XX. Gold

Our favourite prince contemplates his princesses, because the author is rewatching HZGGII for the first time in years. :P

(1)

Now that he had met her, the reasonable part of him knew Er Tai had been right (as he usually was), he was being grossly unfair. It was Zi Wei who was really his sister; there was no denying the regal air about her, even in her simple clothes and devoid of jewels. He really should be on Zi Wei's side, not begging her (Begging! He was a prince, for Heaven's sake!) to save the life of some girl who didn't realise that lying to the Emperor and pretending to be a princess was a crime. Then again, to be fair, it was his stray arrow that put her in a state of delirium so serious that she couldn't think straight. Still, shouldn't she have more sense?

Apparently not.

Yet the other, unreasonable part of him still asked, how many sisters like Zi Wei did he have? Near a dozen, not to mention cousins and aunts and sundry forms of female relatives. What was one more or less? Why was it his job to care about a half-sister he had only just met for the first time in his life and by all accounts, whose very existence in the world was a proof of how his father had betrayed his mother just months after his birth?

On the other hand, how many girls like Xiao Yan Zi did he know? Before meeting Xiao Yan Zi, watching the way she slurped her tea, demanded for wine, and managed to pack the most taboo word a dozen times over into the conversation, he didn't even think a girl like that was possible. She somehow managed to make all those unladylike acts look completely natural and not something that would make one feel embarrassed at witnessing. It helped, he supposed, that she was rather pretty, which in his panic, he didn't notice in the hunting ground but definitely noticed then, in the Imperial Garden, even when she was supposed to be his sister.

Besides, the unreasonable part went on, Zi Wei had Er Kang to fight for her rights, if he was reading things correctly. Er Kang was being extraordinarily emotional whenever he started talking about Zi Wei, to the point of being very un-Er-Kang-like. Someone had to be on Xiao Yan Zi's side. Why couldn't it be him?

(2)

He was wrong. Zi Wei was like none of his sisters (nor cousins nor aunts nor sundry forms of female relatives). In fact, Zi Wei was impossible in the way that Xiao Yan Zi was impossible: they were both too good to be true. She was sugar and Xiao Yan Zi was spice; it was a combination of them that made everything nice. Weren't those what all perfect girls were made of?

Still, it was much easier when he only had to care about Xiao Yan Zi. He had been perfectly happy to leave worrying about Zi Wei to Er Kang. Considering how she was born, Yong Qi would probably be content enough to hate Zi Wei. However that seemed rather impossible now. He was beginning to understand how Er Kang had been reduced to such un-Er-Kang-like behaviour lately.

The truth was he wasn't used to thinking much about whether he liked his sisters or not. After all, he lived in a world where his sisters were kept at a polite, appropriate distance, so it wasn't as if he spent enough time with any of them to form an opinion either way. They tended to blend into perfect, beautiful, rose-tinted images that just blurred in his mind, so that when Xiao Yan Zi and Zi Wei burst into his life, the contrast they created rather disorientated him. Each of them was an enigma in their own way and he had never before realised until now how very complicated girls were. He was, after all, a man and a prince! He wasn't supposed to feel in awe of a simple friendship between two simple girls from stations so far below his!

Now he found himself wanting a happy ending for both Xiao Yan Zi and Zi Wei, even when the very idea seemed contradictory. He felt seflish and it was probably true: he wanted Zi Wei as his sister and he wanted Xiao Yan Zi too...as...something. He wouldn't allow himself to contemplate what just yet! He just knew that he needed time, forever, or even longer, if possible, to explore the depth of mystery that was Huan Zhu Ge Ge.

So when Er Kang came up with the plan to take Zi Wei into the palace, he knew Er Kang was more or less suggesting they all jumped off a cliff together. Despite this Yong Qi didn't give himself time to think of the kind of logic which would dismiss the plan as insane, fool-hardy and life-threatening. He jumped.

(3)

A love letter. Of all the alibi to come up with, Er Kang came up with a love letter. Yong Qi wished the floor to open up the swallow him whole, rather than have to admit to his grandmother, quite untruthfully, that he had written a love letter to Xiao Yan Zi. But the floor stayed stubbornly and firmly intact, so Yong Qi had no choice but to say the fateful words. Yes, he had written Xiao Yan Zi a love letter, which was why she had attempted first to burn it then ate it to prevent Lao Fo Ye from reading it.

