Holy crap, a two page chapter. Sorry guys, I'm definitely gypping you here... I would put two chapters up, but unfortunately I don't want to stray too far off my schedule. So tomorrow you get a super long chapter... yeah, you will. xD I promise.

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The next morning, after we enjoyed a gigantic breakfast feast prepared especially for us, King Meng Huo let us borrow four elephants to ride home to Wu in. Two Nanman generals, Dong Tu Na and Ahui Nan were given orders to escort us back to Wu. The way things were looking, we figured we'd be home by the end of the day.

"It sure will be nice to go home," Xiao said.

"And it'll sure be nice when this ivy rash finally wears off," Tong complained, scratching as usual.

"Scratching will only make it worse," Ning laughed.

Tong froze. "Why didn't you tell me that BEFORE!?" he screamed.

"Yeah, well, I just wanna go home," I grumbled. "At least we probably get PAID to do stuff like this."

"We get paid?" Tong asked. "Wow! I thought we were doing this because nobody else wanted to!"

"That's probably why we're getting paid," Ning said.

"Yeah, I wouldn't do this kind of crap for free," Tong said.

"Are you four about ready?" called one of the Nanman generals.

"Yeah, we're ready whenever you are," I replied.

"Then we could have gone an hour ago! Northerners are so high maintenance," grumbled the other.

We headed off back towards Wu, and after a very long trip on the elephants, around twilight Xiao screamed, "I CAN SEE THE CASTLE!!" which cheered us all up significantly. We were almost home.

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"Hey! They're back!!" Ce yelled, jumping up and running over to us, as we entered the large Great Hall.

"AAH!! Look at you!" Da wailed. "You're all filthy!"

Truthfully, we WERE. We were sunburned, disheveled, sweaty, bloody, and in Tong's case, itchy.

Quan jumped off his Imperial throne and scurried over to us. "Ah! You're back already! How'd it go?"

"Meng Huo agreed to ally with us," I said. "He says any time you need his help, just send word-- and have a feast prepared."

"Excellent work! I knew I could count on you, Shang Xiang!" Quan said, patting my shoulder. "Ew. You're sweaty," he said, wiping his now damp hand on his robes. "All of you, go bathe. That's an order!"

"Oh, and stop scratching, Ling Tong! That's disgusting!" Quan added, then left.

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On second, I feel guilty for giving this crap to you. Two chapters! Next chapter's up too!