TRUE GRACE
Chapter One: The Blood of the Qiao
Six years after the fight….
"Hey, now," Xiao Qiao said to her young son, Zhou Xun. "No boys in Ying's room. You know that, Zhou Xun."
"Okay." Zhou Xun mumbled, leaving the bedroom to his own. Xiao Qiao gave him a kiss on the forehead as she whispered a loving goodnight to him. She walked over to a bed, where a little girl, five years old, lay. She clutched onto her doll as Xiao sat on her bed with her.
"Get some rest, Zhou Ying. Tomorrow's the first day of spring, and it will be a joyous occasion for us." Xiao said happily to her daughter.
"Can you tell me a story, mommy?" The girl asked.
"Not tonight, sweetie."
"Please?" The young girl persisted with innocence. Xiao couldn't resist it.
"Okay, okay." Xiao got situated as she lay down beside her beloved daughter. "Which one?"
"The one about you and daddy! That's my favorite one!" The girl grinned.
"All right," Xiao breathed in as she prepared the story.
"Years ago, there was a beautiful young girl and her older sister. One night, the younger sister had this dream about a boy she met eleven years ago. That night, she saw him again, and he saved her life from an evil madman. She was given two beautiful fans from a strategist, who told her to fight in a rebellion with the boy she met. The fans had magical powers in them, and she promised to protect her lover. The rebellion was ended as the young woman and her beloved defeated the leader of the Yellow Turbans, the enemy. As they were celebrating, the madman from the nights before took away the young girl and imprisoned her in his palace. She was kept in the bedroom of his prized young woman, who befriended the frightened young girl. With her new friend's help, the young girl escaped, where her lover came for her rescue. In a heroic battle with the madman, he destroyed her fans, but with the power of love, they transformed into a new pair that defeated the madman, finishing him off for good. And that night, the young girl and her lover properly reunited, got engaged, got married, and they still love each other to this day. And today, they have three beautiful children…Zhou Xun…Zhou Yin…and…" Xiao Qiao kissed her daughter on the head.
"Zhou Ying."
………………………………
8 years later…
"Zhou Xun, Zhou Yin! Get your butts down here and eat your supper!" An energetic and free-spirited teen girl shouted from the kitchen. Not long after, her two younger brothers came down and ran around, having a fake sword fight with invisible swords.
"I am Sun Jian! The ruler of Wu!" Zhou Yin exclaimed proudly.
"No fair! I was gonna be Sun Jian!" Zhou Xun pouted. This stopped the sword fight.
"I said so first!" Yin stated.
"But I'm older than you!"
"Only by a year!"
"A year still counts, idiot!"
The two continued bickering, which annoyed the free-spirited girl. She took the wooden ladle she was stirring their wonton soup with, and she threw it at them, which barely missed their heads.
"How old are you two again? Fighting over nothing like little boys isn't solving anything!" She snapped at them.
"He started it!" They both said in perfect unison, pointing to each other.
"I don't give a care on who started it, because I'm finishing it." She said as she carried bowls of wonton soup over to the table.
This is what my early afternoons are like. My younger brothers are always arguing over stupid things, even though they're ages twelve and eleven.
My name is Zhou Ying. I'm fourteen years old. I'm the oldest child in my family. My father is a strategist in the Wu army, and my mother used to fight alongside him, but she usually stays home most of the time. My father doesn't stay home a lot, and I only spot him in the early mornings before he departs from our home.
My mother usually spends a lot of time with her sister, my aunt Da Qiao, so she gets home really late, too. So, that makes me in charge of the entire house. Pretty cool, huh?
(The rest of this is going to be Zhou Ying's POV)
"No fair! Zhou Xun got more soup in his bowl than I did!" Yin whimpered angrily.
"I'm older!" Xun repeated, slurping some soup.
"How do you even complain over these things?" I asked them, sitting down at the table with my bowl of soup.
"But I want to be strong like daddy!" Yin stated to me. I raised an eyebrow. Zhou Yin has been saying that ever since he was three years old, and it surprises me that he's still saying it. He really looks up to his father. "That means that if I have more soup, I'll get more strength!"
"You can have more later. I made plenty." I assured him.
