If any of you noticed, I changed the rating to T for safety because of what happens later in this chapter. See I wasn't sure if I should change it or not, so I did it just in case. Well, here is the final installment in this story! I hope you enjoy. Hm, the idea of a sequel crossed my mind, but I'm not sure if I have a plot idea for it yet. Anyway definitely let me know what you think of a sequel, this chapter, and the story overall! I'm so excited!
Chapter Fifteen
A dejected Jiang Wei walked into Mei Li's room. He shuffled his feet along the floor, trying to convince himself that Li was really gone, and there was no going after her. He was still surprised that Zhuge Liang had decided to let the clues to the treasure just run away like that. And the Prime Minister had had such a revelation earlier in the library, and yet he refused to tell Jiang Wei what it meant. He had been in his room talking to Yue Ying for hours; no doubt about Mei Li.
He was about to leave, when out of the corner of his eye he saw something white sticking out beneath the Mei Li's bed. He walked over, bent down, and picked the object up, realizing what it was; Li's sketchpad. He leafed through it, looking at all the pictures Li had drawn. She really was talented at this sort of thing. He kept paging through until he came to the end of the sketches. He flipped over one more page, expecting to see it blank, when he realized Li had started writing a list of some sort. He read the title; "Lessons I've Been Taught". There were only four people on the page, Cai Lang, Zhen Ji, Zhang He, and Pang Tong, except there was a blank next to Pang Tong's name. He figured Mei Li hadn't decided what lesson she'd been taught by the man. It was an interesting concept, that everyone in life teaches you a lesson, and he sat down on Li's bed and started pondering the list. If he were to make a list, what and who would he put on it? He knew Zhuge Liang would be on it, but what had the strategist taught Jiang Wei? He thought back to what the Prime Minister had said in the library … Not with a sixteen year old girl… His eyes widened and he realized what Zhuge Liang had been trying to say. He closed the sketchpad and left Mei Li's room still clutching the book, headed for the stables. The rain was picking up, but the ground was still soft and muddy. It wouldn't be too hard to find the horse's tracks and start following.
Li heard a groan escape her mouth as she slowly came back to consciousness. It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the setting of her surroundings, and for a second she thought she had been blinded. She racked her mind, trying to remember what had happened. She was riding along, thinking about Jiang Wei, when all of the sudden she woke up and was here. What happened?
Mei Li looked around. She was in a dark shed, and her head was throbbing. She tried to move, but to no avail; she had been tied up! A shadowy figure emerged from the darkness, and started coming closer, closer, his arms reaching out to grab her. He reached behind her head, Li's heart thumping. But instead of hurting her, he untied the gag that had previously been in her mouth.
"Hello," said a man's voice with a threateningly mocking tone to it.
Li cleared her throat, but didn't say anything. She was too scared. This situation reeked of danger. Maybe a robber or a bandit had caught her riding and saw her bundle, wanting to steal what was inside. Then why did he have her tied up in an abandoned old shed?
"Are you going to play dumb, or are we going to do some business?" he asked. Li had trouble identifying who it was, but he sounded familiar. Like a lightning bolt, it hit her. His voice, she had heard it in her dreams.
"Business?" Mei Li managed to say. Her voice squeaked and she sounded more scared than she meant.
"Heh, heh, heh." The man chuckled, obviously pleased that Mei Li was scared and oblivious to what was going on. "Look," he continued. "I think you and I both know what I'm talking about. Where is it?" his raspy voice demanded an answer from Mei Li.
"Where's what?" she asked. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest.
"You know what I'm talking about!"
"No I don't! Let me go! Untie me now!"
She was silenced with a blow to her cheek. She felt her face stinging as the man brought his hand back to his side. "Shut up!" he growled. "Now give me the treasure."
Treasure? Mei Li felt her face grow pale. So, this was him, the man who his mother had been in love with. And he had come to get her father's treasure.
"I know you know what I'm talking about." The man continued. "Your father always said you held the answer. Now tell me, where is his treasure, you little brat!"
