she found out Mulan was a woman too without malicious intentions.

“I see, Your Highness. This subject will remember Your Highness’s words and carry myself more like a warrior from today onwards.”

“When did I say that you need to change like that? Maybe that is the very reason my Emperor Father had taken a liking towards you, and allowed you into his Emperor’s Guard.”

“Understood, Your Highness.”

They continued their journey in silence for a short while, passing through a second layer of gates into the Middle Court via an unguarded side doorway. Something in the air had changed once Gongsun Mei had spoken her mind, levelling herself with a commoner like Mulan. Although their difference in status couldn’t be avoided, Gongsun Mei wanted Mulan to open up her thoughts without fear of getting condemned if she said something wrong. She was not as hung up by other people’s offences as everyone around her liked to think.

Mulan: “Your Highness shouldn’t be out at such a late hour next time. As autumn progresses, the night will get colder, the darkness will stay longer and the wind will get chillier.”

Away from Mulan’s sight, Gongsun Mei’s face twitched once again into a confounded expression. Why was it so difficult to talk to her? She saw from the capital streets that no commoner talked as formally as that on a usual day.

“This Princess is not scared of darkness or coldness,” Gongsun Mei referred to herself.

“Your Highness shouldn’t go out too often either. It’s dangerous. It’s better if Your Highness stays in the palace, within these walls, where you’ll always be safe.”

“I’m the Fenghua Princess, the only lawful daughter of the Emperor. Depending on who you ask, wherever I go, in or out of the palace, I’m either always safe or always in danger.”

Mulan couldn’t come up with a retaliation this time, which made Gongsun Mei form a small smirk on her lips.

“Also, I have someone I always go out with. She’s my best friend, she’s older than me by three years, and she lives in the capital city.”

Mulan did remember ‘Yue-gege’ who disguised herself as a man alongside Gongsun Mei in order to roam the marketplace. Now that she thought about it, Gongsun Mei would put herself in greater danger if she went out as her own princess self instead of wearing a male disguise. This plus the fact that she had a more mature friend watching her back and keeping her safe spoke to how much the Princess really wanted to explore the Capital City and the preparations she was smart enough to take before doing something as bold as sneaking out of the Imperial Palace, likely without her Emperor Father’s permission. Mulan sighed and felt a sense of relief washing her heart for Gongsun Mei’s sake, in spite of the obvious reality that the Fenghua Princess’s activities and whereabouts were none of her business at all.

The Emperor’s Guard must give their utmost loyalty to the Imperial Royal Family, Li Shang had said. Maybe Hua Mulan truly had the heart of an ‘Emperor’s Guard’ officer, after all.

“Your Highness not only has her convictions, but is truly not afraid of speaking her mind.” Mulan shared with all honesty from her heart.

“What is my Emperor Father going to do? Stop me? Punish me?”

Gongsun Mei’s answer was smug and without malice. It shocked Mulan for a moment, but she managed to gather herself this time, “Answering Your Highness, everything is under His Majesty’s will.” A lowly subject like her had no right to judge the familial relationship between the Fenghua Princess and the Son of Heaven, after all.

Something between a sigh and a huff was released from Gongsun Mei’s nose. “The soldier who rescued Emperor Father, the hero who saved our dynasty, is truly scared of dying.”

Mulan was speechless at Gongsun Mei’s judgement of her character. The Princess was right in a sense. If Mulan hadn’t been scared of dying, would she have still survived to this day after experiencing battle after battle against the Rourans? Her lot in life was a lot luckier compared to many other men and women of her background, but she was still a woman at the end of the day, and her gratefulness for it all was what drove her to this point in time standing on this wide, expanding, flourishing city. However, as uncertain of herself and her life purpose as she always was for her entire life, being scared of dying couldn’t be who she was at her core. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have risked her life to take her father’s place as a conscript in the first place, prove herself in the Imperial Army and be accepted into the Emperor’s Guard.

“There is a difference between being scared of death and fearing death, as is being subservient and being loyal. This humble officer Hua Mulan believes in our kingdom and is willing to die for the Emperor. Only by the will of the heavens and His Majesty’s grace is this subject allowed to continue to be in His Majesty’s service.”

Gongsun Mei seemed to actually consider Mulan’s words for a moment before she said, “I’ve never seen someone with so much faith in Emperor Father.”

“That’s natural, Your Highness.”

“Then have faith in me, that I can take care of myself, and I have everything under control.”

Gongsun Mei turned her head around to see Hua Mulan’s expression, finding the other’s mouth half-open, mulling for words. Mulan looked the same age as ‘Yue-gege’, but there was an underlying solemn presence surrounding her that differentiated her from the rest of the young men and women of the world, whether they be of aristocratic or common background.

“Understood, Your Highness.” Mulan eventually answered.

Before long, both Hua Mulan and Gongsun Mei stopped right in front of the innermost wall that enclosed the Inner Court, the portion of the Imperial Palace where all of the Imperial Royal Family resided. To Mulan’s surprise, the journey from the outermost to the innermost wall was shorter than expected. She figured there must be a secret passageway somewhere that Mei used to sneak out directly from the Princess’s Palace itself and mentally noted down that the Fenghua Princess’s palace was located on the western side of the Inner Court of the Imperial Palace.

“Officer Hua, this Princess has reached her destination. You can now return to your post.” Gongsun Mei ordered with an ease of manner.

“As you wish, Your Highness.” Mulan replied with understanding.

Before Mulan could even take a step back though…

“Remember to not mention anything that happened today. Just forget that we even met in the marketplace. Is that okay?”

The mere fact that the Fenghua Princess Gongsun Mei asked for her lowly subject’s opinion gave Mulan pause. A daring idea popped into Mulan’s mind that the Fenghua Princess might have been embarrassed by both their encounters at the marketplace and at the Western Glorious Gate, which made a small smile start threatening around her lips.

“This subject,” Mulan gave a bow before looking up with sincere reverence, “will follow whatever Your Highness wishes.”

Gongsun Mei flashed a victorious smile towards Mulan, childish and radiant at the same time.

“He’s a surprisingly nice guy,” ‘Yue-gege’ once commented to Gongsun Mei about Mulan at the marketplace, the lone soldier who accidentally bumped into her on the road. Maybe her best friend was not wrong, after all.

“Come, let’s clap our hands as a promise.” Gongsun Mei raised an open, upright hand towards Mulan, waiting for the other to return a clap.

Mulan was stunned by the childishness of the act, but a small friendly smile appeared on her face as she agreed, “Alright.”

Two hands clapped, and then Gongsun Mei suddenly remembered, “Oh, right. You can take this lantern back. The return trip is going to be dark. I don’t need it anymore.”

“Thanks to Your Highness’s concern.” Mulan received the lantern before finally bidding her leave, “This subject will take her leave now. May Your Highness return safely.”

“Mm, May Officer Hua return safely as well.”

Therefore, Mulan turned around to leave as ordered, while Gongsun Mei watched Mulan’s back grow smaller and smaller. She waited until the flicker of Mulan’s lantern light had disappeared from her field of vision before opening a secret hole on the wall and crawling through it.

Chapter Text

Gongsun Mei got through to the other side with quick ease, moving away the plant pot cleverly hiding the secret hole from her maids’ sight to step out of the hole before closing the secret hole and moving the pot back to the exact same position. Gongsun Mei dusted off her knees and elbows first before stepping into her home residence via the back door.

“Your Highness! Thank goodness you’re back. Us servants were worried to death when Your Highness hadn’t come back by sunset.” Her stewardess Xiao-Die, who had been waiting behind the back door for some time since Gongsun Mei sneaked out, exclaimed with relief.

“I got lost in the moment, but I swear I came back as fast as I could. Sorry for keeping you all worried.” Gongsun Mei scratched her neck and apologised in embarrassment.

As if on cue, her other stewardess Xiao-Ying came up to her too, “Your Highness had come back just on time. I have ordered the maids to keep the bath warm. Your Highness could change and freshen up first while I get the chef to cook dinner.”

“Mm, since I returned late, I shall do them all as you’ve planned. I won’t delay your work any further.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

As such, Xiao-Ying went to get dinner prepared while Xiao-Die followed Gongsun Mei to the changing room close to the bathing room. She would collect Gongsun Mei’s dirty clothes to be washed by the Princess’s Palace’s laundry department and later help her dress into clean ones after Gongsun Mei finished her bath.

......