A love letter! Of all earthly things! Yong Qi had never written a love letter in his life and probably never would, and certainly not to Xiao Yan Zi! Any one who knew them would probably see this! Even in his most desperate of days, he would never consider that a love poem would ever help Xiao Yan Zi learn poetry any faster. If Er Kang was so keen on that alibi, why couldn't he had admitted that he had written a love letter to Zi Wei? After all, who gave him the right to put Yong Qi, his superior, in such an embarrassing situation?

Then again, if Yong Qi thought having to admit to his grandmother and the Empress that he had written the nonexistent love letter was pure agony, he was proven woefully wrong the next morning, when Xiao Yan Zi attempted to recite the said letter.

Yong Qi thought if he ever, ever, came up with such atrocities that only Xiao Yan Zi could call poetry, his father would have skinned him alive. He would like to skin Er Kang alive after this, for surely Er Kang must realise that with such an excuse, Xiao Yan Zi would be called upon to recite the poem. What on earth made Er Kang think putting Xiao Yan Zi and poetry together was a good idea, let alone a love poem? If Xiao Yan Zi couldn't even keep relatively simple poems like Li Bai's drinking poem straight, was it any surprise that she messed up the abstract concepts of clay lovers or delivering messages through handkerchiefs?

(Apparently it might had well been Er Kang or Zi Wei, or anyone else but Yong Qi who wrote that love letter to Xiao Yan Zi, as after Xiao Yan Zi recited the poem, you could have held a knife to Yong Qi's neck and he wouldn't have been able to tell you what "Vertical is death, horizontal is also death" meant!)

(4)

When Yong Qi reached the Imperial Medicine Room and informed Hu Tai yi that he was needed at Shu Fang Zhai, he received a rather shocked stare in return. Of course it wasn't unusual that a physician was needed at Shu Fang Zhai; the two princesses who lived there needed the physician often enough. Yong Qi supposed it was the fact that he had come himself to inform Hu Tai yi of this. It usually didn't take a prince to do the menial task of summoning a physician. Yong Qi knew Huang Ah Ma didn't even mean that he personally had to go when he gave the order to summon the physician. Yong Qi just rushed out of Shu Fang Zhai without a thought; probably it was because he was afraid of Xiao Yan Zi stopping him again.

"It must have been something extremely serious for Wu Ah Ge to come personally like this," Hu Tai yi said as he threw his things together and rushed with Yong Qi out the door towards Shu Fang Zhai.

"It is serious but not life threatening, I hope," Yong Qi said. "Huan Zhu Ge Ge has just been attacked by a horde of bees."

"Bees?" That was all that Hu Tai yi asked and as Yong Qi nodded the affirmative, the man didn't make any further enquiries. The prince supposed that during his whole career, the physicians must have dealt with rather strange illnesses and got into a habit of not asking how the illness was achieved unless it was crucial to the treatment. After all, as this latest incident of Huan Zhu Ge Ge has shown, perhap sometimes knowing the origin of the illness may just be too much information that wouldn't help anyone. So Yong Qi was glad he could spare Xiao Yan Zi at least the embarrassment in front of Hu Tai yi by refraining from telling the story of how the Imperial Gardens suddenly got infested with bees. Not, of course, that Xiao Yan Zi would appreciate the effort. After all, right now as far as she was concerned, his skin was to blame.

(5)

He didn't mean to lose his temper. He really didn't. (He never did when it came to Xiao Yan Zi.)

In retrospect, it wasn't like the Cai Lian affair. This time, he was wrong, from beginning to end. (Then wasn't everything clearer in retrospect?)

He let his fears run away with him and lost his head totally. He should have known from the beginning that it wasn't possible to turn Xiao Yan Zi into the kind of princess that his grandmother wanted. More importantly, he should have recognised that he had truly hurt her feelings when Xiao Yan Zi, normally so strong and proud, showed how very hurt and vulnerable she was.

"Why do you always make me remember all the things I can't remember? I really can't remember them, don't you understand? If you want me to become someone who can talk in verse, then what do you even want me for?"

He should have understood then that those weren't tears of rage, of a childish temper, but of a broken heart. He had struck the lowest blow possible. It wasn't his grandmother's demands that was hurting her, it was him, and the fact that he was even contemplating giving into those demands.

But he hadn't thought that she would really leave. Ultimately he had misjudged how very hurt she was - it was a crime that he was capable of such misjudgement, but there it was, he could not deny his guilt anymore. When he stormed out of Shu Fang Zhai, he knew she would never be the one to come running to him to make up and it would be him who apologised first. But he had indulged in his pride and told himself he deserved a day of wallowing in his self-righteous anger. Every part of him knew he would have to shimmer down eventually and apologise to her, so he allowed himself that luxury. He just didn't think that she wouldn't give him that time...