28 To the Dining Hall

Narrowing his eyes in displeasure, Liu Hui Huang couldn't help to find them all as fools. Their comments, one after another, were digging into his brother and dragging out his murderous ire. There was no helping it and so he stood from his seat. "It's about time we all moved to the dining hall for the rest of the festivities and the meal."

Waving over a eunuch, the emperor murmured some instructions. Nodding his head, the eunuch left to carry out the given task. A few minutes later another eunuch appeared at the front of the room, announcing for the noblemen to kindly follow him to the dining hall in order to continue the rest of the festivities.

As the last of the men filed out to trail after the eunuch, the emperor and his advisers moved to be the last ones to leave. Glancing at the side, Liu Hui Huang saw his brother with a furrowed brow looking out to the garden below. As he turned that same brother suddenly strode forward to leap over the terrace.

Scandalized, Adviser Wu -Wu Mei Lin's father- exclaimed as he snorted in disdain. "Such an uncouth fellow, jumping about like a lowlife."

"Leave it." The emperor hissed, and then added as he continued on toward the dining hall. "Adviser Wu, when you return, you would do well to teach your daughter how to think before she acts against another. Her fall was quite disgraceful, even if young, for the child of one of my people."

Stunned, and although he felt wronged, he dared not utter a single word in his defense. Instead, he cupped his fists and bowed his head. "This subject will see it done." His heart grieved over bringing the emperor's irritation down on his own head as he thought over appropriate punishments to teach his daughter properly.

Liu Hui Huang snorted as he turned and continued on. The fool would have done well to hold his tongue. Had Adviser Wu not spoken so out of turn about the actions of his brother, then he would have ignored the childish actions of Wu Mei Lin who was still quite young. After all, he favored her as a consort for his dear son, his heir apparent.

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Having seen the splash of red once more rushing through the lush green garden, Li Yu Rong felt his eye twitch. 'Just what is Paoxiao doing,' he thought with annoyance surging to the fore, 'the point of him going along as a female attendant was to prevent this!'

Landing upon the deck below with a light "tut," Li Yu Rong caught stride of the red-haired girl in a matter of seconds. Reaching out, he grabbed hold of her arm, pulling her toward himself and lifting her into his arms.

Being that it was so sudden Nastasia immediately began to struggle upon finding herself caught up in a firm embrace. The heart that nearly beat out of her chest at the sudden fright calmed when the familiar warmth and light sandalwood scent registered. Looking up, she found herself catching a single crimson-eyed gaze. That gaze was narrowed in on her yet he managed to walk forward without difficulty.

"I wonder if you're the type the attracts troubles," he told her without care of whether she could understand him or not. "When we first met you were being pursued by General Bai, you've become the want in some plot, and now you're running off without your guard when you can barely speak a sentence to save yourself."

As they walked, those nearby gave a wide breadth to Li Yu Rong hardly daring to breathe as he walked by for fear of his attention coming to them. Their gazes were pointedly drawn to their feet or off to another side as they feared meeting his single crimson-eyed gaze. However, for him, they might as well have been the every day seen decorations for the complete lack of care he held for their presence.

Instead, his attention was wholly focused upon the girl in his arms, sparing only a bit to navigate their way to the dining hall. Recalling the way that men had looked at her, the way his brother looked at her, and things that had been said caused his irritations to surge anew.

Tapping his forehead against hers, he said. "Ah, you're not allowed to do this again. Don't let anyone else ever see you that way again." Then he spoke out a dark promise as his fingers itched to caress her cheeks beneath her confused gaze. "If it happens again, don't blame me for locking you up where only I will ever be able to see you."

The promise was empty as Li Yu Rong would likely never have the heart to completely restrict her freedom. Never-the-less, speaking out such words helped to relieve some of the frustrations in his heart. This may be true, but as he passed by the place Paoxiao stood, he shot the demon a glare sharp enough to kill.

Paoxiao ducked his head to avoid facing that glare and began to follow behind the pair at a more sedate pace. As he trailed behind, his mind worked over ways to avoid Li Yu Rong until his anger abated. Next time, he would definitely not allow anything to distract him from the things he should be doing.

As they walked through the doors of the dining hall, Nastasia tried to get Li Yu Rong to put her down. Although most of the people present turned their gazes toward the table in front of them, she still felt embarrassed to be held this way before so many. This want was thwarted by him tightening his arms around her and she didn't dare to struggle further in front of all these people. Unable to do anything, she sent him a glare.

Li Yu Rong laughed lightly he as he came upon the small table set aside for him at the emperor's lower left. As he took his seat, he settled the little red-haired girl between his legs, one arm snaking around her waist to keep her in place. The nobles of the court and his brother made a face at his actions, but otherwise made no moves to reprimand him. The nobles were afraid to speak out against him while he was present, for they feared his retaliation. The emperor let it go as a show of kindness for he felt that soon red-haired demon girl would be his.

"Down," she muttered as she did not yet know how to tell him to let her go.

His other hand patted her head and played with her hair as he refused her. "No." The best way to make sure that nothing further happened and to show where she belonged was to keep her right where he had her. "Be good and be still."

Ah, Nastasia felt even more that she needed to quickly familiarize herself with the language of this world so that this demonic beauty of a man would stop treating her like a child. As she thought about it she lapsed into silence. Though it would be difficult, she also needed to convey to Li Yu Rong that she met a man who could speak English.

If she could find him, then perhaps that man would be able to tell her something or help her to find her way home. From his words, it could be assumed that he knew something of her situation. Nastasia closed her eyes that she might commit to memory every detail of the man's features so that she would be able to draw his portrait later.

Food had been brought in and served, but before anyone could give it a taste an out of breath General Bai came storming in.

Li Yu Rong smirked, a good show was about to begin.

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A/N:

So, I have a major school project that is going to be taking up a lot of my time this week. I'll still keep my set release of 5 chapters Mon-Fri, but instead of being updated around noon it will now be around 10pm-12am MST. Just for this week.