At the same time, Mulan had returned to her office that also served as her sleeping place. After returning from the Fenghua Princess’s task, she had ordered Liu Yi to hand her a report tomorrow before retiring to her room in the Imperial Guards’ West Estate. The second she shut the door of her room, Mulan felt like barely an hour had passed by. She must’ve not done enough for the day, and she still had a lot of unspent energy left which made her untired and restless. The space of her room was not big enough for her to train her martial arts forms, and it would not be wise to get Autumn Wind and ride off to who-knows-where in the middle of the Imperial Palace either.

It was then when she suddenly discovered and then remembered the hot water she asked Lao-Ding to prepare for her. Maybe a warm, cooling bath would be enough to relax her. Shuffling towards the filled wooden bathtub, she dipped her hand into the water to check if it was the right temperature before she started to take off her armour and strip herself to get into the bathtub, moving herself as quietly as she could so as to not disturb the peaceful night.

......

“Your Highness came back so late. Your Highness must have had a lot of fun in the Capital City, isn’t it?” The maid washing Gongsun Mei’s hair and scrubbing her scalp, Xiao-Mi, prodded the Fenghua Princess with a playful tone.

“I definitely had a lot of fun! There are a lot of new things to see and hear and play…” Gongsun Mei cheerfully answered.

“Your Highness knows us maids love hearing every single detail of your trip.” Another maid currently massaging Gongsun Mei’s shoulders, Xiao-Chan, spurred on close to her ear.

Most of the Fenghua Princess’s maids had followed Gongsun Mei since young, so Gongsun Mei practically knew her entire staff of servants and was friendly with all of those she met on a daily basis. It became a habit that her maids, especially Xiao-Mi and Xiao-Chan, would excitedly inquire about her trips outside the Princess’s Palace, so Gongsun Mei had no worries about sharing some of the details with them. It would count as good entertainment for her servants.

Gongsun Mei: “Since the autumn season just arrived, the marketplace was full of fresh harvest from farmers all over the kingdom, and there were a few stalls already selling mooncakes and lanterns before the Mid-Autumn Festival. Oh, we came across one that sells scholarly paper fans and oil-paper umbrellas with the most beautiful painting patterns I’ve ever seen. It’s so hard for me to choose which one to buy because they’re all so pretty… In the end, I bought one paper fan and Yue-jiejie bought an umbrella.”

Xiao-Mi: “Ah, so Yue-jiejie had been accompanying Your Highness the whole day. With her following around, this lowly maid can be relieved that Your Highness hadn’t gotten into trouble by herself.”

Xiao-Chan: “Don’t say such things in front of Her Highness. I can imagine how wonderful it must be spending a whole day outside with your best friend. You won’t feel alone walking around such a big city.”

Gongsun Mei: “Mm, you’re right. Even though Yue-jiejie was an aristocratic woman from the capital, she always has so many traveling stories to tell. By now, she had already travelled through all nine provinces of the kingdom at least once.”

‘That’s one really lucky woman right there,’ Xiao-Mi and Xiao-Chan thought to themselves.

“Anyway, we also went to some bookshops that Yue-jiejie liked to look through the selection of books and calligraphy work available. At one of those bookshops though, Yue-jiejie actually got distracted by a pretty dress she liked from the clothes shop across the road that I had to shout her name multiple times in order to get back her attention. As for lunch, the restaurants and tea shops were full of people as usual, but surprisingly when we asked around, all the private dining rooms had been booked out today. So we had to get snacks from the street stalls instead. By the time we finished eating, the sun was already setting and I had to rush back home, so that was why I was late.”

The two maids exchanged a knowing glance; it was well-known to the Fenghua Princess’s servants that literally nothing could distract Gongsun Mei from filling her appetite to the maximum once good food was presented in front of her eyes.

“Oh yeah. There was also this new puppet show in the capital that was quite popular everywhere. There would be a huge audience gathering around to watch the puppet show from morning to evening, and a group of the same people would come back to rewatch it again and again.”

“Oh, what was the puppet play about?” Xiao-Chan had asked.

“It’s about Hua Mulan.”

Gongsun Mei suddenly stopped herself, the full recollection of her encounter with Mulan and the promise she made with her flooding her mind all of a sudden.

“Your Highness? What is it about Hua Mulan?” Xiao-Mi asked carefully once she noticed Mei’s sudden mood change.

Gongsun Mei quickly gathered back her composure before making up an excuse, “It’s nothing. It’s way too exaggerated for my liking to be honest. I know Hua Mulan was a legendary warrior who saved the dynasty and it is just a play with puppets and singing but… It seems impossible in real life that a woman can hide her gender for as long as twelve years without getting discovered in the army…”

Xiao-Mi: “Twelve years!? Is that actually true?”

Xiao-Chan: “So badass! So badass!”

......

Mulan exhaled a sigh of satisfaction once she was fully soaked in the bathtub. The bathtub was big enough for a man to sit comfortably inside, so there was quite some space to move around in, which Mulan appreciated. With quick efficiency that was trained into her body since her army recruit days, she started by washing her face with soap, then her whole body, then her long hair.

She squeezed her wet hair dry as much as possible with her strong hands, her line of vision following the beads of water drops dripping from the tips of her hair to the surface of the bathtub water level before her vision drifted towards her chest.

When Mulan returned home after the Rouran war, she belatedly came to realise something that she would never care to find out before if she hadn’t lived through day and night surrounded by men in an army camp: her chest hadn’t been as round as other young women her age, not as plump as her old comrades fantasised about, and not full enough to be considered beautiful by her potential matches for marriage. It wasn’t completely flat either, but she couldn’t help but wonder exactly how much the flatness of her chest was caused by the nature of her genetics or the effect of her chest-binding cloth.

Mulan couldn’t deny how restricting it initially was to wear the chest-binding cloth, but the longer she wore it, the more she got used to the feeling, the more comfortable she felt. Eventually, she had no problem breathing fully and properly through it even after doing many hours of vigorous exercise or fighting battles that lasted for days. It had even protected her life once from a fatal attack from one of Xianniang’s terrifying projectiles.

She couldn’t decide whether she liked the idea of wearing a chest-binding cloth for the rest of her life, but she could be certain that she would not be abandoning it anytime in the near future, especially in consideration of her new military career.

Mulan stepped out of the bathtub and grabbed a towel to wipe herself quickly before dressing herself in new clothes meant for sleeping.

......

At a different part of the capital city, a tall, refined woman with a bright and fair face carrying a newly-bought oil-paper umbrella and a bag of delicacies in her hands arrived at the front gate of the Tung Estate. After alerting the gatekeeper standing guard on duty, the front gate opened to reveal a glimpse of a giant mansion inside with a spacious compound and a shiny stone path cutting through well-maintained grass.

“Greetings to Young Miss. You have come back.” The Tung Estate’s head house servant, Auntie Song, greeted as she approached the young lady. Behind Auntie Song followed two younger male servants, to whom the young miss naturally handed the new goods she bought from the marketplace to be handled accordingly.

“Young Miss, the Master has come back from his office. He is now in the dining hall, waiting for your return.” Auntie Song added.

“I’ve got it. I trouble you to inform my Father that I will join him after a change of clothes.”

“Yes, Young Miss.”

After that, the lady went straight to her room on her own without any servants following her. She changed into more casual clothes and redid her hairdo and makeup before heading out for the dining hall.

“Welcome home, Father. How has Father been doing?” She announced her presence with a gentle yet brilliant smile.

An older man in his fifties, his long-flowing robes hiding the ripped muscles underneath, turned around from the master’s seat on the dining table. Within an instant, the obvious wrinkles on his sharp face and imposing aura Commander Tung Yong was exalted for completely melted away to reveal the adoration of a parent towards their child.

“Little Mingyue.” He called his daughter sweetly.

A little laugh escaped Tung Mingyue at the nickname, all sense of formality shedded away as she speedily crossed the room to hug her father.

......

Deep within the Inner Court of the Imperial Palace, inside the Qianqing Palace, the great ruler of the Empire was working at the imperial study into the depths of the night. At a certain time into the night, he was expecting a certain someone to come in with a daily report.

“Your Imperial Majesty,” a familiar voice came from the other side of the door.

“Enter.”

A eunuch wearing a thin mustache and beard and a proud backbone backed by his seniority in age entered the imperial study with the Emperor’s permission and closed the door behind.

“This lowly one greets the Imperial Majesty.” He kneeled on the ground in front of the Emperor’s dragon desk.

“Chifu, what news do you bring?”