"I swear I don't know," Mei Li said. "I was only six when you killed him. How should I remember?"
The man was disgruntled by her boldness. How did this girl figure out he had been the murderer? If she got away alive, she would turn him in for sure. He had to make sure that after he got the information, he got rid of her. He was determined to show her who was boss, and decided to do so by scaring her.
"Look, girly," he said, getting close to her face. His breath smelled putrid, and Mei Li wrinkled up her nose and titled her head back.
"I've been following you for longer than you know."
She got out of bed to look out her window, and thought she saw someone creep across the yard. She blinked, and the shadowy figure was gone. It was just her imagination.
"And I would have killed you the night your uncle died…"
She woke with a start. Something had thumped. She looked around in the dark with caution, waiting for something to move, or another noise to erupt from the night. Nothing happened.
"… but I accidentally hit my head on your windowsill and you woke up. I had another chance, too, while you were with the gypsy caravan…"
Her peaceful thoughts were interrupted by a rustling heard in the bushes nearby. Li instinctively froze and held her breath.
"… but that lady Cai Lang came out to join you in the middle of the night, and my chances were ruined. I always hated Cai Lang. Your idiotic mother practically worshipped her; best friends, the two of them."
Mei Li licked her lips and swallowed hard. This whole time the man had been following her.
"And when you went to Shu with that Zhuge Liang, well, I knew I couldn't get near you with that creep around. He's been on my case for years. But then," he paused to laugh. "then you went and did the stupidest thing possible! You left Shu, you left the protection of that strategist, and here you are, my pretty, you walked straight into my hands!"
He continued after pausing for breath. "And no doubt Zhuge Liang told you all about this little treasure of your father's. So, now that we're both on the same page, I want you to tell me, nice and calm like, where the treasure is. See, you do that, and nobody gets hurt." Except you, he added to himself.
Mei Li knew that her locket held the answer. But she also knew that this man couldn't get his hands on that treasure. She thought desperately, waiting for some answer to come to her, some help to show her what to do.
"Look here missy," said the man, getting impatient. "I had to wait many hours for you to wake up in the first place! I'm not waiting any longer for you to tell me where the treasure is!"
At that moment, a banging was heard on the shed door. Both Mei Li and the man shot their heads in that direction, waiting for something to happen. Before the man could run over and stop whoever it was that was out there, the shed door flew open, the rain pouring into the shed now that it had developed into a thunderstorm. A silhouetted figure stood in the doorway, and let itself in. For a second Mei Li didn't recognize him, but then saw who it was; Jiang Wei!
She gasped with surprise. He had come to save her! He didn't bother asking any questions before he started talking.
"Untie her right now!" he yelled, and pulled out a dagger.
The man laughed. "What are you gonna do about it, runt?" He approached Jiang Wei. Before the young man could use the dagger, the man snatched it from him and punched him hard in the mouth. He fell to the ground, bleeding. Not giving Jiang Wei a chance to stand up, the man elbowed him hard in the back, causing him to fall from his position on his hands to lying on the floor. Making sure the job was done, the man hit him in the head with the blunt end of the dagger.
"Stop it!" Mei Li yelled the entire time he was beating up Jiang Wei. "Stop it this instant!" When the man delivered the final blow, Jiang Wei was lying on the floor, not moving. "You've killed him!" Mei Li screamed, tears streaming down her face.
"He got in my way," the man snarled. "And anybody who stops me from getting what I want, I kill. Same with you if you don't tell me where the treasure is."
Her face wet with tears, Mei Li saw that it was no use. Her hopes had been completely crushed, it was no use resisting anymore. This man had won.
"In the locket," she said, sniffing. "The answer to where the treasure is lies in the locket around my neck."
"Of course!" The man slapped himself for being an idiot. "The locket!" He reached around her neck and undid the chain, pulling it close to his face. He tried to open it, but with no success.
"What's wrong with this thing?" he asked.
"It's rusted shut," Mei Li answered, still crying. "You can't open it."