I like being in charge. It gives me that big leadership role, just like father sometimes.
I've been told many times that I was an exact copy of my mother. My father mostly told that to me. He said that I had her temper, her free spirit, and her beauty. The only thing that I pretty much have of my father is his black hair and his bronze-colored eyes.
"Zhou Ying! Can we go outside in the gardens?" Yin asked me.
"Yep. It is the first day of spring, after all." I nodded my head, finishing the last of my soup. I'm the quickest eater in my family.
The three of us finished our meals and went outside in the gardens. Xun and Yin played more games with each other as I walked over to an area filled with cherry blossoms. My mother told me a story about how she practiced her fighting skills in this area of the gardens. It's really nice how my mother was so strong at the age of sixteen. I wish I could discover my strengths sometimes.
But, no. Who needs super strength? I have more important things to handle. Like keeping an eye on my little brothers or cleaning up the house.
"Zhou Ying!!" I heard Yin call from behind me. I turned around and saw him running towards me. He looked a little petrified.
"Is something wrong?" I asked him.
"There's a weird guy in the gardens!" He pointed in the direction whence he came from.
"And Zhou Xun is still over there?" I asked him sternly. He nodded his head. I immediately ran over to where Yin came from, and saw Zhou Xun…talking to another person. He had a straw hat on…and peasant-like clothing on. He was also carrying a wooden sword on his back, and his black hair reached to his shoulders. He was leaning against a tree, his whole body hidden in the cool shade.
"Oh, Zhou Ying." Xun spotted me out of the corner his eye.
"Who is this?" I asked him.
"I was expecting this sister of yours to have better manners." The young man in the straw hat said. I got a better look at his face now. He had soft blue eyes, and he looked around my age.
"Zhou Ying, this is Shao Qing. He's a wanderer. He's fourteen, just like you." Xun told me. I didn't have time to show a single part of 'Nice to meet you, Mr. Wanderer guy' at all, and so I gave Shao Qing a menacing stare.
"It's impolite to intrude into someone else's property. I suggest you leave before our parents arrive." I told him.
"Aw, that's mean." Shao Qing said, slumping down to the ground and continued leaning against the tree.
"What's mean is that you're not listening to anything that I say." I snapped at him.
"So your name is Zhou Ying?" Shao Qing changed the subject.
"Yes, it is, now leave."
"It's a pretty name."
"Quit changing the subject. Leave this place at once."
"Nahh…" He said. He enjoyed annoying me, I could easily tell. "I like it here. I've been traveling for days."
"Well find somewhere else to stay. This is the last place you would want to stay, believe me—,"
"Could you get me some water?" Shao Qing asked me, completely interrupting me.
"Now I'm your waitress? How rude of you to interrupt a girl like that!" I glared.
"I'll get some water, Shao Qing." Zhou Xun said, running inside of our home to get a cup of water.
Unbelievable…"What makes me so unwelcome here?" Shao Qing asked me.
"A lot of things, actually," I began. "My mother and father wouldn't allow it, you've invaded our property, and you're just annoying."
"Why, thank you." He said, as if the title 'annoying' was a compliment, and it wasn't meant to be. I groaned loudly.
"I don't trust you staying with us, anyway." I said to him. He chuckled, giving me a grin.
"You remind me of my sister." He changed the subject again.
"How is that?" I asked.
"She has a temper like you, but she's gentle and caring. Her name's Lin Qing. She's a year younger than me, but she still acts like the leader of everything. We traveled together, but we were separated a year ago."
"Separated?"
"We were in a bad place. There was an unexpected battle from the war, and she wanted to participate in the battle, being her strong and adventurous self. She said if she didn't return by dawn, I had to leave. You can guess what I did, huh? She's probably dead."
"Don't be so pessimistic. She's probably still out there." I told him, being comforting for once towards him. He smiled at me.
"And I thought you were a pessimist yourself, and yet you're an optimist? Heh."
"What's so funny?" I asked him.
"If I could, I would marry you." He smiled at me.
"Fat chance!" I snapped at him, and not long after that shriek, Zhou Xun came up, finally bringing Shao Qing his water.