“Your Majesty, today the Fenghua Highness had disobeyed Your Majesty’s orders and sneaked out of palace grounds to the capital city in disguise together with Commander Tung’s daughter, Tung Mingyue.” His supervising eunuch and personal counsel answered.

“Mm.” The Emperor didn’t give any extra response.

“Your Majesty had already warned the Fenghua Highness about the discrete order you decreed to seal every secret doorway and hideout on the Outer Wall by sunset today, even explained to her very carefully Your Majesty’s reasoning of enforcing palace security and preventing another coup of the Imperial Palace, yet she didn’t listen. By the time she returned long after sunset and the construction team long gone, the Fenghua Highness was caught by Imperial Guards at the Western Glorious Gate.”

“Did they do anything to A-Mei? Is she safe? Is she alright?” The Emperor finally responded.

The Emperor’s concern for his daughter caught Chifu off guard for a second but he continued, “Answering Your Majesty, the guards quickly realised the Fenghua Highness’s identity and pleaded forgiveness for the possible crime of impeaching a princess. The Fenghua Highness easily forgave them but warned the guards to never speak of the incident. She ordered the supervising officer in charge, Hua Mulan, to escort her back to the Princess’s Palace.”

“Officer Hua Mulan,” The Emperor wondered. “The person whom I owe my life to… So she has finally accepted her position in the Emperor’s Guard?”

“Yes, Hua Mulan came to accept her position in the Emperor’s Guard just this evening and was assigned under Commander Li Shang’s subordination with Commander Tung Yong’s recommendation and Grand Commandant Li Zhao’s approval.”

“Tell me more about Mulan and A-Mei.”

Chifu huffed in indignation as he gave his recount from their network of spies: “At first, Hua Mulan had committed the offence of speaking out of turn when she didn’t have the Fenghua Highness’s permission. She kept bringing up the incident of the Fenghua Highness getting caught by her in spite of the Princess’s previous warning to never speak about it. Also, Hua Mulan had confessed to a crime of insolence against an Imperial royal member for apparently knocking the Fenghua Highness on the road in the Capital City while in disguise, although it was an accident. However, when the Fenghua Highness began a conversation with Hua Mulan later on, she had shown utmost propriety, civility and reverence. Her speech was humble and simple, but no trace of her lowly common background could be picked out from the way she talked. In addition, Hua Mulan expressed polite concern over the Fenghua Highness’s safety, and spoke out in defence of Your Majesty in front of her.”

Hearing Chifu’s recount of the incident, the Emperor slowly began to smile. “Now do you still doubt my decision to let Hua Mulan into the Emperor’s Guard?”

Chifu swallowed a gulp. “Of course not, Your Majesty,” he lied.

“Mm, Hua Mulan is truly fit for the Emperor’s Guard.”

While the Emperor confidently made such a remark on Hua Mulan, Chifu silently brewed in frustration.

Your Majesty shouldn’t have allowed a girl into the Emperor’s Guard in the first place.

For a low-ranked soldier to jump so many ranks to the top of the Emperor’s Guard just because she saved Your Majesty’s precious life from Bori Khan, the kingdom’s proudly-held meritocracy had truly become a joke. If anyone else had rescued Your Majesty that day, would Your Majesty have given him the same promotion? Wouldn’t that set a terrible precedent for others to follow and threaten to overthrow Your Majesty?

That’s not to mention Hua Mulan is a girl. The crime of deception in the Imperial Army was enough to implicate her for life. However, Your Majesty not only decided to pardon her crimes, but rewarded her with the highest prestige a military officer could wish for, a position no woman should ever take. I thought she was ungrateful to The Emperor’s grace when she first rejected Your Majesty’s offer in order to return home, but now that she had officially accepted the position, I wished that she had known her own place.

As a regular soldier with no foothold in the Imperial Court, she’s terribly ignorant of politics and inexperienced in combat and strategy. Hua Mulan had turned into a popular tale for the common folks to dream of, but her name holds less than a feather’s weight within the upper echelons of the Imperial Capital.

Her interaction with Your Majesty’s beloved Fenghua Highness changes nothing. Why must Your Majesty waste effort on a useless woman who would amount to nothing in the end?

......

Back in Mulan’s room, the woman had been reading diligently while she waited for her hair to dry. It had been a lesson her Mother reminded her over and over again across her childhood and into adulthood, to never sleep with your hair still wet, or you would get chilled by the cold night air and fall ill.

Mulan found it easier to internalise the knowledge written on paper now with the new experience she gained on her first day of work in mind. Satisfied with the amount of reading she had done for the day, she blew out the candle and got ready to turn in.

Laying on bed with a blanket covering her, Mulan began reminiscing about her past as she usually would before she falls asleep. She thought back to her early childhood when her Father always indulged her in doing whatever she wanted, much to her Mother’s dismay and her sister Hua Xiu’s bemusement. She thought back to the years later on when her Father began telling her to hide her gift away and start acting like a proper lady, for her Mother, the family and her own sake. She thought back to the many, many matchmaking sessions her gangly teenaged self was constantly dragged into, her skin pricking with a thousand needles from anxiety even though she donned the smoothest silk her family could afford.

She thought back to the night she took up her father’s armour and sword and left for war with the desperation of a child making a last ditch effort to save her father from dying and please her parents for once. She thought back to her time in the army camp, countless days that truly tested her and filled her with homesickness and wavering resolve, admiration and betrayal, friendship and brotherhood but also an undeterred sense of loneliness.

Mulan thought back to the day she rescued the Emperor. She held a dying Xianniang in her arms, half shocked and half dismayed that the powerful Xianniang had so easily sacrificed herself to save her from Bori Khan’s arrow. A sense of grief unexpectedly washed over her at the possibilities of what could have been, that these two women shouldn’t be on opposite sides of war.

The rest was history. Mulan defeated Bori Khan and freed the Emperor, but when she went back to check on Xianniang’s body, it had vanished into thin air like dust blown away by the wind, as if she hadn’t been there minutes before.

......

In reality, Xianniang had merely transformed herself and escaped while faking her death. Dust glittering gold with magic flew past the Imperial Palace towards the grass plains of the north. It reached a different campsite from Bori Khan’s Rouran Army, much smaller and more lowkey as Bori Khan’s were more fancy and lavish.

The dust swirled around and transformed back into Xianniang’s human form, not a single scratch to be seen on herself except for the injury from Bori Khan’s arrow, which was easily healed by herself.

“Greetings to Lady Xian!” Rouran soldiers kneeled down on one knee in front of Xianniang and gave a loud thump of their right fist against their chest.

Xianniang smirked and huffed in satisfaction. After having to put up with Bori Khan’s awful treatment of her for so long, she’s finally receiving the respect she deserved. She walked past the soldiers towards the king’s tent, tearing the curtain entrance open before getting down on one knee.

“My lord. I’m pleased to report to you that Bori Khan is gone.”

A pause, then a female voice travelled out, “How did it happen?”

“He was killed by the combined efforts of the Emperor and a soldier named Hua Mulan. I saw it with my very own eyes.”

Reclining on the Khan’s wide throne was a lady many years younger than Xianniang, her legs lounging by the sides while her left arm supported her weight on an armrest and the other raising a goblet towards her lips. She stopped herself on time upon hearing the news of Bori Khan’s death, then tilted her head towards Xianniang, eyes full of thankfulness akin to an orphaned child towards their guardian.

“That’s one more thing I owe you in my lifetime, Lady Xian. Please, you may rise.”

Xianniang rose to her feet without a fuss and said, “Now is the time for you to step up and take over the Rourans as their new leader.”

“Mm, the plan shall proceed.”

The young female Khan stood up as well and carried two goblets of wine over for both of them. She passed one to Xianniang first before raising hers with both hands, “Come, Lady Xian, let’s toast for a bright future for the Yujiulu tribe, and the downfall of the Bori tribe.”

Thus, two goblets clicked together in victory.

......

“Any more updates on the Imperial Court’s side?”

The Emperor’s question broke Chifu out of his reverie. It took him a second to recover and answer: “There’s an interesting thing that came up from the Grand Commandant’s Estate.”

“Grand Commandant Li Zhao?” The Emperor wondered again. “What is it?”

“Li Zhao has sent a friendly invitation to the Tung Estate, and summoned his son Li Shang to the Grand Commandant’s Estate within the same day.”

......

At the Li Estate in the Capital City, Li Shang marched straight past the house servants welcoming him and barged into the main guest room where his father was waiting.

