An omniescient viewer observes Silk Fox's thoughts on losing OP Furious Ming to Dawn Star. Rated T to be safe.
Zin Bu the Magical Abacus fell over and wept for joy. He had just been promoted! After the Black Whirlwind fiasco where he just walked out of his demon hunting contract the Celestial Bureaucracy was in chaos and his superior's who had demoted him where themselves demoted beneath him and he was elevated to his new position! Overwhelmed with joy Zin Bu barely noticed the approach of his former boss grudgingly carrying a letter. "Curse you Whirlwind! Not only am I demoted to a simple courier but besides that I have to document every last one of Minister Sheng's whining fits!" The old boss cursed under his breath and it is was this muttering which brought Zin Bu to attention. Bu could not help but chuckle at the site of his former supervisor. There had always been friction between the two, after he worked himself to utter exhaustion to meet deadlines the old boss constantly went through his work with a fine-toothed comb looking for errors and had been the one who had recommended Bu for his demotion where he first stumbled upon that human adventurer, whatever his name was in the Forest Shadow's Heaven. With a look of utter disgust followed by a scowl, Zin Bu's old boss handed him a letter and stomped off to continue his sulking elsewhere. Curiously eyeing the letter for a moment Bu quickly broke the seal and opened it and read the contents
Magical Abacus, Zin Bu, this document comes from Salubrious Nick Xi the Under Secretary of the Celestial Bureaucracy, Detachment to the Jade Empire, Section 31 Bureau of Royal Affairs.
Zin Bu, congratulations on your new promotion! With your side-dealings of inter-dimensional commerce and exemplatory handling of the Black Whirlwind Crisis you are hereby given this special assignment.
The monitoring of the sentiments and emotions of Empress Sun Lian the Heavenly Lily, mapping of her emotional state is necessary to complete Lian's personal profile which due to her important station is of vital importance to the Celestial Bureaucracy.
Failure to do so will result in demotion in rank. Specifically, if you fail you will be transformed in to a Rat Demon. However as Under Secretary I am confident that you will perform your duties admirably and will serve as a role model for other Celestial Bureaucracy employees.
Signed, Salubrious Nick Xi the Under Secretary of the Celestial Bureaucracy, Detachment to the Jade Empire, Section 31 Bureau of Royal Affairs.
Taking a brief moment to take in what the letter said Zin Bu was somewhat frightened as to the fate assigned to the failure of his task. It would take all the skills learned from his time as a bureaucrat to observe the Heavenly Lily but by his new promotion he was going to do it!
Having resolved himself to his task, Zin Bu quickly ascertained the primary targets. The Empress Herself, Sun Lian, her husband Kung Fei and her son Sun Min. With his list of targets picked out Bu now needed to decide which of his targets to investigate first. Using his intuition he picked Kung Fei, the husband. Using his power he entered his mind to conduct his search. Stopping for a moment to ponder the dark gray metallic water and the overcast sky of the internal mind, Zin Bu quickly got down to business of researching the mind. The first thought leapt out and grabbed him. Jealousy! Ming! The second thought was on him almost as quickly, loyalty, a sense of duty and honor and commitment. Then the third thought came, that of love but it was not the love that occurred between men and women but it was the kind of boundless love that one had for their child. Focusing deeper on the original thought, Jealosuy and Ming, or Furious Ming to be exact. Where had Bu heard that name before? Ah yes, that was the name of that mortal adventure that he had met in the Forrest Shadow's Heaven. Now Bu understood the source of the jealousy, it was a common notion amongst mortals that love was a major component of marriage and that this royal marriage had almost no love to speak of and the source of this lack of love was none other than this Furious Ming. Specific outrages followed, having to bear the burden of all the specific demands of the Empress' spouse both social and political but none of the benefits, none of the enjoyment or the love that would have otherwise accompanied being the Imperial Spouse. The crowning outraged then manifested itself, Lian and Fei did not even share a bed except, when Lian desired a child, that was the only time they had ever been together as man and wife. Fei recoiled at the memory where at the height of passion Lian cried out for Ming and not him and as soon as Lian knew she had conceived any further opportunity of intimacy between the two was gone and it was gone permanently.
When this jealousy had passed that is where duty and honor took over. Fei had been of noble birth, but he had not been content to sit and be slothful and sit back while those beneath his station suffered. If there was anything Fei had hated it was the arrogance of some nobles who were convinced of their superiority and lived to make themselves comfortable as they continued to invent ways to make the peasant's lives miserable. As a noble born man, a man of the people, Fei hated this and strived to use his influence as a noble to bring prosperity to not only himself but those beneath his station. As the husband of Sun Lian the Heavenly Lily his ability to do so increased thirty-fold so he was bound as a man of the people to use his newly increased power to benefit the peasants. Besides this altruism their was more, for generosity was not Fei's only virtue he was also enamored by personal honor and strived to obey any oath he had willingly taken. When he had married Lian he had sworn to be her husband for life and to never betray her in any way. Even when Lian had given him permission to have an affair to keep himself happy as he would get no such thing from her, he still remained loyal to his wife out of honor and loyalty rather than love.
