25. Torn

The wedding was officially scheduled for ten days from today. Zhao Yun and the others figured that ten days was as long as they could stretch the wait. These ten days were going to be the longest days of her life. Had Guan Ping lived, she would be planning the wedding, not watching it happen. Ma Yun Lu seemed to be a kind enough of a person, but Zhang Xing Cai couldn't help but hate her. It wasn't anything she did, it was something Cai couldn't do, be married to the man she loved.

While the women planned the wedding, Cai was off training, usually with Jiang Wei or Liu Shan. She didn't want to train with Ma Chao or Zhao Yun since all they would talk about was the wedding, probably. Although, they were guys and guys were never as bad about that kind of thing.

Spending so much time with Jiang Wei gave her a chance to get to know him. Apparently, his mother was sick. So he went to Wei where he could earn the money he needed to pay for a doctor, but she died. He wasn't really loyal to Wei. So after the castle he was defending fell to Zhuge Liang, he didn't see any reason not to defect.

She thought that it was strange that Shu had people defect to them from Wei, Wu and everywhere between. They had Lady Sun from Wu for a time, Jiang Wei from Wei, Ma Chao from Liang, Zhao Yun, who originally served Gongsun Zan. Shu seemed to be made up of people from all the different places Liu Bei came to. With the exception of Lady Sun, all of them had defected to Shu after fighting with or against Liu Bei. There was no doubt that Liu Bei had a talent for drawing people to him. It was something that even Cao Cao feared, or so she heard when Guan Yu and Liu Bei had talked about it.

Xing Cai dismissed these thoughts and refocused on the spar. Both she and Jiang Wei were used to using spear like weapons since her battle fork was still somewhere in Mai castle. Ugh! Why did everything she thought about always bring her back there? It was going to be hard to move on from it if her mind never did.

Jiang Wei had a strong and fluid fighting style. All his moves where carried out completely and were followed by another and another seamlessly. She could tell he was taking it easy on her, but she really didn't care. This was the first she fought at all in a month. So she was weak and sloppy. Maybe that would make for a fair fight against Liu Shan. She didn't challenge him. After two hours, she was tired and wanted to quit.

She thanked Jiang Wei for helping her and left. On the way back to her chambers, she spotted Zhao Yun and Ma Yun Lu at the end of one of the empty halls. Zhao Yun had her pressed against the wall. He had his hand on the back of her neck as he kissed her. Ma Yun Lu had her hands on his midsection just above his belt.

She looked away and quickly left before they saw her.

x

When dinner was served that evening, she leaned over to Zhao Yun and whispered;

"You might want to do something about your lips. They're pretty chapped."

For the first time she could remember, he gave her a nasty look. It was hilarious.

x

As every day passed, she trained a little longer and harder. By the day of the wedding, she was almost back into the condition she used to be. Her muscles on her arms and legs were back. Her stomach was flat once again. She was still skinnier than she was before her long walk. That wasn't all bad though.

She put on a happy face for the wedding. Her emotions were all over to place. Among them were anger, sadness, joy, jealously, yearning, rage and everything in between. She refused to cry. She had already cried her all. She also wasn't going to let herself glare. So her face was left emotionless. It was ironic since she was feeling every kind of emotion that there was to feel all at once.

By the time the feast began, she was almost in a daze. She cursed the heavens silently and blessed the mirage openly. She knew she wasn't the only one doing that. Liu Bei also had to wear the appropriate emotions on his face. By now, Zhang Fei was already drunk beyond recognition. His face hit the table hard and made a loud crashing sound. Mother blushed in embarrassment. Cai had officially disowned her father's drinking and wouldn't acknowledge any blood ties to him until he was sober. So she didn't care if he humiliated himself or not.

When Zhang Fei became conscious again, her mother led him out. Poor woman, she must really love him to put up with him this much.

Now, half of the original guests were gone. Liu Shan decided it was time to start playing 'truth and lies' once again. She had no desire to play and waited for a moment she could leave. That moment came when Xiao announced she wanted to retire. With their mother gone, it made it her duty to return Xiao to her chambers. The sisters said their good nights and gave their last blessings to Zhao Yun and Ma Yun Lu.

