Chapter 11: The tale of the wolf and the deer

When Lin Mei came back from her newly found hideout, it was already dusk. She could hear the nosy maids whispering about her encounter with the prince when she reached Cloudy courtyard.

Apparently, one of the gardeners had witnessed his master talking leisurely with the new mermaid guest in his own private garden. Afraid of having his head cut off, he hadn't dared to listen in on their conversation and had retreated, as a servant should. However, he hadn't been able to keep his discovery to himself and now the whole household knew that the mermaid had been in the garden with His Highness.

Annoyed by the unrestrained gossiping of the servants, Lin Mei walked straight into her room, without even greeting them. She sat on a small red couch in her room waiting for Liu Ting.

A while later, the maid entered the room, with a seemingly worried expression. She looked at Lin Mei up and down and breathed out a sigh of relief when she realized that the young lady sitting lazily on the couch was uninjured. Liu Ting had heard from the other maids that their new guest had come back from the prince's yard unscathed, but she couldn't help feeling that it couldn't be true. Everyone had been astonished.

In only a few days, Liu Ting had grown quite fond of the lady she was currently serving and had wisely advised Lin Mei to keep away from the Crown Prince's private spaces: the library, his study, and his garden. But it seemed like the mermaid was either foolish or simply unafraid.

Liu Ting had also been scared for herself since she was under direct orders from the master to keep an eye on Lin Mei but she had let the new guest out of her sight and thus, had failed her own mission.

She was even more horrified when she heard Lin Mei disclose her plans for the next day:

"Liu Ting, tomorrow I'll be visiting the library. Have you ever been there?"

"Young lady Bai, please don't play with this servant's heart! You can't enter the library. You have been lucky that His Highness was benevolent today but he might not be a second time! Who knows how he will punish you if you invade his private library? It has practically been sealed for years."

"Don't worry Liu Ting, I have his permission." The mermaid asserted with a calm demeanor.

"Young lady, please don't test the prince's limits. Today was the first time he let someone who went into his garden unannounced return without punishment. Even his closest servants and members of nobility can't enter it without his permission. If His Highness catches you a second time in His garden, who's to know what He will do!"

"Hmmm…"

"Please young lady, this servant asks you only for this one thing!"

"Alright." Mei responded. After listening to Liu Ting and witnessing all the ruckus of the maids outside, she understood that perhaps she had truly been lucky not to be punished this time. She wouldn't go into the garden again.

However, Zhen Feng had not expressly forbidden her from going into the library and she had to at least go in there once to investigate the bracelet that was currently on her arm. She decided not to tell Liu Ting in order not to involve her.

♔ ♔ ♔

The next day, Mei made an effort to wake up before dawn, so that she could make her move without servants strolling around at every corner. She noticed that the library didn't have any guards at the door and quickly pushed the two bronze dragon door handles towards her to enter the room.

As soon as she closed the doors she heard a peculiar noise and became slightly uneasy. The sound had come from the door she had just closed and it seemed like it had locked itself through some unknown mechanism. She tried to open it again and again, only to have her worries proven true: she was locked inside.

She searched for another way out but the windows were also shut close and no other exits could be found. With her powers sealed, she had no way of unlocking the door so she knew she would have to deal with Zhen Feng again. Although she felt a little anxious at that thought, Mei figured she should make the best of her time in the library.

The library was ample but strangely it did not contain many scrolls1. Li Mei could only count a total of four very long bookcases, with six shelves each. Hurriedly, Mei began inspecting the bamboo books on the nearest bookshelf. Lin Mei searched and searched and with every book title she read, she would become more and more surprised. After over an hour of exploring all the shelves, she had come to a very unlikely conclusion: all of these books were tales.

"How come?" She thought." Zhen Feng is such a serious man, why would he have all of these fairytale books in his library?"

She had even scrutinized the individual strips of a few bamboo slips, to check if the titles were hiding the true content of the scroll, but they truly were just storybooks.

"I have walked into trouble for nothing… Is Zhen Feng going to flog me? I heard that's what humans do for punishment. Maybe he will directly throw me in a prison cell? Hopefully, since the library doesn't possess any confidential books, Zhen Feng will let me off with just a few scars…". She sure wished it wouldn't have to come to that though.

When she first heard his name, she immediately realized that he could only be the one and only Crown Prince of the Zhen Empire. She had heard about him. Many merfolk who survived the war had referred to him as a human devil. Was he so dangerous?

She would rather not think about that right now.

A bit on edge, she decided to read some scrolls until the master of the library arrived to determine her punishment. She picked the book that looked the oldest and most used out of all the books surrounding it. The cover was very worn out and had brown stains all over it.

Li Mei sat at one of the two wooden desks standing opposite one another near the entrance of the library. The large library had a lot of unfilled spaces, giving it a desolate appearance. Two very large window panels with beautiful carvings had been forcibly and semi-permanently closed with wooden boards, barely allowing light to come into the room. Fortunately, Mei had brought a candle with her.

She read a tale about a wolf and a deer.

—

A little wolf had once been born in the mountains and its parents always kept him inside the cave at night while they would hunt for prey and at dawn, they would come back with the prey for the little wolf to eat. However, one day, the little wolf's parents never came back.

Hungry and disoriented, the little wolf roamed around the forest and found a small deer. Instead of being afraid, the deer befriended the wolf, for they both shared the common misfortune of not having a family to take care of them. Together the couple found a way to survive by hiding from the human hunters during the day in their cave and finding dead animals to feed the wolf at night.

For many years, the two animals lived together and relied on each other. Until one day the wolf didn't come back to their cave at sunrise. Worried, the deer searched for the wolf for many days and waited in the cave for many many nights.

One afternoon, the deer was still looking for its wolf friend when it spotted a pack of wolves.

Thinking it might finally find its friend, the deer approached the wolves cautiously but expectantly. As he came closer and closer to the pack of carnivores, one of the beasts abruptly bit the deer's hind leg.

The deer kicked its leg aggressively in an attempt to free itself from the wolf's sharp teeth. The wolf was violently pushed onto the ground and the two old friends looked at each other one last time before the deer ran as quickly as it could away from his trusted old partner. The rest of the wolves chased the deer for quite some time but the deer was able to escape its pursuers as he knew the forest better.

It was said that every dawn for the rest of its life, the wolf kept returning to the cave he had once shared with an old acquaintance. Night after night the wolf came and waited, growing old and weary, until one day it could no longer wait for his dear old friend anymore.

—

On the last bamboo strip of the old scroll, someone had handwritten a note. Lin Mei could only read the words:

"The deer also waited a long time for the wolf. If only the wolf wasn't -". The rest of the sentence was illegible due to what seemed like water having been spilled over the rest of the words.

Lin Mei stared at the sentence with a feeling of emptiness and loss, helplessness and hurt. Why would the wolf hurt his oldest companion? Why would he keep waiting for him after hurting him? Did the deer not come back because it died, because it was scared, or did it feel betrayed and never forgave the wolf?

Lin Mei thought about the deer and the wolf for a long time, until the tiredness she felt from not having properly slept the previous night took over her.

1. Bamboo slips: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_and_wooden_slips

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