19 The Afternoon Before the Party by a Pessimist

Xiao Ying sat dismally, looking at Ming Cheng continuing to wash his rice that afternoon on an empty stomach.

A few pieces of cake sat wrapped up in the child's lap, courtesy of his new friends providing him part of their own lunch; the cakes part of the failed batches cooked that were not up to scratch to be presented and fed to the emperor.

Ming Cheng had the occasional call of his name chanted by the trio of friends to show off anything particularly interesting borne of their efforts from strangely shaped faces, made out of torn pastry, to the completed dumplings that looked particularly primped and perfectly shaped.

Xiao Ying watched their antics, and the cook's increasingly steaming face as time evaporated the way, the time of the banquet coming closer and closer.

Lan Chang was rushing around, plating all sorts of dishes that weren't particularly temperature dependent, distributing all the extra wood around the furnaces for the giant rota of dishes to be cooked as soon as the sun went down for all the food to be pleasantly warm at the banquet.

Xiao Ying watched them all mill around, witnessing Ming Cheng's tentative expressions of joy at being included in the group activities, despite being stationed to complete another job entirely. He was almost completely finished with all his washing and he would be soon be tasked with something else.

Watching the child receive something that Xiao Ying didn't even dream of awoke something in Xiao Ying.

The bullies had been transformed into allies and they would serve Ming Cheng well now.

This story and world, even if all the characters had been given names and backstories, was ultimately the fantasy of a lonely, little boy.

Ming Cheng wouldn't lose those children as his friends. He would have them until the day he died.

Xiao Ying had done it.

He had given Ming Cheng friends that he would treasure and be treasured by.

He sighed into his hands and tried to wrack his brain for what would come next.

The banquet was supposed to go off without a hitch or any real trouble, only really significant to show Ming Cheng the splendours of the palace and the luxury that the decadent residents revelled in.

The servants children were allowed to attend and mingle among the crowd, as servers of course, in a twisted act of mercy which showed them the glamour of the elite, while shunning them as they themselves, were merely more props for said elite to use to pamper themselves.

It was a vicious taste of wealth only present to give Ming Cheng a look into the courtly drama and an insight of his future with a little foreshadowing sprinkled in.

Ming Cheng was now going to spend a celebratory evening there at the party, now that the stress of the bullies were off his shoulders.

Xiao Ying sunk down further into his chair as the head cook began screeching," Hurry! Hurry! We need to keep on schedule! Team Boy, you've finished with the rice, right!? Join the children to help finish all the dumplings! Eat your food first though!"

Ah...

good.

Ming Cheng being with the others would only serve to strengthen the ties between them all.

Xiao Ying watched Lan Chang momentarily pause to look over at them all, a beaming smile on her face, seeing all the children happy and getting along, before quickly ducking down to narrowly miss the ladle that went flying past the top of her head and the accompanying mad shriek to get moving again.

Xiao Ying was sure that, at some point, the head cook would have an aneurysm from all the stress of her work, and she would retire quickly afterwards, some other unnamed character taking her place.

He didn't remember it being so close to the grand return banquet of the Emperor's brother, though. It was one of many lines referenced in passing as something that Ming Cheng had to look over in documents as part of his training to become Emperor.

However, looking at the poor overworked and overstressed lady, barking out her orders whilst simultaneously shelling out lotus seeds with sweaty, slippery hands, Xiao Ying realised that her future, impending health problems were easily preventable and could have been written out entirely, saving her the pain of her condition, by simply substituting some actual, well researched drivel instead of the shit that he had suddenly made up, thinking that it would be a funny call back to one of the first mentioned characters.

Was really writing all these characters to suffer so badly worth it, considering that he had no idea the real life consequences of such conditions, nor how they even affected the body at all?

Grown up and hypothetically wiser, Xiao Ying didn't particularly think so.

He could have brought up memories of such a tragedy in one of his potential readers. He could have made fun of one of his potential readers by casting the condition in such a caricature.

Younger Xiao Ying had just been so eager to inflict pain on anyone and everyone who could possibly take it in his fictional world, in lieu of inflicting it on somebody in his real world.

His mother was so overworked and exhausted all the time.

He barely ever saw her when he was at home and he saw even less of his practically non-existent who had cheated on his mother when he was still a toddler and promptly fucked off to who knows where.

Apparently, from the stories of his eccentric neighbour, the man had been going to school when Xiao Ying was born and was the one to name him. He was apparently the one staying at home and studying at the same time, while Xiao Ying's mother worked and worked to feed them both.

Xiao Ying's father had met another student at the university and the two had gotten along well enough for his father to view both Xiao Ying and his mother to be his shameful secrets.

The man next door told him that his parents were still technically legally married, with their split an amicable one, with Xiao Ying's father sending them money periodically and even coming for a few visits that Xiao Ying was too young to remember.

The man laughed when he described the same shock and excitement every single time Xiao Ying had met his father, treating each and every occasion as if it was happening again for the first time.