“Father! I came as quickly as I can. Did something urgent come up? Did Mother fall sick again?”

“Calm down, my son. Your Mother just went to sleep early.” The Grand Commandant Li Zhao turned around from the master’s seat, the shape of his large chest and round belly alone could command an entire country’s worth of troops. One could see the close resemblance between father and son on Li Shang’s physique and the shape of his face.

“So, Father… What is it that you summoned me for?”

“It’s something important that I need to talk to you about, since it mostly concerns your future.”

“What is it?”

Whatever the Grand Commandant Li Zhao had told his son about, it made Li Shang’s mouth switch between a shocked gasp and a frown multiple times.

......

“I heard from the house servants you had been out walking around the city since this morning. How was your trip out?” Commander Tung asked Mingyue amicably.

“Pleasant enough.” Tung Mingyue mildly replied. “How was work?”

“Well enough.”

Even after the Rouran war had ended, the duties of a Commander never stopped. Commander Tung still had to deal with paperwork and other important logistics in the Imperial Army, but now he didn’t have to be separated from his daughter for miles and miles apart to command troops in the north against the Rourans.

The two continued savouring the delicacies Mingyue had bought from the marketplace in comfortable silence. The desserts included almond tofu, tortoise herbal jelly, fried sesame balls and osmanthus cake.

“Mingyue.”

“Yes, Father?”

“Earlier today, this old man had received an invitation to the Grand Commandant’s Estate.” A pause, then Commander Tung continued, “It stated that I should bring you along as well.”

“That’s wonderful! It’s been a while since we last visited the Li family together. I’ve been wondering how Auntie Li and their son Li Shang are doing.”

“I also haven’t seen them in a while either.” Commander Tung conceded, then went quiet for a long while. His daughter Mingyue noticed it, of course, but decided to let it go as she scooped a piece of osmanthus cake into her mouth.

......

After a long and thorough bath, Gongsun Mei finally changed herself into clean, simpler robes with the help of Xiao-Die and headed to the dining room. Dinner was waiting for her at the large round table, as Xiao-Ying promised, which consisted of a bowl of rice, a sizzled pork dish, a fried egg dish and two vegetable side dishes.

With a full stomach, she decided it’s time to retire to her bedroom and dismissed all her servants for the day. Gongsun Mei yawned and stretched herself before jumping onto the eight-step bed with her hair loose and only her pajamas on. Everything was perfectly fine as usual, the hard jade pillow comfortable and cooling and the bed soft and warm, yet the Princess tossed and turned, unable to sleep in spite of her exhaustion from today’s activities.

Gongsun Mei turned to the other side for the sixth time and opened her eyes for once, a realisation finally dawning on her tired brain on the root cause of her problem: the bright candle light wasn’t blown off yet. Gongsun Mei grunted out of her bed, asking herself why she had forgotten such an essential part of her daily routine while she extinguished the candle. Her bedroom hadn’t turned too dark thanks to the lights filtering in from outside, and Gongsun Mei finally dragged her feet back to her bed.

Lying on her usual side, staring at the pitch black depths of her long, wide bed, a late-night thought sneaked into her mind as Gongsun Mei quickly lost herself to sleep: it’s lonely to be sleeping on this big giant bed alone.

......

On the other side, Mulan continued reminiscing while still waiting for sleep to overtake her.

Now she reminisced about her sister’s wedding, the day she departed from her family and the events that happened today when she arrived at the Imperial Capital. Seeing her old friend Chen Honghui and all the new people she got to meet for better or for worse, Commander Li Shang, Lao-Ding, Wei Dinghe, Liu Yi, the Princess… The Fenghua Princess dominated much of Mulan’s thinking, trying to put together the authoritative and childish sides of Gongsun Mei, and where her candidness, sneakiness and forgiveness fit through it all.

At long last, Hua Mulan slept peacefully through the night, ready to take on the next day’s challenges.

Chapter Text

The breeze was cooling, the chirping of birds filled the quiet atmosphere, wispy clouds skimmed past the clear blue sky and tree leaves were making shuffling noises against each other. The gong for dawn rang sonorously, yet the cold Imperial Palace remained in slumber. The only sentient life fully awake at the moment was a certain well-mannered but defiant princess sitting around a marble table underneath a hundred-years-old tree in the middle of a big compound of the Kunning Palace, idle, admiring the new scholarly paper fan she had bought from the capital city’s marketplace the day before.

This precise image of today’s tranquil morning was exactly the same scenery conjured up by the intricate painting on Gongsun Mei’s paper fan.

The meticulous drawing of the Imperial Palace’s Southern Meridian Gate was impossibly solemn and real. It was as if the artist had the ability of seeing through his customer’s eyes and predicting the future, before transcribing his customer’s feelings and imprinting it onto this paper fan in vivid colours and detail. Just what talent did this artist possess!?

Also written in small letters on the blank space at the side were two poetic lines: Why can’t I tell the true shape of Mount Lu? Because I myself am in the mountains.

What an interesting inscription. To directly liken the majestic Imperial Palace to the magnificent, sacred Mount Lu made the whole piece even more philosophical.

Gongsun Mei was just starting to fully appreciate the artwork on her fan when she was interrupted by the telltale sound of graceful footsteps.

“What is the Fenghua Highness doing sitting at my usual place at the table?”

The Eldest Princess Gongsun Ting interrogated her sister while she closed the distance and rounded the marble table where Gongsun Mei sat.

Behind the cover of her paper fan, a smirk slowly crept on Gongsun Mei’s lips.

“The first one to arrive gets to have the best seat underneath the tree.”

“There is no rule stating that the one earliest to arrive gets to choose the best seat.”

“If there are no rules, that means I get to choose whichever seat I want. Right, Ting-Ting?”

Gongsun Ting grunted at the way the other said her nickname; her younger sister was acting difficult in front of her again. “Actually, as your elder sister, I have more right than you to choose whichever seat I want.”

“You may be my elder sister but I am the legitimate daughter of the Emperor, so my status is actually ranked higher than you.”

“You have clearly chosen the wrong day either way because there’s no sunlight today.”

“Then, I will come earlier than you every single day, Ting-Ting.”

“Oh, you can try, Mei-Mei.”

“Hmph, this noble and upright Fenghua Princess would not lose to a mere consort’s daughter…”

“Anyway, scoot over.”

With a push from her elder sister that would be considered as ‘hard’ by Gongsun Ting’s physical standards, Gongsun Mei begrudgingly moved back to her usual seat on Ting-Ting’s right.

“You are no fun at all, Ting-Ting.” Gongsun Mei pouted.

“And you should be thanking me, silly.”

At this point in time, Gongsun Ting’s servants began filing in one by one to lay out the usual meal setup on the marble table: a set of four jade teacups and a single jade teapot, four bowls of rice, four pairs of porcelain chopsticks and spoons, six main courses and two side pastries. Now, it was just a matter of waiting for the other two people to arrive, and the Eldest Princess Gongsun Ting personally thanked each one of her servants before instructing them to guard the palace compound from the outside.

In the meantime, the sun decided to choose this specific moment to peek above the eaves of the highest palace rooftop. There was a reason Gongsun Mei’s seat was considered the worst out of the four available seats around the marble table. She could only frown at the strong sun rays almost blinding her eyes and shade her face with her paper fan.

“Oh, where did you get this new paper fan?” Gongsun Ting only now noticed it and asked. A scholarly paper fan like that was usually reserved for men, and hand fans made for women, like the one Ting-Ting was currently holding, were typically circular or oval in shape and much more delicate, made with silk instead of paper, their surface embroidered with various patterns to one’s liking and often accompanied with tiny trinkets on the handle.

“I bought it.” Gongsun Mei gave the vaguest and briefest answer that came to mind on a whim. Nevertheless, her mouth instantly thinned into a straight line as her eyes nervously kept glancing over for Gongsun Ting’s reaction.

“You had actually sneaked out of the Imperial Palace.” Oh god, Ting-Ting was actually angry about it.

“Don’t you tell your mother…” Gongsun Mei actually bared her teeth threateningly at her sister.

“Have you forgotten that Emperor Father had specially warned you just two days ago? Maybe you should be more worried about what His Majesty will think.” Gongsun Ting lectured harshly with a hushed voice.

“I won’t be seeing him if I don’t visit him.” Gongsun Mei gritted out through her teeth.

“Oh, so you’re avoiding His Majesty, now? That kind of proves my point.”

“But Her Lady Consort Gui will be coming soon at any moment.”

