Chapter Six: Xi Tian
Capricious Love re-emerges after being hidden away for two years behind a veil of country peace.
At Lord Xi's country estate, the innermost courtyards were reserved for his daughters. In one such court, abundant in exotic flowers and goldfish ponds, stood a charming set of apartments, decorated with silks and mahoganies. Inside these towered the redoubtable Amah, arms crossed over her chest as she supervised the household's handmaids.
Those two stood armed with what appeared to be a very plain servant's outfit: Yinchun was holding a simple robe of coarse white hemp cloth and a matching pair of girl's pants, while Firelight stood with a pattern-less scarlet sash, a pair of rather unfashionable red slippers, and some hair ribbons.
Together, the three women were clustered around a fourth female, apparently trying to convince her to put on the homely serving girl's outfit. To their wrangling, however, she only set up an endless string of loud protests and obstinate refusals.
This difficult young mistress was the recently-turned-nineteen Xi Tian, as charmingly pretty as ever but still every bit as frivolous as she'd been as a girl of two and eight. After seeing that it was useless to try to shoo away her attendants, she pouted and began unleashing yet more complaints about having to dress up as a humble servant.
"But it's so coarse and hideous," Xi Tian griped in a rather unladylike whine, plucking at one long sleeve with her nose wrinkled in unconcealed distaste. "And the stark white color is just ghastly—it makes me look like I'm in mourning!"(1)
"Miss Xi Tian, these were the direct instructions of your father. And don't go making faces at me; how many times have I told you, young misses do not prattle around distorting their features like that," Amah declared sternly. "Now, General Zhao shouldn't be staying for much longer, but last night he'd already expressed interest in the portraits of you and your sisters, so stop trying to waste time and put these on. Lord Xi is not about to risk having another warrior catch sight of you and decide to take you for his bride."
Xi Tian frowned upon hearing this.
"I don't like those portraits—the artist clearly favored Lien Jie Jie(2), and made her so much more beautiful than all the rest of us," she digressed off-topic, absently wandering over to a mirror and beginning to brush her long, inky hair.
"If a chance encounter should ever occur between my Young Miss and this Zhao Yun," Amah continued as if she hadn't been interrupted at all, before digressing off-topic herself and adding dryly, "And knowing your curiosity, Miss Xi Tian, you'll certainly arrange an 'accidental' meeting or two with the general, just for the sake of seeing whether he's handsome or not."
Here, Xi Tian had the grace to blush at the unflatteringly candid portrayal of her personality, before giving an annoyed little huff and partially hiding her face behind her painted and faintly perfumed sandalwood fan.
"As I was saying, if a chance encounter between you two should ever occur, Lord Xi wants to ensure that General Zhao will see you as a mere humble maid, and nothing more," Amah finished firmly.
Xi Tian frowned and parted her lips, obviously with a reply or excuse ready. Before she could utter a single word, though, Amah impatiently reminded her, "Vain child, you only have to dress as a servant for today!"
There was a long pause. Finally, with a sigh and an upturned nose, Xi Tian reluctantly trudged over to Yinchun and Firelight, grabbed the folded outfit they were holding, and stomped behind an elaborate screen to change.
Inside the guest court, Zhao Yun was preparing to set out once again in search of his comrades. He donned his armor and wrapped the still-sleeping Liu Chan in his fighting robe, managing to take all but two steps before he heard a large commotion outside.
Zhao Yun reacted on instinct. He set the baby down on a satiny nest of pillows, then broke into an easy sprint toward the source of the noise—the front gates of Refuge Park.
Once there, he found to his great bewilderment a horde of country bandits armed with cheap-quality daos(3) and long metal rakes. The robbers made much noise as they clambered over the walls, trampling over soft rose beds and brandishing their poor weapons about, almost as if daring the household—a frail and bent old man and a couple of young girls—to try and fend them off. Two such overconfident lowlifes were already making the mistake of trying to steal Zhao Yun's own white horse.
With a cry, Zhao Yun dived into the fighting, his Fierce Dragon spear a whirlwind of flashing metal and silky blue tassels as he effortlessly beat the bandits back. Yet even though their blood flew in crimson spurts, splattering Zhao Yun's silver-and-blue armor and staining it a deep shade of burgundy, not a single one of the robbers was actually slain. The young warrior took care not to kill any of them, due to not wishing to burden his host with the gruesome task of having to dispose of a dozen or so bloody corpses.
It didn't take long for the last of the ruffian crew to flee, scrambling up a tall gingko tree and vaulting over the wall in terror.
The few seconds of stark silence that followed his escape were soon shattered, however, by the crisp sound of an ink stone falling to the ground and breaking into pieces.
Zhao Yun turned around, and was surprised to see that he now had an audience: Lord Xi was standing beneath an arch of climbing grape vines, a stunned look on his ashen face, his still-wet calligraphy brush locked in his fingers.
