The Magnolia Beauty - 45 Calm before a storm

Suyin had realized that she was either always in carriages or somewhere that she couldn’t see, so it would be pretty hard to even encounter Wansun somewhere out in the middle of the city like this. She knew that Wansun had to be an important figure or at least a person around here because of all of the medicine that he had with him.

With a family background in medicine and a large, vast variety of them, Suyin knew that he would be the best bet at learning medicine, for now at least. People were walking together in crowds, walking past various shops and stalls while Suyin had remembered about the bag of coins that Qin Fuhua had tossed to her. She had forgotten about it all along, but thanks to Areum, she had packed it in her little backpack bag made out of simple light-brown cotton. Maybe Suyin can look at it later when she is out resting somewhere so that she can know how much she can spend on food or have somewhere safe to stay instead of resting outside.

With a carefree spirit, Suyin happily walked around, looking at various items she had never seen before. Jades were lined up in a stall with different types of colors that swirled together to make a piece of beautiful jewelry. Suyin was never the type to like jewelry, but the designs that laid in front of her caught her eye. Suyin had lowered to look at the little Chinese calligraphy on top of a certain jade with the words, “Jade of the Dragon.”

Suyin chuckled at it because it was fake. Why would someone sell something like that anyway? She laughed it off, hopping off to look around some more before she left.

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Throughout the day, Suyin couldn’t remember where in the world Wansun had lived, causing her to be troubled because she didn’t want to waste her free time playing where’s Wansun (Note: a play of words from Where’s Waldo, a game where you have to find a certain person in this huge mess of things). It was already getting dark and Suyin had no choice but to find an inn to reside in. She couldn’t turn back to go back to the manor now, especially because she knew that Qin Fuhua will think she is hopeless since she doesn’t know where to go to find her friend’s home.

Sitting in her room, Suyin opened the doors to look at the moon that stared directly down back at her. Sighing because of how beautiful it looked, she leaned by the windows, feeling a cool breeze fly by her. In this life and era, she never really got a break to take a breather at all! She had just realized that with all of the things happening back to back, Suyin was always in the center of the trouble.

A tall, silhouette had been standing at the top of the rooftop on the other side of Suyin’s window, staring at her as she had fallen asleep. The Prince’s cloak danced along with the breeze as he carefully and quietly flew in through the windows to enter the same room as Suyin.

He carefully carried her to the bed, pulling up the bedsheets to cover her. Qin Fuhua sat next to her on the bed, watching her sleep soundly. The Prince had been working on his assignments but couldn’t help when he saw her at the windows. The Magnolia scent that would never go away from her was like a haunting dream to Qin Fuhua because he could always somehow find her that way.

He brushed her hair, tucking it behind her ears as he stood up to leave the room, making sure that the doors and windows were closed tightly before he left.

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“The Prince has entered the inn!” A loud commotion had wakened Suyin up, jumping up in the bed. Wait. How was she in the bed? The last thing she had remembered was staring at the moon from the windows.

Although Suyin didn’t remember what happened last night or how she got to bed, she had a really good sleep. It’s been a long time since Suyin was able to sleep comfortably like that in a while. Carefully, Suyin fixed her hair and slowly slid the door to take a peek at what was going on.

“Hurry, the Prince of Qin has arrived in the inn! Everyone get everything for the Prince as needed!” another one cried out, rushing down the stairs.

“The Prince of Qin? Is he here?” Suyin asked herself. She found it odd that the Prince of Qin appeared in the same inn, asking for some grand entrance which was unusual of him to do. To get a better look at things, Suyin decided to take a glance down the ground level from where she was at within the chaos of the workers running back and forth to serve the “Prince of Qin.”

Suyin peered closer, squinting to look at this so-called Prince of Qin as she widened her eyes. He did not look like Qin Fuhua! What was this person doing?

Everyone scattered to bring the man a table filled with various food. Appetizers, dishes, to all types of desserts laid in front of the man. Another person was with him which was not Weizhe nor Zhaoyun, so it was nearly impossible that this person was a Qin Fuhua! How dare they! If Suyin was able to just go down there and tell them that he wasn’t the Prince, they wouldn’t believe her words.

From the way of how nervous the workers had appeared, she knew that it wasn’t a great thing to do. She had learned her lesson from the previous incident knew that this outcome wouldn’t be so great, so she decided to observe what was going on.

“The Prince of Qin is requesting for more wine!” The servants called out.

“Hurry and bring it out!” The man commanded, angrily drinking the wine as he began eating.

One of the servants had a tray with the wine in the middle. As the servant nervously tried to pour more wine into the man’s teacup, his anxiety caused him to drop the whole tray, causing the man to hit the table, standing up.

“Don’t make me take out the Jade of the Dragon!” The man yelled out, taking out a light-green jade. Still watching from afar, Suyin had noticed that the color was lighter than the real one, but was this what people do to abuse the power of the Prince? This wasn’t Qin Fuhua and she knew that he was impersonating him!

Furious, Suyin decided maybe it was time for her to show up and ask him a couple of questions herself. Although she knew that this might cause her trouble, she knew that she had to defend Qin Fuhua at least.

“Take it out then!” Suyin yelled down to the first floor. Everyone was startled at Suyin’s rash actions. The man who was impersonating the Prince was also taken aback at what she had said. Suyin hurried down the stairs and headed to the so-called “Prince’s” table glaring at him.

“You are not the Prince of Qin.” Suyin began to interrogate. The man was a bit nervous, looking around at the servants, but then pumped up his chest.

“Yes. I am the Prince of Qin.” He then shoved the Jade of the Dragon in front of Suyin’s face as if it was a curse. “Do you not see this?! Be afraid to die under circumstances when you face the wrath of the dragon!”

Was the man serious? Even if Suyin didn’t know what the jade of the dragon did, she would believe that this person was crazy. Suyin rolled her eyes, snatching the jade from the Prince to take a closer look.

“Oh really? What does it do?” She questioned, staring at the jade as if she didn’t know.

The man laughed, pointing at her. “Look at her! She will face all misfortune!” The servants and workers in the inn became paranoid.

“M-Miss. Please pack up your belongings and leave. We do not want any misfortune to occur here.” The owner begged, covering himself with his hands as if Suyin was going to hurt him.

“What are you talking about? This isn’t even real–”

A sword was quickly pointed at Suyin by the soldier next to the mysterious man but he lifted his hand up to stop him.

“Please, I’m begging you to leave..” The owner begged, handing Suyin back her money that was paid for the stay overnight. Suyin could only roll her eyes but then nodded.

Before leaving the impersonator, she threw the jade back at him. “Don’t you dare ever do that again,” Suyin warned, glaring at the man. Although she was throwing empty threats, the man didn’t flinch at all. With no choice but to leave the inn, Suyin had been irritated at this event. How could anyone ever fall for such a stupid trick? Have they never seen Qin Fuhua in real life or something?!

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“My lord,” The soldier said, lowering his head next to the impersonator.

“No, it’s fine. We need to do a couple of things before finding out why this girl knows about the jade.” The impersonator said with an unpleasant look on his face.