"Why thank you, Zhou Xun." Shao Qing took the small cup of water and he drank the entire thing in just a few large gulps. "That's the stuff. I haven't had a cup of fresh water in such a long period of time."
"Now that you've had your drink, you may leave now." I stood up and walked over to Xun, resting my hands on his shoulders.
"Aww, so soon? I want to stay." Shao Qing smiled playfully. "This tree is a nice place. I'll stay here. Besides, it is a good place to get out of reach from you pesky women."
That really made me mad.
"Pesky? PESKY? PESKY?" I shouted angrily. I ran over to Shao Qing, but he jumped up on the larger branches of the tree.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. You really should learn your manners a little more, Zhou Ying." He smirked. I growled irritably and began climbing up the tree, and without even knowing it; I jumped all the way up to his branch and caught my balance on it. He blinked in shock.
"Yeah, that's right, I'm not a weakling like you suspected. I have both Zhou Yu's AND Xiao Qiao's strength running through me in my veins." I stated in pride.
"I knew it. The daughter of the strategist and Qiao." Shao Qing grinned at me. "I could tell because you have your mother's face."
"How do you know what my mother looks like?" I asked him.
"I don't." He exclaimed. "I just heard from the tales that both Qiao sisters had the beauty to stop birds in flight, drown fish, and make flowers hide their faces in shame. You also have those qualifications."
I blushed. Was I really as beautiful as mother? And mother was irrevocably beautiful.
Shao Qing lept down from the branches and landed beside Zhou Xun. I also lept down from the branch, which was pretty high off the ground, and I landed on my feet just as gracefully as he did.
"Zhou Ying! Zhou Xun!" Zhou Yin came running up to us. I almost forgot about him, to be honest. "Who IS that?"
"This is Shao Qing." I introduced the wanderer to my youngest brother.
"Friend or foe?" Yin asked me. He always asked me this when I was introducing someone.
"Foe. Attack him." I stated. The funny part of this was that Yin was prepared to do so.
"No! Friend! Friend!" Zhou Xun corrected me. I didn't even want to agree with the thought I had about Zhou Xun becoming close to that rat Shao Qing.
"Which is it?" Yin asked Shao.
"Friend." He smiled.
"Oh, thank goodness." Yin sighed.
"You have a nice family here. Yes. I have chosen my best place to stay." Shao Qing jumped onto a branch and laid on it.
"I told you a thousand times that you're not allowed to be here!" I spat at him.
"One, you didn't tell me a thousand times. You exaggerate your sentences too much as being a free-spirited girl. It's their habits, of course. Two, you don't decide where a wanderer must stay. And three, before when you said 'you may leave now', it was a sentence of offering for me to stay here…"
"What does that mean?" I asked up to him angrily.
"You didn't ask me 'You MUST leave'…" Shao Qing stated as he fixed his straw hat to cover his eyes and he crossed his arms to have a nap.
"Wait just a second!" I called up to him, and then I decided to just drop it. "Forget about it. I'll just let you stay there and rot."
"Heeeeey, take it easy there, Qiao descendant," He said. "I can leave here whenever I want to, it could be in five minutes or five days. Don't panic."
I groaned and walked inside.
"Come on, Zhou Xun, Zhou Yin, lets clean up the house before mother and father get home."
…………………………………
My mother came home earlier than usual, which I feared. If she had a slight suspicion about teenagers living in a peach blossom tree in your garden, I would be a goner, even if it weren't my fault.
It was bedtime, and I was going to tell my mother goodnight. She was in father's study room, where books and scriptures were strewn across the floor. Mother was sitting in a chair, writing a letter to her beloved friend, Sun Shang Xiang, who was also in the war.
"Goodnight mother." I said to her, giving her a small hug.
"Goodnight, Zhou Ying…" She smiled at me. "You seem a little stressed today. Did something happen with your brothers and you?"
"No, it's nothing." I hate lying to my mother, because she's the person I rely on the most beside myself. I then heard a loud noise…like dripping…
"Man, it's just the first day of spring and we're already getting some rain in." My mother said, staring out the window. "Well, the garden flowers will be happy because they'll continue blossoming."
Gardens…? Oh no…I hated to even think about him still in the tree…
Without saying a word, I walked away and into my bedroom. I lay on my bed, exhausted from yelling at men my age. I honestly began worrying about him and how he might get sick, but I shook my head.