"What the – " the man said. "Then why the hell did you tell me the answer was in this thing?"
"Because it is!" she yelled back at him with a hoarse voice. "I know it is, I just can't remember what the inscription says! I haven't opened the thing up for years!"
"Well, I can fix that." He said. He took Jiang Wei's dagger and started picking at the locket. After many scratches and much deliberation, the man finally pried the locket open. He laughed with delight, opening it the rest of the way, and stared into the inscription. He read it, not aloud though. His face suddenly darkened and he scowled.
"You liar!" he yelled at Mei Li. He flung the locket down hard, causing it to break in half. "You said this thing would lead me to the treasure!"
"I – I thought it did," Mei Li stammered, seeing now this man was outraged. The man reached for his dagger and held it high. Mei Li closed her eyes and readied herself for the blow. But it never came.
When Mei Li opened her eyes, three things seemed to happen at once. The door to the shed flung open, a man jumped in, and the man holding the dagger turned and stared. After regaining his thoughts, the man with the dagger rushed at the man who had jumped into the shed.
"You filth!" the man said. "Untie that girl now!"
Mei Li recognized the voice and her spirits lifted. Zhang He!
The man made to stab Zhang He, but he dodged many times, punching the man in return. The man with the dagger grew so agitated, that he finally started waving the dagger around wildly, not caring if it hit Zhang He or not. The dagger was headed straight for his heart. Zhang He tried to move, but he was not fast enough. The dagger hit him in the left shoulder, and a pained moan escaped his lips.
The man, seeing he had finally hit Zhang He, started laughing maniacally and dug the dagger in deeper. Zhang He grunted and dropped to his knees, the pain almost too much to bear.
"I told you, I kill anyone who gets in my way!" the man said, staggering a bit from the bruises he had suffered from Zhang He. The man made as if to hit Zhang He one last time on the head to finish him off, but Zhang He's arm caught him before he could make contact. With his free arm, Zhang He pulled the dagger out of his shoulder, screaming in pain as he did so. The man watched in sheer surprise as Zhang He brought the dagger high above his hand and landed it in the man's heart. He fell to the ground, dead. Zhang He retrieved the dagger once more, and staggered over to where Mei Li was tied to a chair in stunned silence. With the bloodied weapon he started cutting Li's bonds.
"What are you doing here?" She asked when she gained her voice, questions spilling out a mile a minute. "Are you okay? We need to get some help now! How did you know I was here? Oh, thank you, thank you so much!"
"I was in a battle nearby …" he struggled to say the words, his wound hurting more every second. "… on my way back to Wei when I heard screaming coming … from this … shed." After he managed to cut Li's bonds, and a second later he found himself lying on the floor, barely conscious because of the amount of blood he had lost. Li kneeled over him, watching with tears in her eyes as he slowly slipped away.
"You gave me my locket back," she whispered. "I never got to say thank you."
"No problem," he said, and his eyes closed. A second later his breathing stopped and his head lolled to the side. He was gone.
"Zhang He?" Mei Li asked, still in shock of everything that had been going on in the last couple of hours. She looked at the floor, stained a deep red with his blood. She closed her eyes and held her breath, trying to hold back her emotion when she heard a groan from the far side of the shed.
Jiang Wei! She had forgotten all about him! She crawled over to where he lay, still alive. She turned him on his back, inspecting his mouth. It was covered in blood, but it had stopped bleeding at least. She carefully wiped off his mouth with a handkerchief she had in her pocket. Though a bit swollen, she could tell he was going to be all right. She took his hand in hers and started talking.
"Jiang Wei? Can you hear me?"
He groaned in response. "Are you okay?" she asked. He managed to nod his head. "Everything's going to be okay." She realized her heart was still pounding and her hand was shaking. "What are you doing here?"
He struggled to pull something out of a sack that he had carried on his back. "I found your sketchpad." He handed it to her. With a pathetic smile he continued. "I thought you might want it back."