“My mother cares about you and wants what’s best for you.” Gongsun Ting had actually dared to snatch away her paper fan but Gongsun Mei resisted and won’t let it be taken away.

“She’s your Consort Mother, not mine.” Gongsun Mei retaliated by snatching away Ting-Ting’s circular fan as well but Gongsun Ting wouldn’t let go. Neither of them wanted to release, but neither of them dared to assert more force lest they rip the precious paper fan or tear open the delicate circular fan.

“Then who’s the one who raised you when your Empress Mother passed?”

“My Emperor Father, of course!”

“And what if Emperor Father stops you from seeing Tung Mingyue?”

“Since when did you start caring about her, Ting-Ting?”

“I don’t. I’m of the firm belief that she’s a bad influence on you.”

“You’re just jealous that you are not as fun as her.”

“Spoiling you and indulging in your whims is not the same as being fun.”

“At least Yue-jiejie is not stuck up about rules like you.”

“Oh, is that why you won’t call your actual elder sister ‘Ting-jiejie’?”

“Ting-Ting dajie!”

The two sisters instantly stopped their little fight over their respective fans and turned their heads towards the person who had newly arrived: their third sister Gongsun Su.

“Mei-Mei erjie! Both of you are here. Why haven’t any of you started eating yet?”

Blinking twice at the question, Ting-Ting and Mei-Mei simultaneously sat back down prim and proper without a single word, Ting-Ting fanning herself as if nothing had happened while Mei-Mei hid her paper fan behind her back before returning her hands to the top of her lap.

“Us older sisters were just naturally waiting for you, Su-Su.” Gongsun Mei answered.

“Mei-Mei is right, plus breakfast today is all your favourite dishes, Su-Su.” Gongsun Ting supplied as well.

Gongsun Su made an open-mouthed gasp, then gave the widest smile at the food presented to her on the table. Out of the three princesses, it was the youngest who had the largest appetite. She wakes up thinking about food, sleeps dreaming about food, and could eat twice as much as Gongsun Mei on any good day, and Mei-Mei was already considered to be on the ‘greedy side’ when it came to food.

Su-Su immediately leaped onto her seat and started digging in, her lips dripping with grease from the drizzled cooked spinach and roasted duck drumstick shoved haphazardly into her mouth.

Gongsun Mei and Gongsun Ting watched their little sister delightfully devouring their breakfast, falling into a short trance until they heard an announcement from the servants:

“Greetings to Her Lady Consort Gui!”

A woman in her forties stepped deliberately into the compound, donning a spectacular dark green dress that dragged along the floor, her face wearing two red dots on her dimples and a plum blossom forehead makeup, her ears sporting two ruby studs with dangling golden chains, and her head holding a towering lofty hair bun decorated with golden accessories and fresh flowers. Compared to Ting-Ting’s ethereal countenance with a blue-and-purple dress, pearl earrings and double-hooped fairy buns, Mei-Mei’s adorable looks with a pink-and-red dress, puffy ball earrings and ‘ox-horn-head’ hairstyle, as well as Su-Su’s playful appearance with a yellow-and-orange dress, kingfisher jade earrings and falling buns laying on top of her head and hanging behind her neck, Consort Gui was undoubtedly the most fashionable and eye-catching person in the room.

“Greetings to Your Lady Consort Gui.” The two younger sisters Gongsun Mei and Gongsun Su stood up to greet, then followed immediately by the audible sound of Su-Su quickly swallowing a partially chewed mouthful after she made the greeting.

“Greetings to Consort Mother.” Gongsun Ting saluted her mother with a mild expression.

“Mm, good morning to all of you.” Consort Gui returned, the close resemblance between her and her birth daughter Ting-Ting undeniable in their physical appearances and temperaments. “You may sit.”

The three royal sisters and Consort Gui settled themselves down before Gongsun Ting initiated, “Consort Mother, our breakfast is ready. All the dishes are here. We should eat while it’s still hot.”

“Mm, let us eat.”

Thus the four ladies picked up their chopsticks and began eating together, Gongsun Mei kept glancing between Su-Su, Ting-Ting and Consort Gui, but mostly Ting-Ting and Consort Gui.

…...

On the same day, Commander Tung Yong and his daughter Mingyue set off for the Li Estate on a horse carriage. The ride had taken less than twenty minutes, and the pair of father and daughter were wearing their best clothes for the occasion.

Tung Mingyue was dressed in a deep navy blue dashed with some dark purple and white accents, as well as some silver ornaments on her ears and hair. Such a combination of colours would be thought to be too masculine for most women’s tastes, yet it suited her very well while looking every bit an exemplified proper feminine lady. On the other hand, Commander Tung wore an ornate robe in the shade of a deep brown with black threads forming cranes flying beyond ponds and an outstretched tree towards the rolling clouds and sun. It exuded the air of a wealthy aristocrat without being as flashy or attractive as the golden armour he usually donned in battle. The only gold the old Commander wore now were the hair crown and pin securing his top bun.

Their carriage rolled to a halt, with their driver announcing the arrival of their destination, hence the two alighted with careful steps. The gatekeeper recognised the Tungs and opened the front gates for them, both of them finding the master of the Li Estate himself already standing in waiting behind those heavy doors.

“Commander Tung Yong, Ming-er.” Grand Commandant Li Zhao greeted with an almost uncharacteristic happy tone. Almost.

Commander Tung proceeded towards Grand Commandant Li until there was an appropriate distance between the two of them before he saluted, “Greetings to Grand Commandant Li.”

“Greetings to Uncle Li.” Mingyue greeted, one step behind her father.

“Hahahaha! Ming-er still remembered to call me that.” Grand Commandant Li laughed out heartily. Mingyue lowered her head and blushed slightly at the nickname.

“We’re sorry for keeping you waiting.” Commander Tung initiated.

“Nonsense! You’ve arrived just on time. Have you had anything eaten this morning?”

“Yes, we’ve eaten our breakfast before we came.” Commander Tung answered.

“Then let me treat you both to some tea. We can talk while we’re inside.”

“Thanks to Grand Commandant Li.”

Hence, Grand Commandant Li Zhao led Commander Tung and Mingyue into the guest hall where he served them all some tea of the variety of ‘Silver Needles’.

“Ming-er. It has been a long time since I last saw you with my very own eyes. You have grown more and more pretty.” Grand Commandant Li espoused.

“Thank you for the compliment, Uncle Li.” Mingyue responded with an ease of manner.

“Mm. The moment you stepped into my estate, I’ve been observing you, Ming-er. Your bearing is upright and regal, your movements graceful and composed, your manner of speech poised and polite. Your thinking is disciplined, your mind open and your heart generous. You are definitely going to be the most sought-after gentlewoman after the princesses themselves across the dynasty.”

“Your praise is undeserving, Uncle Li.” Mingyue replied again.

Before Grand Commandant Li could open his mouth to say more, Mingyue decided to speak up, “Uncle Li, this matter is all thanks to my Father’s teachings and genuine concern for me. Even though he never had a wife, he had raised a young girl like me on his own. Not only did he give me guidance, but also protection and a warm and loving home. As a war orphan who was adopted since I was an infant, I couldn’t be more grateful to have such a caring father.”

Commander Tung was struck speechless by Mingyue’s words the whole time. Turning his head to look at his daughter, and seeing that Mingyue truly meant every single word she said, he didn’t know what to say.

“Hahahaha!” The Grand Commandant laughed. “What other kind of daughter did I expect from my most venerated student?” Grand Commandant Li gave a hard pat on Commander Tung’s back as he said that.

“Aren’t you also the same?” He asked Commander Tung with a tone of familiarity. “Like father, like daughter.”

While Commander Tung gave a nervous chuckle, Tung Mingyue decided to take this opportunity to bid her leave, “If Uncle Li doesn’t mind, this one wants to take a look around the Li Estate. Is Auntie Li around as well?”

“Yes, of course she is. She’s at the garden pavilion at the back.” Grand Commandant Li eagerly answered.

“I can look for her on my own. This one shall leave Uncle Li and Father to talk alone.”

Grand Commandant Li: “Alright.”

Commander Tung: “Alright, Mingyue.”

At long last, the young woman left behind her Uncle Li and Father on their own and exited the Li Estate’s guest hall by herself. With a subtle move, Tung Mingyue had successfully directed Grand Commandant Li’s attention away from herself and towards her father. She figured the two old men must have some things they preferred to talk through without her anyway, so she might as well find Auntie Li instead.