"Where than did this love come from?" Zin Bu asked aloud in Fei's mind. Then it hit him like the axes of a Jade Golem, the Joyful Sun Min, the royal heir. Bu's tear ducts quickly welled up at the sensation of the euphoric joy that immediately overcame Fei and therefore Bu at the mere thought of his son. Though he was may have been furious at both Ming (no pun intended) for stealing his wife' heart and like wise at his wife for letting it be stolen he was also forever in debt to her for giving him the ever-present source of joy that was Sun Min.
Pondering over the love that Kung Fei had for Sun Min for a few more moments Zing Bu eventually arrived at the conclusion that he had gotten all the information that he needed and should move unto his next target, that of Joyous Sun Min. Diving into the child's mind was much simpler then Kung Fei's, no doubt due to the fact that a 3-year old child's mind is much less complex than a grown man's. Upon accessing Min's memories it became apparent that unlike the three emotions that were present in Fei, Min had but one emotion and that was the emotion of love! "Mommy!" Min cried and ran toward Lian as fast as his legs could carry him, "Min!" Lian replied and cradled him to her chest and their was no doubt from Bu's observation that the euphoria was mutual. Going on to Min's memory of Fei the exact same thing played out the way it had with Lian except this time Min was tossed in the air and subsequently caught. From the look on Fei's face it was apparent that their was no shadow of jealousy of being in a love triangle but only love at being in the presence of his son.
Having gathered all that he need from Sun Min, Zin Bu prepared for his final task, the garnering of information from the mind Sun Lian the Heavenly Lily. Like her husband before her, the diving in to Lian's mind immediately conjured three emotions, love, regret and gratitude. Love was the first and the most potent. First of all the overwhelming love for her son was again reiterated and her love for the Empire and it's people were apparent as was her love for this Furious Ming. It was as if the Great Dragon had hewn him from whatever substance that was used to create humans to be the pinnacle of male perfection. She remembered how she had felt about him when they had adventured together. Whenever he was around she felt warm and somewhat lightheaded as if she had had too much wine. She felt an unusual situation in hr stomach as if she was receiving acupuncture their. Her mouth felt as if it were made of cotton, and she felt so awkward as if she had again just entered puberty and all this because of Furious Ming. Then the regret came. First it had been anger, anger at Dawn Star, that common whore! That ignorant, whiny country girl had come and stolen her, Princess Sun Lian the Heavenly Lily's lover from right under her nose! As time went on though she was forced to take a more moderate viewpoint of what happened. Ming had not attended to play Dawn Star and herself against each other, when she had cornered him when he was in the Necropolis about to enter the Lotus Assassin Fortress he admitted to her in complete openness that he though of her as a friend... and that was it, just as a friend. After his temporary death at the hand's of her uncle Master Li, she was forced to admit that she was indeed in love with him, and because she loved him she wanted him to be happy even if that happiness was with someone other than her. Indeed it was this love that allowed her to let go of Ming and let him walked the path he wanted even if that path led away from her. Yet despite her acting out of love she was still plagued by what ifs about her future and Ming's.
Finally there was this matter of gratitude. Why was Lian grateful? She was grateful for her husband! How could that be, she obviously did not love him and this put a strain on their marriage. Then after a few moments it became clear. She was grateful for the gift from her husband that was Joyful Sun Min, she was grateful that Fei was man of the people who genuinely cared for the people of the Empire as much as she did and was not some preening, egotistical fool. Though their marriage was not ideal she was still grateful for their child and their mutual love of the people. So while she could not have her one true love, she was able to replace Ming with her two other loves, the Empire and it's people and her son.
Having gathered all the fathomable data that could be considered pertinent Zin Bu withdrew from Lian's mind. Mortals could be so... complicated. This report was going to be quite a source of writer's cramp, not as bad as the Black Whirlwind's escapades but still a source of writer's cramp none the less. Yet the emotions of these humans was something odd, that the closest thing he could draw a comparison to was bitter-sweet chocolate. Spending a few more moments to contemplate the complexity of humans Bu quickly came to the conclusion that humans were every bit as complicated as the Celestial Bureaucracy itself and that it was about time that he sat down and hammered out the report given to him by Salubrious Nick Xi before an excuse was found to demote him.