She took the sketchpad in her hands that were still trembling. Smiling, she reached for the pencil she had in her pocket, and opened up to her list. She made a number five and put Guan Ping next to it. Thinking for a second, she started writing, "Tell someone when you love them, you never know when they might be gone." She smiled though, as she realized that though Guan Ping had taught her this lesson, and she did miss him, she no longer had feelings for him.
"Li, what are you writing?" Jiang Wei asked, still lying on the floor.
She was about to tell him about the list she had made when she thought back to the very words she had just written in her sketchpad. Leaning down close to him, she softly kissed him, knowing that his mouth was still swollen. When she pulled away, she looked in his eyes and said,
"I love you."
She leaned down for another kiss and he eagerly returned her affections.
When Jiang Wei was feeling better and could sit up, Mei Li went back over to poor Zhang He. He lay as still as death on the floor, and Li was once again faced with the fact that a close friend of hers had died. He had died in order to save her, and Li knew that was the greatest gift anyone could give her.
Jiang Wei crawled over to where she was on the floor, and looked at Zhang He. Though he didn't know who this man was, he started talking.
"We'll have to tell someone that he's here. We can't carry the body by ourselves."
"You're right," Mei Li said. "He deserves a proper burial, too. He killed that man that was after the treasure." She paused, having forgotten all about the treasure. "I wonder what he read in the locket that made him so mad. I wonder what the treasure is."
"It's you," Jiang Wei said.
"Me?" she said, turning to look at him.
"Zhuge Liang figured it out but didn't tell me. When I thought about it, I figured it out too. You were your father's greatest treasure; his only child."
"That's why he was so mad," Mei Li said. "It makes sense now. He thought the treasure was something tangible, something he could get rich off of. But it was me." She went over to where the locket lay, broken in half on the floor. She picked it up and held the two pieces together. For the first time years, she read the inscription.
To my Daughter, Mei Li. The Greatest Treasure in my Life.
She put the broken pieces into her pocket. She stood up and gathered up her sketchpad and the bundle of belongings that lay in the corner of the shed. The man had brought them here, too, luckily for Mei Li.
"Come on," she said, helping Jiang Wei get up. "We've got to get you back to Shu. You need some medical attention."
They walked outside and got on Liu Bei's horse together. Since Jiang Wei wasn't well enough to ride by himself on the horse he had ridden over, Mei Li had to do the steering for Liu Bei's horse while Jiang Wei held the reins to the other horse who slowly followed behind. Before they got too far, they met up with some Wei soldiers, and Mei Li explained what happened to Zhang He and where he was. The soldiers were shocked and wanted her to stay for explanation purposes, but she told them she had to get Jiang Wei back to Shu. She left them as they started running towards the old shed.
The rain had finally stopped, and many hours later, very early in the morning, Jiang Wei and Mei Li reached Shu. They clomped through the marketplace until they reached the big building where surely Zhuge Liang would be wondering about the two of them. Mei Li started talking to Jiang Wei, but noticed that he wasn't answering. He was leaning against her back, probably half asleep. Li smiled to herself and woke him up before they put the horses away in the stable and walked into the big building.
The two crept through the halls silently, trying not to wake anybody up. It was no use. Zhuge Liang and Yue Ying heard them from their position in the library where they had been worrying about the two and came out to meet them. They ran out and hugged both the young people for a long time, not saying anything. Mei Li closed her eyes and thought how happy Pang Tong would have been to see her come home after running away like that. Releasing herself from the hug with Yue Ying, she looked at the three people standing before her, and she thought of what she could fill in next to Pang Tong's name on her list; family comes in all shapes and sizes. A family made up of friends was what Pang Tong had said to her.
After smiling at each of them individually, she realized her wish she had made on the star that one day back at the gypsy caravan had come true. She gave Yue Ying and Zhuge Liang one more brief hug, then turned to Jiang Wei and let him kiss her. The family walked back into the library where no doubt a long discussion would take place. On the way there, as she held Jiang Wei's hand in hers, Mei Li smiled and two words crossed her mind.
I'm home.
The End