“So, what did Grand Commandant Li summoned me to your estate for?” Commander Tung finally inquired the important question.

Grand Commandant Li straightened his expression, his facial wrinkles deepening as he asked, “Have you already decided, who are you going to marry off your daughter to?”

Commander Tung couldn’t answer for a while. He immediately thought back to the time in the midst of the most recent Rouran war when he promised to offer A-Yue’s hand in marriage to Hua Jun, telling her that he couldn’t wait to see the reaction on Hua Zhou’s face. Back then, he hadn’t known that Hua Jun’s real name was Hua Mulan and that she was not a man. Though, something about the very presence of Mulan had convinced Tung Yong that she would have been a good choice for Mingyue if she were truly a man, disregarding their difference in status and how little their interactions between general and soldier really were beyond that private talk in the Commander’s tent.

Since her first day of arrival at the army camp where she revealed her father’s name, Hua Mulan reminded him of Hua Zhou, that old friend of his with a talent for war, always full of brilliant ideas and stubborn pride, whose limits could only be reached from the top of the sky. When she confessed to him that she couldn’t live up to the ideals of ‘loyal, brave and true’ expected of a warrior, Hua Mulan reminded him of his younger self, a low-ranked soldier like Mulan herself once was whose life would forever be indebted to Hua Zhou and his sacrifice. His accomplishments as a highly-respected and terrifyingly-effective Commander now surpassed Hua Zhou’s, yet his thoughts lingered on how much higher Hua Zhou could have achieved if his leg wasn’t permanently injured and he hadn’t decided to go home. Even now, after he knew the sole reason behind all of her secrecy and holding herself back had been her gender, Hua Mulan reminded him of his own daughter, with dreams and hopes and a long life ahead.

(Regardless of what happened, Tung Yong was glad and grateful that all’s well that ended well. Mulan ended the Rouran war, and he still got to reconnect with Hua Zhou after so many years despite his marriage plans for his daughter being cancelled. If Mingyue and Mulan ever got the chance to meet, he thought they would become friends, or acquaintances at the very least, hopefully.)

“Frankly speaking, I was hoping I could keep my daughter with me a little longer.” Commander Tung eventually decided on his answer.

If there was anything Mulan taught him, it was that some girls wanted more than just a happy marriage and a comfortable living. Even though Mingyue falls into the conventional expectations of women that Mulan had defied through and through, what if his daughter was merely just waiting for a special someone to come sweep her feet into the air and fall in love with? Mingyue had expressed that she would have no qualms with whoever her father decided to marry her with, trusting that he knew what’s best for her, and so Commander Tung wanted to respect A-Yue’s wishes and desires to the fullest he could.

“Ming-er is already at the right age to wed. Men can wait a little longer, but women can’t. Eventually, all fathers must part with their daughters.”

When Grand Commandant Li espoused that, Commander Tung casted his gaze downwards and frowned a little.

“Additionally, only a handful of people in the dynasty hold a similar status to both our Li and Tung families, and not all of them have unmarried sons. It would be harder than usual to find a suitable and worthy match for Ming-er.” Grand Commandant Li continued.

“What are you suggesting?” Commander Tung asked, feeling like there was an ulterior motive behind his mentor’s words.

Grand Commandant Li Zhao seemed to sense this, and merely sighed from the depths of his chest before he said, “Years and years ago, back when you were just a little kid, I let you join the army against my better judgement and mentored you. I have treated you like a son, but after I have Shang-er, I see you more as a little brother now. Tung Yong, I suggest we can further strengthen our familial ties by marrying my son with your daughter.”

......

Grand Commandant Li Zhao’s proposal was so shocking it threw Commander Tung into a whirlwind of flashbacks from twenty years ago, back when he was just a Sergeant. Hua Zhou had only recently left the army two days ago, claiming that he had no use if he couldn’t fight as well as he did on the battlefield with his troublesome leg. It should have shocked and enraged Tung Yong even more at how quickly his stubborn best friend had given up on himself, but Hua Zhou wasn’t going to change his mind, being the stubborn man he was.

Hua Zhou’s wit on the battlefield was on a whole ‘nother level that even the Emperor recognised his talent and gave him a sword engraved with the warrior’s virtues as a gift. Commander Tung would eventually gain the same recognition from the Emperor, but at what cost? Hua Zhou could have all his limbs chopped off and still rise to the top of the military as a strategist if he tried. What other reason could there be for Hua Zhou leaving except he didn’t want to compete with Tung Yong for the same spotlight and had to let go of his ambitions to allow his best friend to succeed in his stead?

Only two days had passed since Hua Zhou left when Tung Yong was suddenly summoned to the General’s tent and assigned a mission from his mentor Li Zhao, who was then called ‘General Li’. The Imperial Army had gained insider information on the location and layout of the Yujiulu tribe’s headquarters, one of the major bases for the Rouran army and housing arguably the most powerful Rouran tribe at the time, the Yujiulu tribe. General Li wanted Tung Yong to lead the 5th Battalion, consisting of 10,000 troops, to eliminate the entire headquarters without a single soul left behind, promising to promote his mentee to ‘Commander’ once the mission was completed.

With the guilt and grief of Hua Zhou’s departure fresh in his heart, fuelled even more by his hatred towards the Rourans for breaking his friend’s leg on the very day Hua Zhou saved him in battle, Tung Yong steeled his resolve and accepted the mission, determined to not let General Li down.

Therefore, Tung Yong led the Imperial Army’s 5th Battalion to travel north towards the Yujiulu tribe’s headquarters. Under the given signal of a firework, the might of the Imperial Army would rain indescribable terror upon their enemies.

The enemy’s defenses were easily torn down. Tung Yong rode straight towards the king’s tent, killing all the guards in one fell swoop, yet when he invaded the tent, ready for a fight and determined to chop off the Rouran leader’s head, the Yujiulu Khan was already dead, lying lamely on his throne with bloody claw marks on his throat and fresh blood dripping from his purpling mouth. Even with the fire of vengeance burning steadily in his eyes, this sight of a dead Rouran Khan gave Tung Yong a shock.

Ever since he joined the Imperial Army at a young age, Tung Yong was trained to hate the Rourans as mighty, bloodthirsty enemies, and after so many life-and-death battles, he hadn’t dare to look down upon them. The way the Yujiulu Khan had died without giving a fight should have felt pathetic and offensive, yet it made Tung Yong pause, something akin a chilling fear sending a shiver down his spine. The Khan’s death should be the greatest victory, yet it felt off.

Thinking there might be something more to it, Tung Yong impatiently waited for a surprise attack from the enemy, but it didn’t come. For the supposedly most powerful Rouran tribe, there was not a single Rouran soldier present that was prepared to fight. All around him, many homes were torn apart and invaded, pots and jars crashed onto the floor, and blood splattered everywhere. Thousands of tribespeople, young and old, were rounded up and killed. A couple of capable hulking Rouran warriors tried putting up a fight but were overwhelmed by the numbers of the Imperial Army. Imperial soldiers chased down any Rouran escapees with no mercy. An ordinary man got stabbed fatally in the back, a woman through the chest, their helpless cries reaching to the skies.

It didn’t feel right. None of this feel right. The mission didn’t look like a battle between two sides at all; it looked more like a massacre.

“Stop, stop, stop it… Please, stop it!” Tung Yong’s voice wavered like never before, the belated and nauseating realisation of what he had committed suddenly hitting him like a brick, and not helped by the loud, innocent screams overwhelming his senses.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it…” Tung Yong muttered uncontrollably while covering his ears.

One of his more capable subordinates, Qiang Zhi, who would become Tung Yong’s own Sergeant and deputy in the future, rode up to him and asked with concern, “Sergeant Tung, what’s the matter?”

“Tell them to stop it.”

“What? But the –”

“JUST TELL THEM TO STOP IT!”

Tung Yong had yelled at Qiang Zhi to his face, so Qiang Zhi had no other choice but to follow Tung Yong’s order without question.

“Sergeant Tung has ordered to stop the mission!” Qiang Zhi turned around to spread Tung Yong’s words.

It was already too late by then. Tung Yong’s order couldn’t spread out fast enough among his troops, and the Rouran campsite had been more or less destroyed to ruins.

This was Tung Yong’s first actual taste of the horrors of war, and it happened without Hua Zhou next to him. The two of them had fought side by side for a long time… He faintly wondered if Hua Zhou had experienced the same horrendous feeling before him and if his friend had been protecting him from it until now. Was that the real reason why he left the military?