"It's his own fault for deciding to stay in such a place." I mumbled to myself. After I said those words, I heard loud taps on my window. At first I thought it was just the rain, but when I looked, I could see a straw hat on a soaked figure. Great…
I had no other choice as I got up and opened the window.
"You were thinking about me. I could tell." He smiled, not bothered a bit by the freezing cold rain.
"How long have you been standing there?" I asked him.
"A little before you entered your room." He replied. He continued smiling. I just stood there, in the silence, only the pouring of the rain being heard. I then exhaled. Was I really going to do this? What was I thinking?
"Come on. You're going to get sick out there." I lent him a hand as I felt like I was committing a sin. He also looked quite stunned at what I was doing, but took no long pauses as he took my hand and I pulled him into my room. I shut the window and found him a blanket and made a makeshift bed beside mine.
"I honestly didn't think that you were going to let me in." He stated, a slight chuckle escaping his lips. I rolled my eyes and got in my own bed…when I noticed something weird…Shao Qing was in MY bed and not in the makeshift one!
"Hey, do you see that bed down there? Yeah, that's yours!" I stated angrily, but trying not to raise my voice for mother or Xun or Yin to hear. He ignored me, of course, as he put his full body under my covers and glanced up at me, a playful smile plastered on his face. "Get out of my bed." I said through gritted teeth.
"But I want to sleep with yooooouuuu…" He slurred.
He wants to WHAT?!"Did you hear what you just said?"
"Is it that difficult to sleep in your bed?"
"Focus on what you're saying! It sounds so wrong!!"
"C'mon, Zhou Ying," He gave me a smile and got close to my face. "What harm could it do?"
"You pervert!" I grumbled. I slapped him across the face and pushed him out of the bed. Unfortunately for me, though, the covers were tangled up around him, and around me, too. So, as he was falling, he was also dragging me, and then gravity took over as I reached the edge of the bed. I landed right on top of Shao Qing, where his face was right in my shoulder. This position was VERY awkward.
"And I'm the pervert, meanie?" He giggled. I growled and got off of him, fixing the sheets on my bed. When I was done fixing them, I noticed that he hopped in bed first. His hands were behind his head as he glanced over at me.
"You need to learn manners yourself." I mumbled, just about ready to give up and sleep in my homemade bed. He got one hand out from behind his head and placed it on the empty spot beside him. He patted it softly as he grinned. I sighed, and walked over, lying on the spot. Because it was a little small, I had to lean on Shao Qing's chest to get comfortable.
"See, we have this all worked out now." Shao Qing beamed.
"Shut up." I mumbled to him. "If mother or father sees this and I'm the one to blame, you're a dead man."
There was a long stillness, only the sounds of the rain (which was dying down a bit) being heard throughout the room. I couldn't really sleep at first because Shao Qing kept humming this bizarre tune, and he would always fix his head because of how his neck was getting strained from the same position. I leaned into his chest more and started to smell his clothes…although they were wet, they smelled similar to wheat or fresh grass. He really was a wanderer.
That's when my bedroom door opened………………
To be continued…Holy crapples! (Yes, crapples, I invented that word, thank you very much!!)
I totally forgot about creating a sequel for "Beauty of the Fans"!!!
Ah, well, it's finally here!!! Thanks for waiting, readers!!
Okay, I'm horrible at history, so, I don't know much about Zhou Yu and Xiao Qiao's family. I don't know if Zhou Ying was the oldest or how far apart the ages of her brothers are, but this is fiction, right? I'm allowed to dream, right?
I hope you like how I made Zhou Ying. I know that some of you were expecting some perky little girl like Xiao Qiao, but I made her the "Mother" figure, so she acts a little more like Zhou Yu than Xiao Qiao.
I also hope that you like my character, Shao Qing. I had a tough time on deciding his name, but I found one!! Shao Qing is probably my favorite character in the story. He's like a combo of Edward Cullen and that one guy from that anime…whats it called? Peach Girl? Yeah, that guy! Kairi! Yeah! XD
So, I hope you like this story, cuz it keeps getting better!!
-da Panda