8 The man who refused an Emperor

We stayed at the capital for a whole month.

Each day, the youngest prince would come over to speak and play with me. He also called mother "Aunt", and the whole family was invited to dine at the palace the day before we were to return to the north.

Mother spoke at length with the empress, and together they fussed over my youngest brother. Zhi kept looking at the empress with adoration, but barely spoke at all. Father spent the time conversing with the Emperor, while I talked with the youngest prince.

"I envy you Shen" he said after we had wandered away from the adults and rest of the family. With the amount of time we spent together, we had begun to forget the formalities and just spoke plainly between us.

I raised an eyebrow at him, this wasn't the first time he had said that to me, but it would be the first time I got an answer to my question:

"Why?"

He smiled bitterly "You have a nice family."

I rolled my eyes, making him chuckle "Yeah, a brother that doesn't stop eating no matter what, and a sister that is too cute for her own good."

He laughed "May be so, but at least you aren't surrounded by intrigues." He sighed and looked away to the horizon "Since I was able to think for myself, I've notices the angry, jealous stares directed at me from my siblings and my father's concubines. I have lessons all day, yet nothing seems to stick, no matter what I do. And the thing I want the most, my mother doesn't want me to practice."

I blinked in surprise "you mean the empress doesn't let you practice martial arts?"

He nodded sadly.

"Why?"

"She says it's much too dangerous for me. You've seen the masters in palace… they work for the concubines."

Since our little altercation, the day of his birthday party, the masters in the palace and their apprentice glare at me whenever we cross paths. If the prince were to train with them… indeed, it could be a disaster.

I frowned "Why doesn't your mother ask for another tutor?"

He shrugged "She asked master Fa, but he refused."

I stared at him with both eyebrows raising to my hairline "I didn't know it was possible to refuse the emperor or his wife."

Heng laughed "Only if you're considered a national treasure, like Master Fa is." I laughed a little with him, thinking of the old man "When mother asked the reason of his negative, he said that he had found his legacy, and that he would be working on it for the foreseeable future." He glanced at me with a grin "a month after that, we began hearing rumors about your talent." Heng sighed and shrugged.

I looked at him "If master Fa won't teach you… do you want me to teach you?"

The prince wanted to learn martial arts from master Fa, but he was busy teaching me. Therefore, it was the next logical step. I might not be as good as the master, but I could at least give him some pointers to begin with. And the capital was only three days away from my home, which meant that I could arrange some form of travel to visit every so often.

Heng stared at me in silence, with his mouth and eyes wide open.

Suddenly, he took my hands in his "Would you really?"

I nodded "um".

He jumped, laughed and eventually hugged me for all he was worth, which wasn't much at the time.

Yet, as sudden as his hug was, he let go and groaned "But you're leaving tomorrow!"

Oh, right.

I scratched my chin thinking. "I have a notebook with most of the basics written down, I could bring it for you tomorrow. And you can practice in your own time." Then I shrugged and told him about my plans for traveling to the capital to see him every once in a while.

He agreed wholeheartedly with them, going so far as to promise he would find a way to bring me to the palace more often.

The notebook that I had offered him, I had done it when I began studying under Master Fa, thinking it would make it easier for me to remember if I ever forgot the basics. I went over it every morning for the past two years, so it was obsolete for me now that Master was moving onto more advanced forms. And, since it was made by me, a writer of another time, it was made in the form of a short novel.

Who knew, maybe the prince would like the story as much as I loved writing it?

I went over some of the basic breathing and meditation techniques with him over the course of the eve, and only stopped when our stomachs began to rumble.

We arrived late at the dinner but were both in such high spirits that the admonishment of our parents hadn't been all that bad.