What the Princess has to say.

"Ow! Ow! My butt! Xiao Xia wait!" Tai Yang whelped as they took off into a gallop. They couldn't hear the others over the sounds of the grass whipping about and the gallops even though they were not too far off. 

"I need to talk to you." Xiao Xia said. "It's probably going to shock you, and sound crazy, and make you really nervous, and it's okay to be nervous because, damn, I am too."

"A-Alright." Tai Yang said. Now that they were alone, she was speaking casually once more.

"It's a bit noisy but it'll have to do." Xiao Xia said. She sounded so serious that Tai Yang wasn't sure what to say. He waited for her to talk. "I need to know, have you ever met me on your Earth?"

"Not yet..."

"Do you know anything about the Li Jun of your planet and his twin?"

"His twin???" Tai Yang echoed her in complete shock. "There's TWO of him?"

She nodded.

"Yep. Li Jun has a twin."

"Then... where is he on this planet?"

"Somewhere I hope you never have to learn about, Tai Yang. If you don't know, don't say anything to any of them. Li Jun and the others have no idea themselves. Nobody but the previous Tai Yang, me, and now you, know about him. We need to keep it that way."

Tai Yang's eyes widened, protected against the bite of the wind by his glasses. This topic wasn't something one simply spoke about on the back of a horse.

"You need to know something Tai Yang, the Rulers on this Earth are insane. Like bat-shit-crazy. They'd do anything for power. With your brain Tai Yang, you can give them exactly that. One slip of information to an ally and everyone else on this planet would be at their mercy. That's why they killed you. Now that you're here, there are going to be a lot of people coming after you, including my father. I asked Rai Lin and Wu Ji to spy on other kingdoms, to see if they have any intentions. They at the very least can do something. Where I stand, I'm useless. I'm such an idiot, Tai Yang. I'm sorry, I brought so many people with me, and they've all seen you. Even if I make them take an oath of silence, I know someone will sell you out. I thought I was being delusional so I..." She trailed off.

Tai Yang stared at the back of her head, completely stunned. He swallowed, not understanding the last part of what she'd said.

"Then shouldn't I go back to my Earth?" 

"You don't understand. If they're after you here, they'll be after you there too. And I know they already are. I've seen it. They've always been after you, and you haven't realized it."

Tai Yang frowned. He wasn't sure why he hadn't thought about it, but perhaps those intruders in his apartment weren't ordinary burglars. They hadn't even been quiet in their entrance.

But what did Xiao Xia mean by 'I've seen it?'

"Then what should I do?" 

"The previous Tai Yang contacted me a week before he died. He told me that there was something he needed to discuss with me. Nobody knows this, but Tai Yang and I were close. We'd simply never met physically. There were plenty of ways to talk face to face without being in front of one another. Tai Yang knew how to make sense of my prophecies."

Tai Yang's eyes widened. 'Prophecies?'

"I didn't get to him in time when he asked me to come in person the second last time he spoke to me, but I too experienced something on my end that I needed to talk to him about, aside from my prophecies."

She turned her head slightly back. "In short, you can't trust the King of Changying. No matter what you do Tai Yang, stay away from him. He's a schemer. I don't know what he's been up to. But I saw him plotting, and I know plenty of people may die from what he's planning. He doesn't want you, or Ji Ru in his way."

"Li Jun's father? But doesn't Li Jun rule Changying?" He blinked in astonishment. 'And what has Ji Ru ever done to him?'

"Yes, Li Jun rules in his father's absence, which is almost always because that man is off somewhere up to no good. Stay away from him Tai Yang. I don't have enough information to give you, but that man... You can't help him, not again."

'Again?' Tai Yang wondered. 

"Do you remember anything from your childhood? Before you were six or seven. For you, Tai Yang died around that time."

'Ji Ru asked me something along these lines too... What's going on here?"

"I don't remember anything."

"Tai Yang really did his best to clean everything up." Xiao Xia said, sighing. 'What does that mean?' Tai Yang thought. "In any case Tai Yang, listen to me. This is gonna sound crazy, alright? Just believe me. Moments before Tai Yang died, he sent me a Whisp, and he told me we'd meet physically someday. I didn't know how it could have been possible because he was dying, but I think he knew you were going to be here. Days after his death, I saw it in my visions. I knew you were going to be here if I visited this time, seven years after. That's why I came. The problem is when I saw that particular vision, even though it was clear, I didn't even know if I was simply fooling myself. A part of me thought it was me making up a scenario because it was so absurd. In the end, I gave in, and I came anyway to kill my pipe-dream. Then I saw you, the same face I'd spoken to when Tai Yang was alive and the one in my visions. I realized my vision was real. Please forgive me, I should have known better. I shouldn't have brought everyone along. I'm a complete moron. I'm sorry, Tai Yang."