“Help me… Someone help me… Help my baby…”

Someone weakly cried out in the language of the Empire, not the Rourans. A woman with a bleeding wound on her chest was laying on the ground and panting in short breaths, and she carried a pregnant belly.

An Imperial soldier passing by was infuriated that the woman who was supposed to be dead was still talking and raised his spear intending to silence her once and for all.

This, somehow, was all it took to break Tung Yong out of his reverie, his body suddenly overtaken by something foreign-feeling which spurred him onto his feet, sprinting to the nearby scene and shoving the soldier away before he could do the horrendous deed.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?! What kind of heartless man are you to treat a dying woman in such a way?!” Tung Yong scolded the soldier.

His spear clattered sharply to the ground, and the fallen soldier obviously curled himself up fearfully in the face of Tung Yong’s rage.

“Sorry… Sorry! Sergeant Tung.”

“I don’t care if I live or die. Please just save my baby.” The woman spoke up once again with a dying voice.

Tung Yong finally turned his attention to the woman. Under the firelights surrounding the Rouran camp, the woman seemed to have the features of those who were born in the Empire. The dead man lying face-down on the ground close to her, presumably her husband, had long curly hair worn loose as a Rouran man would.

“I can feel it coming out… Please…” The woman pleaded with tears framing her eyes.

Tung Yong hesitated for no other reason except shell-shock, staring blankly at the pregnant woman not knowing what to do for a long while before Qiang Zhi came up to him, “Sergeant Tung, I’ve told the men to stop, but it was too late. Most of the Rouran camp have been…”

Qiang Zhi stopped himself at the lack of response from Tung Yong, then noticed the pregnant woman with a bleeding chest wound on the ground whom Tung Yong kept staring at and asked confusedly, “Sergeant Tung? What’s going on?”

There was a long dragged moment of heavy silence before the question even registered in Tung Yong’s head.

“This woman is about to die, yet she insists on giving birth to her baby.”

Qiang Zhi’s eyes widened, then glanced between Tung Yong and the dying pregnant woman until he eventually asked his superior, “What do you plan to do?”

Qiang Zhi’s attitude towards others was cold and strict, but when it came down to it, he was never a heartless man.

“Help me out.” Tung Yong had decided.

“Wait, shouldn’t we get a doctor?”

“There is no time.”

Tung Yong squatted down to check on the woman more closely before he ordered the soldier still sprawling flabbergasted on the floor, “You! Bring over a bucket of water quickly! Fill it up to the fullest. It has to be the biggest bucket you can find. Go quickly!”

The soldier could only stammer out a response, “Yes… Yes. Yes! Sergeant Tung.”

As the soldier scrammed off to fulfill his orders, Tung Yong kneeled down properly and took out a big handkerchief from under his armour to put it above the woman’s chest wound with much pressure. He had never treated a woman before, let alone a pregnant one, but his month-long training at the medical tent of the Imperial Army (arranged by his mentor Li Zhao, of course) made him aware enough of how to deal with chest wounds.

The woman was about to open his mouth to say something but Tung Yong stopped her, “Don’t speak,” not wanting her to waste her breath.

“You’re going to have to push it out yourself, am I right?”

The woman nodded.

“And you’re going to need a lot of breathing to do that?”

The woman nodded again.

“I hope the pressure I’m putting isn’t too hard on you. It may affect your breathing but it will slow down the bleeding of your chest.”

The woman hesitated for a second before she nodded for the third time.

Tung Yong turned his head to look at her belly, trying to deduce something before he ordered, “Qiang Zhi, slowly move her legs until the knees are up, then take off any pants she has.”

Qiang Zhi let out a silent gasp of daze but he quickly complied anyway, “Yes, Sergeant Tung.”

As Qiang Zhi carefully and deliberately lifted up the woman’s legs though, Tung Yong could feel more blood flowing out from the chest wound, soaking through his handkerchief and staining his hands. He put in a degree more pressure, and the woman started coughing heavily with blood.

“You have to get yourself together, woman. You want it to survive, right?” Tung Yong asked with the cold seriousness of a General.

The woman stopped herself from coughing, a hand covering her mouth as she grunted to Tung Yong an acknowledgement, a thick drip of blood flowing from the corner of her lips.

Tung Yong turned his head up and flicked it left and right, complaining under his breath, “Where the hell is the bucket of water?”

As if right on cue, the soldier arrived with a large wide bucket of water as instructed. “The water’s here, Sergeant Tung,” he announced.

“Good, you’re going to stand back and watch.”

“Yes, Sergeant Tung.”

“Qiang Zhi, you’re going to tell me what you see down there.”

“Yes, Sergeant Tung.”

“Okay,” Tung Yong now turned towards the woman, “you’re going to follow my count to three and push as hard as you can. Can you do that?”

The woman almost made a cough again but desperately held herself back to give a nod.

“Okay, get ready.”

The three men and one woman each took a deep breath to steel themselves. Tung Yong felt the woman grabbing his thigh for something to hold onto, and he began the countdown:

“On the count of one, two, three… Push!”

“AHHHHH!!!”

After what felt like too many sweltering and highly-stressful hours had gone by, the baby was successfully given birth, but the mother expectantly died from blood loss and too much exertion. The baby was placed in the bucket of water and cut from its umbilical cord. It was meant to be Qiang Zhi and the other soldier’s task to wash the baby clean, but Tung Yong dismissed them both and did it himself.

Tung Yong’s actions intrigued the rest of his soldiers and raised too many questions among them. What kind of man was he to help a dying woman from the Rourans to give birth? For what reason did he want the child for himself?

“Kree-eee-ar!” The shriek of a hawk travelled loud and clear above the soldiers. It circled ominously around the big Yujiulu campsite before turning its attention to Commander Tung with an infant in his hands. Commander Tung looked up and looked at the hawk in the eyes, a furrow obvious between his eyebrows. Some sort of understanding passed the hawk’s yellow eyes before it shrieked once again and flew off without a care, as if it hadn’t been there in the first place.

At the end of the day, the mission was successful. The 5th Battalion returned laughing every second the whole way home, expecting a big celebration for their victory and a very long break from the Rourans’ attacks, and Tung Yong brought back a baby girl (against his better judgement, in Grand Commandant Li Zhao’s words).

The baby girl had a bright, fair face like the full moon, so Tung Yong named the baby girl: Mingyue.

Chapter Text

“Tung Yong? Tung Yong? Tung Yong! Tung Yong, wake up!”

Commander Tung Yong’s mind was brought back to reality with a hard shake from his mentor Li Zhao. He returned to his senses with a startle, his eyes darting left and right at their surroundings before facing Grand Commandant Li, “What happened to me?”

“Your face suddenly turned very pale, and your nose started bleeding.”

Hearing that, Commander Tung’s hand instinctively reached up to wipe his nose.

“I’ve never seen you have such an intense reaction.” Grand Commandant Li added.

As proof of what Grand Commandant Li said was true, Commander Tung caught a small amount of fresh blood on his fingertips. His mentor was right: he never had such a reaction before.

“My body must be aging faster than I expected.” Commander Tung tediously excused. “I… Noticed, I couldn’t move as fast as I wanted to on the battlefield. Sometimes, I would even get very painful headaches at random times.”

“Don’t get yourself too stressed, my friend.” Grand Commandant Li patted Commander Tung’s shoulder to comfort him. “What’s important is to keep your body healthy and your mind clear. I advise you to keep your emotions regulated. Try doing some meditation, or go to the temple to pray for peace of mind. No more overworking yourself, eat healthily and make sure to have enough good sleep every day.”

Then, Grand Commandant Li began reassuring his mentee, “A wedding itself should be a happy occasion for everyone involved. Shang-er himself is not ready. I’ve only discussed it with him yesterday. It’s okay if you take your time to think about it.”

After hearing Grand Commandant Li’s rassurance, Commander Tung relaxed a little bit. “Yeah. Thank you for the advice, Grand Commandant Li.”

“Aiyah, there’s no need to thank me.” Grand Commandant Li casually waved his hand. “I’m ten years older than you. It’s natural I will have more experience than you.”

“You’re right, Grand Commandant Li.” Commander Tung stopped thanking his mentor further.

Settling himself down a bit more, Commander Tung returned to their previous topic of conversation, “Coming back to where we stopped, this one Tung Yong wants to think carefully about your proposal. I don’t want to see my daughter getting into a marriage that she’ll regret, so I will ask for her opinion first.”

