48 The Fox in The Study

"I'm not going to run away. You know that, don't you?" XueYa said after he finished wolfing down his hefty meal. He was patting his abdomen contently as Wei KaiJun and Xie JingYi prepared to leave to hunt down the zodiac books. Yu Zhong and Zhi ChangNing would stay behind to guard XueYa. 

The house in Peony Pavilion was used for short time stays only. It had a small dining area, and a corner was occupied by a wooden bath. The bed was on the other side of the room, hidden behind a thin screen door. The house felt like it was packed full with Yu Zhong's gigantic frame blocking the view.

"Oh, of course, you won't," The monkey said, smiling brightly by the open doors. "Yu Zhong and ChangChang are here to look over you while you sleep, in case you have nightmares."

Damn monkey! XueYa cursed silently as JingYi and KaiJun disappeared from the house, pulling the doors close behind them.

"The water is ready, XueYa. You can take a bath." ChangNing offered as she leaned her back against the doors, eyes drifting over the empty shelves on the wall, lost in her thoughts.

"I can't bathe with both of you staring at me," XueYa bit through his teeth. There was no privacy within this entire house! He never showed his back to anyone. Even uncle WeiJie hadn't seen the full extent of it. The least he wanted was to explain to anyone what had happened. 

Seeing no way out of the situation, XueYa leaned over the table, idly wasting time doing nothing. His thoughts wandered over the white snake and the bracelet that was hanging loosely around the delicate wrist. 

The bracelet was useless, XueYa had learned it when he had broken into the palace to read over YaYun's book.

The key to immortality wasn't in the snake.

It was in the person itself. LiangLin was the way to reach immortality. Still, XueYa was unsure, how to exactly get that immortality from the white snake. 

Snake gods had little information available on them, especially about male snake gods. They seemed to be rare, and most males didn't have the blue mosaic over their foreheads. Only LiangLin until now had possessed this specific marking.

YaYun must have tried to return the snake to LiangLin, yet the bracelet had changed, the white jade snake coiled around the dragon tighter than before. What happened?

"Didn't YaYun perform the ritual to return LiangLin's snake?"

Yu Zhong took a seat across XueYa, his stern expression easing a bit. "Yes."

Ah, this ox was as tight-lipped as ever, XueYa thought. If anything, Yu Zhong seemed to become sterner the older he got. At this rate, he would turn into a stone statue by middle-age.

"Did it work?"

"No."

"…" XueYa waited for a moment, but Yu Zhong made no further comments. He didn't explain why, just a blunt 'no'.

"We don't know why," ChangNing finally said, spotting XueYa's unimpressed expression. "YaYun followed every step depicted in the book, but nothing happened."

That was impossible. Dragon bracelets reacted to the dragon god's blood. Even though XueYa had intentionally called YaYun a degenerate to make him lose his temper, YaYun was a real dragon god, unlike XueYa. YaYun wasn't able to shift, but the zodiac animal was there, hidden within.

Was the bracelet faulty? XueYa doubted it. The only plausible reason was that YaYun must have performed the ritual wrongly. Unless- no, it couldn't be. XueYa shook himself out of the ridiculous thought. He would have to read over the artefact book once the monkey got his hands on them.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"Oi, they aren't here," KaiJun said as he straightened his back, stretching his limbs. They had moved towards YaYun's sleeping quarters first, ransacking the entire place, even turning the mattress to see if he had hidden the books there.

"YaYun doesn't have many places to hide them," JingYi muttered as he rearranged the items on the shelves, to look like no one had ever moved them. "They are either here, or in his study."

The two made their way towards the study. But before they pushed the doors in, faint sounds of moving came from inside the room. The two halted on their tracks. A weak flicker of flame moved around, and the two shapeshifters took a step back from the doors, so their outlines couldn't be spotted from the inside.

In the silence, the two could hear whispers from the room.

"Yating, it isn't here."

"Search again. The books must be somewhere here. That emperor said it himself."

"Yating, don't be mad, but I think you are losing your hold over him. He could be lying."

Hold? JingYi and KaiJun exchanged concerned looks. A fox spirit's charm wasn't as strong as expected? Was YaYun fighting back?

"It's because he has found his mate," Yating's voice was laced with poison. "Mated zodiacs are difficult to control, but he hasn't formed the bond yet. It's troublesome, but nothing I can't handle. I took some of that snake's scent. It should be enough to control that degenerate for the time being."

The fox and his guard rummaged through the study until the sun slowly sunk behind the horizon, yet they hadn't found the books. 

KaiJun and JingYi waited as the two slipped out of the study and disappeared into the distance before they came out of their hiding from behind the corner.

"Where do you think the books are, if not here?" KaiJun asked as they stepped inside the study. Not even a scroll was crooked from the fox's search. The room was sparse, only a few shelves covered the walls, but they didn't have many books occupying them. YaYun liked to read in peace in his sleeping quarters. Only the most urgent work-related notes and scrolls were kept in the study. 

There was simply nowhere to look within the room.

"Come one now. We grew up with YaYun. We should know him the best." JingYi scratched at his chin thoughtfully. "There can't be many places he could hide them."

"He tends to always hide stuff in places he visits the most often, ever since we were kids," KaiJun said as he crawled under the table, before he lifted the carpets, as if there might be a hidden hatch somewhere.

"He never goes anywhere, except between his study, sleeping quarters and-"

"Oh, I know!" KaiJun jumped up so fast he banged his head on the chair.

"The throne!"

It was a race between the two as they pushed and shoved each other out of the way. Who in their right mind would hide anything in the throne itself?

Still, neither of the men could contain their excitement, as the rooster reached the empty palace main hall first, and started rummaging around the throne. KaiJun kicked him aside and ran his fingers along the sides of the golden throne. His fingers brushed over a protruding piece of wood and giving it a light pull the seat snapped open quietly. 

"Damn, YaYun sure does know his hiding places." JingYi gave a low whistle as two leather-covered books came to view from within the throne.