Cai held her sister's hand as they slowly made their way down the hall.

"Cai, why didn't you write to me about Ping?" Her sister asked.

She didn't answer right away. She did a few seconds later when she found the right words.

"Well, we didn't announce it yet, and I wanted to tell you in person."

Xiao nodded. That's all they ever spoke of that.

She bid her sister good night and closed the door of her chambers. Xiao's room was next to their parents. So that meant Cai had to cross the entire castle to get to her own chambers. It wasn't all bad. The night was beautiful. The cool air was calm. It smelled the same way it did just after a rain storm, but it hadn't rained for a few days. The clear sky above had a half moon and it was filled with diamond like stars.

The star was back. Now all she needed was the glory and she would be her former self again. That would return on the battlefield, but not yet. Shu wouldn't wage war for a while. That was the wedding custom.

She let out a sigh and sat down on a stone ledge of one of the short walls that had been built around a tree. These gardens had been so well built and planed out. The original gardener even planned where to put a pond and a bridge that would lead over it. It almost compared to one of the Zhen gardens of the east she had heard about.

Not many people knew this, but her father was a very talented gardener. Back home, they had the most beautiful trees and flowers for miles. He had picked up his hobby here and planted some peach trees. They seemed to be the growing symbol of Shu, probably because of the 'peach garden oath'. His, Liu Bei's and Guan Yu's oath of brotherhood had been in a peach garden. That's how it got the name. Lately the garden's inhabitants had been suffering under the hands of second rate caregivers. Including her mother and Ma Yun Lu since Zhang Fei had been ignoring the garden all together. She gave the women credit for trying, but no one could compete with Zhang Fei when it came to gardening.

"I guess that that's just another thing his drinking takes from him." She said to herself.

It also robbed him of his good judgment, which was already in low supply. Not to mention his temper. He truly was frightening when he lost his temper.

As it turns out, war isn't the only thing that takes. It may take the most from people, but wine takes things too. It takes the best of people. It takes the best of anyone and locks it away deep inside them until there's no trace of who they used to be. She may have lost her child, her fiancé, her brother, her future brother-in-law and her future father-in-law to war, but she lost her father to his liquor. The evidence was in the garden and in the scar just below her right ear. She would never forget the day she got it. It was a few years ago. Just after the right Liu Bei and Guan Yu had come to visit and all the kids had snuck out to the pub.

They had some company over, some neighbors. They had wanted to see the gardens since it was the early spring. So that meant that the peach trees were blooming. Mother had made dinner. Zhang Fei was so filled with pride and gloat that he allowed himself to drink himself drunk. When he poured himself yet another glass of wine, Cai tried to stop him by taking the wine bottle away. That was a fatal mistake. Zhang Fei shouted out at her and smacked her across the face with the back of his hand. It wasn't particularly hard, but he had been wearing a jeweled ring.

Cai raised her hand and stroked the gagged scar with her fingertips. It was her first scar. She had wanted it to be a battle scar. That way, when anyone asked about it, she could tell them a story from the battlefield. Instead, she usually came up with some lie about how she fell when she was a child and landed on her face on cobblestone or something like that. She never told anyone about how she really got it.

Zhang Fei probably didn't even remember when he gave it to her or that it was him at all.

Xing Cai stopped these trails of thoughts with a shake of her head. She leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees. She closed her eyes and imagined that Guan Ping was holding her. She imagined that it had been him and her up at the alter standing before Zhuge Liang saying their vows of faithfulness. She quickly dismissed these thoughts before it would be too agonizing to return to the real world.

"Xing Cai?"

If she hadn't just woken herself up from her day dreaming, then that voice would have. She turned and saw Liu Shan standing behind her.

"Liu Shan." She greeted.

"Mind if I join you?"

She shook her head and looked out at the gardens as he sat down next to her.

"We've managed to distract my father for almost a full month, but he'll march to Yiling as soon as tradition allows." Shan started.

She nodded.

"I know."

"What will we do then?"

She shrugged.

"I don't know. I've been trying to prevent my father from going to war by telling him that I'm not ready to go. Now I think that he'll just go without me."