“Hahahaha!” Grand Commandant Li burst into laughter again. “You can ask your daughter all you want, but I personally think Ming-er wouldn’t mind at all! Both Ming-er and Shang-er have known each other since they were kids. I’m certain they will get along very well as a couple.”

......

At the back garden of the Li Estate, beneath the cooling shade of a pavilion, Auntie Li was leisurely refilling her own cup of tea while Li Shang turned a black stone between his fingers, his attention fully focused on the chessboard in front of him.

“I’m still waiting for your move, A-Shang.” Auntie Li reminded him. She had been waiting for her son’s move for two full minutes already.

“You’re putting me in a tight spot, Mother.” Li Shang replied.

He was given the first turn of the game, yet his mother had already quickly caught up to him. Li Shang didn’t want to break his carefully-built formation on the board, but he didn’t like to sacrifice his own stones in order to gain an upper hand in the game. This was the reason he contemplated for so long on what move to make, which ‘eye’ to place his next stone.

“You’re lucky I’m not your father.” Li Shang’s mother mentioned. “He would have used this opportunity to give you a ruthless beating and teach you a lesson.”

Li Shang’s eyebrows frowned, his fingers’ grip tightening on his stone. The utter sense of defeat whenever he played against his father wasn’t something that could be easily wiped out from his memories. It motivated him to improve his skill set and climb up the ranks to become the youngest Commander in the dynasty’s history, just at the age of 22. He was also by far the youngest officer lucky to be part of the Emperor’s Guard, until the girl Hua Mulan beat him to it at the age of 20.

As if already making his decision, Li Shang was about to place his next move before he was interrupted…

“Greetings to Auntie Li and Li Shang. How are you doing?”

Both Li Shang and his mother turned their heads towards the source of the voice. Tung Mingyue was standing ten steps away on the stone path leading towards the pavilion, giving a salute with a mild smile.

“A-Ming! You have come!” Auntie Li exclaimed. She prompted Mingyue to come over to her side and gave the younger woman a very motherly hug which Mingyue returned politely.

“It’s good to see you.” Auntie Li said.

“It’s good to see you too, Auntie Li.” Mingyue returned with a blooming smile. Being raised by a single father, Auntie Li was as close to a mother that Tung Mingyue had.

“Oh my, A-Ming suddenly looked so pretty…”

“Thank you. Uncle Li had already told me that.”

“But he didn’t tell you you’re getting fatter.” Auntie Li said as she poked one of Mingyue’s cheeks, cheekily smiling.

“Am I?” Mingyue asked with a surprised raise of her brow.

“Oh, yes. I can tell that your cheeks are getting rounder.” Auntie Li poked at her cheeks one more time.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Noooo… You have such a pretty face, girls like you cannot get too fat or too skinny no matter what.”

“I understand, Auntie Li.”

Then, after the two of them had talked as if they were in their own world, Mingyue turned her head to look at the chess game on the marble table.

“Oh, both of you are playing chess? Who is winning?”

“My son, of course!”

“Mother…” Li Shang sounded both embarrassed and defeated. Tung Mingyue noticed this, and deducing from the current stalemate on the chessboard, she decided to not pursue this subject further.

“Oh, Auntie Li. In light of today’s visit, my father and I have brought some presents for the Li family. While I was looking for you, I asked one of your servants along the way to carry them in. I hope Auntie Li will enjoy them.”

“Eh? What kind of presents?”

“Ginseng, dried seahorse, ephedra, lingzhi mushrooms, luo-han-guo, western wild ginger, five-flavour berries, loquat leaves, bai-hua-qian-hu, pummelo peel, perilla leaves, aster roots, cordyceps, lily bulbs, turmeric, cinnamon… All of them can help to treat your cough and strengthen your body, Auntie Li.”

Just hearing Mingyue listing out all the items almost made Auntie Li fall to the ground in shock, “Aiyah. Aiyah. That’s… That’s too much already. How many items did you bring?”

“Sixteen in total. As long as they are stored properly, they can be used over a long period of time. Many years, in fact.”

“Then, help me thank your father for all the gifts. You must do that for me. Please.” Auntie Li started tearing up, her eyes framing red. Slightly surprised by the reaction, Tung Mingyue turned her gaze to look at Li Shang for any explanation, but he stayed quiet, looking uncharacteristically anxious.

For one of the supposedly wealthiest estates in the capital, Mingyue didn’t expect that such act of generosity would affect Auntie Li so much that she teared up. Yes, the amount of presents was decidedly a lot, but the medicinal ingredients should be relatively affordable considering the Li Estate’s status. In the end, she decided to not look further into the reason behind it.

“It’s what the Grand Commandant’s Estate deserves.” Tung Mingyue told Auntie Li. She passed Auntie Li a handkerchief which the older woman received to wipe off her tears before she returned it to Mingyue.

“Li Shang, how are you doing?” Mingyue asked courteously.

“I’m… I’m doing fine, Mingyue.” Li Shang replied.

“That’s good to hear.” Mingyue said before excusing herself, “I won’t bother your chess game any further. I shall take my leave.”

She gave both Li Shang and Auntie Li a salute before stepping off the pavilion with delicate steps.

“Mingyue!” Li Shang suddenly shouted.

Mingyue paused in her tracks. When she turned back around, she saw Li Shang taking giant steps towards her in a rush.

“You… You have done so much for our Li family…” Li Shang said that as if he had a lack of breath. “I’ve prepared a gift for you too!”

He took out a box in a hurry before presenting it to Mingyue with a slight bow of his head, “Here. Take this from me!”

Not knowing how else to respond, Tung Mingyue had no choice but to accept Li Shang’s gift. Once she opened it, she let out a quiet gasp at the carved white jade hairpin found inside the box.

Isn’t this a confession of love?

“Do… Do you… Do you like it?” Li Shang stuttered.

Tung Mingyue lifted her gaze upward and looked at him with eyes of bewilderment. Li Shang couldn’t stand looking at her for long so he excused himself, “I’m sorry. I must be embarrassing myself.”

Li Shang walked off in the other direction, unaware of Mingyue and his mother calling him to come back. He used his hand to cover the flush on his face, feeling his body temperature rising from embarrassment.

Li Shang was so absorbed in his feelings that he didn’t realise he had walked out of his house through the back door and was almost knocked over by a horse carriage passing by.

“Ahh!” Li Shang shouted.

“Whinny!!!” The horse neighed loudly as the driver quickly pulled the reins with much force to avoid Li Shang, causing the carriage to swerve violently to the side.

“Watch where you’re going, you idiot!” The driver complained loudly.

Li Shang winced at himself for causing such an inconvenience and apologised profusely, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“You young lads don’t even keep your eyes open when –”

The driver suddenly closed his mouth, probably being stopped by the person inside the carriage.

Said person decided to step out of the carriage and give some polite reassurance.

“We’re sorry for almost knocking into you. I hope you didn’t get injured anywhere.”

Hearing that familiar voice, Li Shang’s mood suddenly changed.

“You?” Li Shang deadpanned.

Chen Honghui flashed a cheeky grin as he said, “Ah, so it’s you, Li Shang. How is my friend doing?”

“I’m not your friend.” Li Shang hissed out his retort as he stood back up.

“We attended the same academy, the same year, even the same class. In my mind, that makes us friends.” Chen Honghui walked closer and closer to Li Shang.

“That makes us classmates, not friends.” Li Shang rebutted again before he asked annoyingly, “What are you doing here?”

“Me? Isn’t it obvious? I’m setting off to take the provincial exams.” Honghui then turned the question back to Li Shang. “I should be asking, what are you doing here?”

“None of your business. We are just standing right outside my house.” Li Shang pointed to the giant back door of his giant estate.

“Wow, Commander Li Shang has lived here his whole life, yet he’s not familiar with the back lane of his estate?” One could hear the sarcasm dripping heavily from Honghui’s mouth.

“Why do you even need to use the back lane of my estate?”

“None of your business. I get to use whichever path I want to.”

“Then use other lanes!”

“Other lanes are not as fast as this one.”

“But it doesn’t seem you’re rushing for time!”

“Says the one who started this argument in the first place.”

“You!”

As Li Shang and Chen Honghui kept on arguing and facing off against each other, Tung Mingyue and Auntie Li were standing awkwardly at the side, watching the almost comically-looking scene unfold in front of their eyes.

“Do they always fight all the time?” Auntie Li asked ashamedly.

Tung Mingyue sighed exasperatedly beside her, “Yeah, they do.”