Chapter 34
Demon Princess Qintian carefully oiled her bone whip. The smell of linseed oil pervaded the room as she rubbed the leather handle with a soft cloth.
"Do you have to do that at the table?" asked her mother, the Supreme Demon Lord Liu Ying.
Qintian looked up from her work. "I'm not hungry" she replied curtly.
"Ohhhh, who is it?" asked her mother with interest.
"I don't know what you mean" Qintian replied, feigning innocence.
"Come on, you can tell Mother" her mother wheedled. "I'll make him your bodyguard. Then he can't escape you!" she offered playfully.
"I'm going to bed" said Qintian grumpily. She abruptly got up from the table, and stalked off towards her private rooms. Her mother's laughter followed her out of the dining hall.
Qintian sighed in frustration. If only it was so easy. She entered her room, and then leaned up against the door she had just closed.
"Linyou!" she thought, "why do I feel like I know you?"
Her back slid down the door, and she landed on the floor with a soft thump. Pulling her knees up, she rested her cheek on one of them.
She called to mind his gorgeous face. Those perfect even white teeth, framed by those luscious pouty red lips. Her fingers twiddled with her whip handle. She had seen lips like those before...
She banged her head against her knees. "Why can't I remember?" she admonished herself.
That night when she fell asleep she dreamed of an event from her past.
She was about 6 or 7 hundred years old, exploring a cavern in the mountains, when she came across an opening that led her to a pocket oasis.
Inside this part of the cave the walls were polished like gemstone, and fantastical mushrooms in vibrant hues towered over her. Up ahead in the distance she could see a golden palace. She carefully climbed up the wall and then jumped over it, landing on soft grass, as blue in color as a magpie's feather. Peach trees dotted the garden surrounding a pool of jasper.
She climbed up a nearby peach tree, picking one of the delicious fruits, and took a bite as she relaxed on its branches, idly watching a frog swimming in the pond below.
The frog hopped out of the pond below her, and then turned into a young man in a flash of green light. Qintian's interest was piqued. She hung onto the branch with both hands, the peach forgotten, and slid out further, trying to get a better view.
The young man lay back on the soft grass with his hands behind his head, staring up at the cavern ceiling far above. As she watched, his eyelids drooped, and his head lolled to the side. He had fallen asleep.
Stealthily Qintian descended from the branches of the peach tree. She crawled over to his supine form. His face was really beautiful she had noticed. For the first time in her life, she felt her heart beat faster because of a man. She carefully leaned over him, and placed a delicate kiss on his full red lips.
"Kunlun!" Qintian shouted as she sat bolt upright in bed. "He's the boy from Kunlun" she whispered in the dark.
She had never known what had happened to him. She went back the next day and he didn't appear. She had searched all around the golden palace and never found a trace of him.
"I was going to steal him" she thought with a laugh. "Wish I could do that now" she thought longingly.
The security in the Heavenly Realm had grown tighter. She couldn't just walk in anymore. The guards questioned everyone who attempted to enter the gates. She had only barely escaped their notice long enough to retreat the last time she had tried to visit Linyou.
What she really needed was some kind of distraction. Some time when the guards would be too overwhelmed to notice her slip in. If they did notice her she would be dead. Hmmm. Was there any time where a lot of people would come and go through the gates? The Heavenly Realm didn't celebrate big events all that much. Just the Spring Festival.
Qintian's head jerked up. That was only a few months away. That should be enough time to plan a kidnapping. Her eyes lit up with excitement, shining like a cat's in the dark.