Meanwhile, in Xi Tian's court, Yinchun and Firelight were almost finished with plaiting their young mistress's luxuriant raven hair into two buns, one at each side of her head. Amah supervised the process, occasionally hollering at the handmaids that Xi Tian still looked too pretty.
"No! No flowers!" the old nurse snapped authoritatively, snatching the clusters of orange blossoms out of Yinchun's hands just as she was about to tuck them into her mistress's hair. Hearing this, Xi Tian promptly made an irritable silly face at Amah behind the larger woman's back.
Suddenly, loud noises of fighting—shouts and cries, metal clashing against metal, and the inevitable sounds of bodies smacking against hard and unforgiving objects—erupted from the direction of the front gate. Nurse, handmaids, and mistress all started in alarm at the cacophony, exchanging looks of confusion tinged with mild fear.
Then, Xi Tian unexpectedly took charge.
"Yinchun, Firelight, go outside and find out what's going on," she sent her attendants off. "You too, Amah."
The two handmaids left without putting up much of a protest. Amah, on the other hand, was a different story. Reluctant to leave her charge all by herself, she placed her hands firmly on her hips and declared, "I can't leave my Young Miss alone when Heaven knows what's going on at the front gates."
"Please go with the others?" Xi Tian implored meekly.
Amah shot her a suspicious look.
"Just why are you so impatient to get me out of the way, Miss Xi Tian?" she demanded, her eyes narrowing into slits as she peered sharply at the young girl, who suddenly seemed too interested in examining her painted fan to look into Amah's face.
"I don't trust how well Yinchun or Firelight will handle the situation," Xi Tian improvised confidentially. "That's why you'll be needed there—to supervise those two."
After much cajoling and pleading, Amah finally and very hesitantly retired as well.
As soon as she'd inveigled all of her attendants out of the way, Xi Tian nearly broke her neck diving for the nearest mirror. Her features immediately contorted into a rather comical expression of horror and wounded vanity upon seeing the plain—far too plain—image which stared back at her.
"Oh!" she groaned, before deciding that she needed to see the full extent of the damage that Amah had created.
With a frown creased into her forehead, she gathered up her plain white hemp robes and hurried outside. There, at the closest lily brook, Xi Tian leaned over the clear green water and peered anxiously at her full-length reflection amidst the spiral ripples.
Back at the front courtyard, Zhao Yun was trying to get the deeply bowing Lord Xi to his feet as the latter thanked him, with tears in his eyes, for chasing away the country bandits. The embarrassed Tiger General managed to only awkwardly clear his throat, wondering how a man could acknowledge one whose life and household he'd just saved without sounding too boastful.
Fortunately, the young warrior was disentangled from this predicament—by Firelight, no less—when the aforementioned household's three attendants arrived.
"Aiya! You thug, what did you just do?" the sharp-tongued little maid shrieked at Zhao Yun upon sighting all the blood and Lord Xi's tears.
Zhao Yun flushed faintly at this accusation, helplessly trying to find the words with which to defend himself under Firelight's condemning glare.
His host beat him to it, though, when Lord Xi himself chastised harshly while dabbing away his tears, "That's enough, Firelight! After all these years in my household, you ought to have better manners than to shout at the man who just saved our lives today!"
Firelight elapsed into sullen silence under the severity of her master's words, while Lord Xi turned to the sweeter-tempered of his two handmaids and ordered, "Yinchun, take General Zhao's armor and clean the blood off of it."
Gentle Yinchun was unable to conceal a look of utter nausea at the sight of the still-fresh blood, hiding delicately behind the stout form of Amah when her master's expectant look fell upon her. Seeing this, Zhao Yun couldn't help but chuckle, for he wasn't terribly unused to the girl's rather squeamish reaction.
"There's no need to trouble Miss Yinchun, sir. Thank you very much for your hospitality last night; I apologize for any burdens I might have created," he told Lord Xi sincerely.
"I should be thanking you, General, for saving my home," came the prompt reply.
"Nevertheless, let me trouble you no more. I'll just go get Liu Chan now, and we'll be leaving," Zhao Yun answered.
"Let Yinchun get him for you, General Zhao," Lord Xi offered, motioning for the handmaid to be on her way.
"That's quite all right; I'm sure Miss Yinchun has better things to do," Zhao Yun replied.
Having thus spoken, he excused himself with a bow to all those present, before turning on his heels and heading for the inner courts.
Xi Tian was still lingering outside, having been momentarily distracted from how plain she looked by an exceptionally beautiful orchid. Hearing the commotion at the front gates die away, she realized that Amah would return any minute now, and reluctantly began heading inside.
Unexpectedly, however, she collided with a young man taking a shortcut across the winding inner courtyards. Xi Tian was startled, and somewhat annoyed—at first. Then, she noticed the intruder's tall, wickedly sharp spear and his gleaming, bloodstained armor...and proceeded to let out an ear-splitting shriek right into his face.
1. Traditionally in China, the color of mourning was white.
2. Elder sister
3. Chinese broadsword