"What about Shao?"

"He won't go."

There was a long silence between them. Cai sat up straight so that she could stand, but Liu Shan grabbed her arm to stop her. He put his hand on the back of her neck. He gently burrowed his fingers in her hair and guided her lips to his. She closed her eyes as he very tenderly kissed her. The rhythmic motion of his lips moving apart and coming together again was blissful. She even returned his kiss for a short moment before pulling away and leaving him by himself.

Her feet took her to her chambers where she broke down and cried.

x

The next morning was the perfect reflection of the occasion, but not for how she felt. She decided that she would pretend that Liu Shan's kiss didn't happen. In an attempt to forget about it, she trained with Jiang Wei for a few hours. Her brow was sweating and her muscles ached, but she wasn't done. After a while, Jiang Wei was called by Zhuge Liang for his lessons on strategies or morale or whatever else he was learning.

It was still early in the morning, so no one else was awake. So she put the wood shade away and went down to the stables. The horses greeted her with happy whinnies and squeals. They probably thought she was the stable boy that feed them in the morning.

It had been a while since she was in the stables and found that there were quite a few new horses. The only one she recognized was Hex Mark and Sunny. Her mother must have used the old mare and cart to get here.

She went over to Sunny's stall and let herself in. Sunny seemed glad to see her since her ears were pinned forward and her eyes had a kind look in them. Cai rubbed her palm up and down the mare's forehead.

She heard someone come in the barn. She went over to the stall door to see who. She was shocked to see Ma Yun Lu standing in front of one of the stalls. The horse inside was an impressive looking bay mare. It must be hers.

Cai had expected the newlyweds to sleep in till noon. That's what the norm was anyway.

"Xing Cai, I didn't expect to see you here." Yun Lu told her when she saw her.

"Mmmm." Was her response.

Since she didn't have any desire to talk with the woman, Cai left. She went back to the training courtyard to fight with whoever was there. Unfortunately for him, it was Zhang Shao. She took out her latest feelings of rage on him through the wood shade. His blocks were good and when he did attack, which wasn't often, it was hesitant. Of course, he didn't have any strength feed by pure rage at life itself.

x

The conversation at lunch was pleasant on the outside, but grim on the inside. Everyone put on a happy face for Zhao Yun and Ma Yun Lu, but it was all fake. Two lines had clearly been drawn right down the middle of their ranks. There were those who wanted to avenge Guan Yu and there were those who thought it to be a fatal mistake. Shu was torn. They were already a weak kingdom compared to Wu and Shu, so they all knew that they couldn't afford a civil war.

Later that day, Liu Bei asked to hear the story of Mai castle. She declined to tell him. She knew that hearing it would only fuel his rage.

Zhang Fei came to her a little later with the same request. She declined once again. Instead of politely nodding his head in understanding like Liu Bei had, he lashed out at her. It caught her off guard and she jumped to the side to avoid his fist. His fists shattered the vase she had previously been admiring. He let out a cry of rage.

"Father, stop!" She shouted.

It was in vain. He was drunk. There was no reasoning with him when he was like this.

The loud crash and screams quickly gathered a crowd. Among them were Liu Bei, Liu Shan, Zhao Yun, Ma Yun Lu, her mother and Zhuge Liang. Liu Shan and Zhao Yun jumped Zhang Fei. Each one of them grabbed one of his arms, but Zhang Fei swung them both over his shoulder. Both of them landed on their backs at his feet, at his mercy. Zhang Fei made his hands into fists.

"NO!" She and Ma Yun Lu both cried at the same time.

Lady Xiahou stepped in between her husband and the two men on the ground. Her husband wound his arm and slapped her hard across the face, like he had slapped her when he gave her the scar. Her mother was thrown to the side and hit against the wall where she then fell to the ground. Cai ran over to her. She was alright, but Cai felt rage she had never felt before.

Ma Yun Lu lunged to Zhao Yun's side on the floor.

Xing Cai turned to Zhang Fei. Her entire face was red with anger. Her fingers trembled as she made them into fists. Her entire body began to shake. Everyone fell silent.

"You're not my father." She whispered, just loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

Then she turned and and marched out.