The last day before his execution went by fast. Zang spent the entire day cultivating his qi, resting and eating porridge. However as night fell and the day of his reckoning drew ever closer, time it seemed, began stretching out. Zang lay there on his stone bed staring at the wistful little half-moon that peeked into his cell from outside his tiny window. He closed his eyes and felt the tingling in his bones. The excitement of the day to come often made for restless nights. Especially if the next day brought with it the prospect of an unpleasant death. He took in a deep breath, trying in effect to breathe out his anxiety. Then with one last look at the moon he slowly closed his eyes. Silence fell upon his little world inside his stone cell and the grey fog of oblivion gave way to the deeper darkness of the night.
“Young Lord. Young Lord. Hey, Young Lord. You asleep young Lord?”
Zang frowned.
“Ya know Young Lord it’s really hard for me to fall asleep one day before anything big is gonna happen. I remember this one time when I was kid and my father was going off on a trading mission the next day and I just kept thinking of how cool it would be if I could just sneak onto my father’s ship and visit all the places he was gonna visit along with him, you know see the world…”
Zang lay there prone in silence, he wondered if the foreigner would automatically shut up if he just let him speak his mind for a bit.
“…and I got so excited with the whole idea that I kept imagining all the awesome places I would see that I couldn’t sleep for a single moment and then I when I finally fell asleep it was like right before the dawn so I completely missed my father leaving and then woke up around the afternoon totally dazed… Of course that disappointed me so much that I immediately broke out into tears, so my mother decided to send me out to the market to get some goat’s milk so that she could bake me some nankhatai to make me feel better…”
Unfortunately the foreigner’s story was far from complete and his constant droning was beginning to annoy Zang. Not the first the time he doubted his compact with this dark skinned oddity. Could the foreigner’s claim be true? Did he really have a means of escaping the Empire? Zang didn’t even know what the limits of the Empire were. Sure he dimly remembered some basic maps from childhood but politics had never been his strong suit. Besides, political interest shown by cultivators had always been frowned down upon by civil society. The one thing he remembered for certain from his political lessons was that the Tang Empire was at the heart of the world. It was the greatest empire in the world and all other nations of the world bowed down to it in suzerainty. So where could he even escape? Whatever strange land this foreigner belonged to, would it even shelter a fugitive of the great Imperial Tang?
A stab of momentary panic iced into his heart.
*Was it even possible to escape the Empire?*
“…And by the time I got back it was already far too late and Mother had already gone to sleep, so I got really pissed off. I mean imagine, little old me sitting in a kitchen fuming at myself for missing out on the delicious nankhatai that would have come by way if only my taqdir had been with me that day. That was the day I swore off Jinns for good. Bastards were more trouble than they were worth. So anyway I seal away my Jinn in this green class bottle and hang it around my neck and it’s just banging on the walls begging me to let it out and begging me to make my final wish…
With a sigh Zang realized that he had no idea where this story was going and he was pretty certain that it could go on all night.
“Excuse me, foreigner. I must admit that your tale is most intriguing however I need my rest so I bid you now to be quiet. Absolutely so, even.”
“Oh.”
With that Zang hoped the next sound that would hit his ears would be the welcome clang of his cell door opening. Now all he had to do was close his eyes and fall asleep.
“You sure you don’t want to hear my story? I mean…it’s a pretty good story you know. One of my best even.”
Zang sighed.
“Yeah so where was I? Oh yeah so I had just come back home after being tricked by that rascal jinn and wasting seven hours I finally got home with my goat’s milk, only my mother had gotten so tired of waiting by then that she had fallen asleep. So I get home alone, hungry and desperately seeking comfort but with no recourse to said comfort. So I thought to myself, hang on, I have a jinn trapped in a bottle around my necklace surely he can teach me how to bake nankhatai, I mean jinns know everything so I asked him “Hey…hey Jinn, Hey Jinn…yah you…what’s the recipe to the best nankhatai you have had?” but the sulking little bastard didn’t wanna help me so…”
A distant clash of metal on metal pricked Zang’s heightened hearing, followed by swift footsteps, one person…no two people. Light footed and they were heading this way.
“Hey…hey young lord, are you listening? This is the important bit ya know.”
“Shut up!”
Zang whispered to his neighbour.
“What?”
“I said…SHUT UP!”
“Waaaaa…that is so rude of you. You know what I will shut up, you can forget about hearing my story now…even if you beg me I won’t be telling you a thing.”
“For confucius’s sake shut up you fool, someone’s coming.”
“Oh.”
With a final clang the door to their cell wing opened and two shadows walked in. Slim, shapely, sure of foot, most definitely the two were ladies of the realms, Zang smugly pondered to himself who could it be? Perhaps it was one of his legion of fans, he had heard they had even started a sect in his name so as to honor his legacy post execution. It was only natural if some of them wanted a glimpse of their hero before his fated day of punishment.
*I better strike a cool pose.*
The two figures came to a halt before Zang’s cell. The leading lady’s face held a noble bearing, her waist length hair had been neatly braided, in her silvery silk robe she appeared to be a divine moon goddess, or she would have appeared so had there been any natural light. The moonlight offered a slight sliver of light which served as the only illumination in the entire area. In front of her sat the despondent hero, one knee drawn up to his chest, face down, his long hair wildly strewn about, the perfect pose of a hero in distress. At this sight there was an audible gasp from one of the two ladies.
*Heh, I think my pose was too much, I guess my beauty stunned them. I better start with the introductions.*
“If you seek to offer prayers to this faded dragon, I bid thee maiden, to rush for I do not know how long this faded dragon will stay.”
“I have not come here to offer you prayers.”
Her voice was cold, it had an edge to it. He wondered why he found it familiar.
“Then…”
“I came to look at your face, because despite all you have stolen from me, I...I have not even seen your face yet. Monster!”
*Ehhhhh...wut?*
He looked up then. Dimly, recognition dawned in his eyes and his sense of surprise was replaced by outright shock.
“YOU....IT’S YOU! THE UGLY BITCH!”
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*And here I thought I was about to get lucky T_T *
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