Tai Yang blinked rapidly. 

So she didn't really come to appease Li Jun after all his invitations.

What the hell was going on?

"But Xiao Xia, I don't want to be here. I don't know what you're talking about. And no offense, but how is any of this my problem? I have my own troubles on my own Earth aside from all this. I want to go home."

"Tai Yang. I know you don't see any reason to be here, and I know you don't love or trust any of us. But you need to know, you weren't alone because nobody loved you. You were alone because too many people loved you. Trust me, please. I can't tell you everything right now, but I promise you, I will when I get all the intel together. Right now, we need to get your memories back. I'm positive there's something in there that nobody wants the world to know about, but something Tai Yang needed you to know."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I knew him. He wouldn't do or say something without a reason. Ji Ru knows that too. That's probably one of the reasons he never stopped searching. Tai Yang told me in a Whisp that he was locking his memories, and only he'd be able to see them. That means only you can see them. Ji Ru is the smartest person on this planet, he's probably already figured that you can view the memories because even if you're from different worlds, you are Tai Yang. And he knew Tai Yang better than anyone. If Tai Yang locked his memories and only allowed himself access to it when he hardly ever hid a thing from Ji Ru, there must have been a purpose for that."

"But weren't Ji Ru and the other Tai Yang best friends? Why couldn't he explain that to him?"

"He would never put Ji Ru in danger. It's the same reason he didn't tell me what he was doing. But I'll tell you this much, the Xiao Xia of your world knows something we don't. She has one just like yours."

"She has what like mine?"

"She has a bracelet too."

"How do you know that?" Tai Yang asked, wary. 

"Because I'm an Oracle type. I saw her in a vision, she was speaking to Li Jun's father and Li Jun's twin separately. I get my visions very rarely, but they're very clear when they come. You need to talk to Xiao Xia."

"How would I even do that if I'm stuck on this Earth?"

"I don't know, but we'll need to get you back there somehow, with or without Ji Ru. I don't know what Tai Yang was hiding, but it was clear to me that he was willing to put his life on the line for it. He was trying to save someone or many nameless somebodies."

Tai Yang stayed silent, trying to take it all in. Xiao Xia spoke again. 

"Please help us. I don't want innocent people to lose their lives over some elaborate, sneaky scheme in the shadows by a bunch of evil, immortalized fossils who need to die already."

Tai Yang winced.

Yes, he was suicidal, but he wasn't selfish. He wouldn't be able to die in peace if he didn't help. If people died because of him, he'd feel too guilty to die. He bit his lip. "This is all I can tell you for now Tai Yang, but I promise, I'll do everything in my power to help you too."

Tai Yang let out a heavy sigh and looked up to the starry night canvas of the heavens. 'Looks like you can't die yet then.' He thought. 

"Answer one thing for me." Tai Yang said. Xiao Xia was silent, then she nodded. "What do you wish to know?"

"Who are you to me? Is there a reason we look alike?"

Xiao Xia smiled.  "I honestly have no clue myself. But I can tell you one thing for sure, it's nothing romantic like what Li Jun is thinking."

Tai Yang involuntarily let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank goodness."

Xiao Xia let out a loud snort of a laugh.  "Am I that creepy?"

"No. I thought you were going to get me executed."

Xiao Xia snickered. "Is he that bad about it?"

"He's terrible. He's called me a womanizer and a lecherous man so far."

"To be fair, I feel very protective of you. It's a strange feeling, but it's not what he's thinking."

"I'm glad. But our faces, it's strange that we look like this similar." Tai Yang mused.

"It is. I don't know how to put it, but I feel more connected to you because of it. It's as if I'm talking to myself. I was shocked to see you in person even though I had seen Tai Yang's face, I can't lie about that. It's weird, but it's somehow comforting at the same time."

"I feel the same way." Tai Yang admitted. "I feel like I've known you for a long time."

"To be fair, I did actually know you for a few centuries. I know how your mind works and how dark it can get for you." Xiao Xia said. She sighed, she brought the horse to a halt while everyone still galloped on.

"When all this is all over, you can decide where you'd like to go. I'd want you to stay, but in the end Tai Yang, you have to make the choice on your own. Whatever you choose, I'll support you on it."