[Vol. 1] Chapter 26 - Three Stories, One Night
Night was bound to be restless, for two people at least. One was A-Ling. The other was the old maidservant.
By the time A-Ling arrived at Xiaolan's front yard, it was dusk. The two guards never let up.
"Please, I need to see my young miss. I am her maid."
The two guards looked at each other, then at the maidservant. One stepped forward and answered plainly, "No entering allowed."
This was the same guard, named Tao Shui, who had notified Xiaolan to go to the receiving hall and meet Lu Xiashi.
Begging, bribing, even kneeling, none of it moved these two woodblocks one bit. A-Ling had tried. She still knelt there, her kneecaps bruising, her legs going numb.
Tao Shui stared at the maid who had knelt for three hours straight, sweat dripping down his cheeks. He said, "Please leave, or I'll use force. This is the instruction of the Elder."
A-Ling didn't dare gamble whether Tao Shui was lying or not. She stood up weakly. She wasn't bold enough to go against the orders of the Elder.
For now, she would have to find another way to hide the items for her young miss.
And so, she left with great reluctance and a belly full of grievance.
While A-Ling nursed her bruises on the path home, another servant sat alone in the damp corners below.
The building was old and dilapidated. Its only saving grace was that it was a one-person room—each servant got their own.
The walls were thin. Other maidservants lived in the rooms nearby, though the one next door had its lights turned off.
It wasn't that the clan was poor. It was simply that, in their view, renovating the place wasn't worth the expense. The poor, the weak, the maidservants... they were never the priority.
This was Lijuan.
She had just placed the dog down. She hadn't buried it yet. But she would have to, and soon.
There was a small patch of earth behind the servant quarters, hard-packed and littered with rocks, where the forgotten things went to rot. It wasn't consecrated ground.
No prayers were said there. No rituals observed. Just dirt and darkness and the occasional desperate shovel.
That was where she would bury it tonight.
By morning, the ground would settle. By morning, she might even forget—she hoped she would.
The bed she slept on was flat and cold, not even a stone for a pillow. She closed her eyes.
WOOF!
Lijuan's eyes snapped wide open.
There shouldn't be a dog barking so late at night.
Later, in the early morning, multiple maidservants who lived near Lijuan filed a noise complaint. Last night, her screams were heard throughout, causing most of the maidservants to wake up with dark circles under their eyes.
Meixiu had even heard of these complaints despite living in different quarters. She stared at Lijuan's pale face and messy hair, as if she were looking at a madwoman.
A shadow cast over the madwoman. Meixiu looked at Lijuan and put on a fake smile as she asked, "What happened?"
"There was a dog barking! I heard it! It's true! I heard barking from behind our building!"
Lijuan gripped Meixiu's shoulders, manic, and cried out.
Meixiu's eyes flickered. "A dog barking? That's impossible. All the dogs in the compound are accounted for." She paused. "Unless..."
Lijuan's grip tightened. "Which means what?!"
Meixiu pried the woman's hands off her shoulders, her expression unreadable. "Which means it came from somewhere else."
Guilty people always revealed themselves.
She pressed on, "What did you do?"
"I... I did nothing!" Lijuan said, then muttered, "I only buried the young miss' dog!"
Meixiu's eyes sharpened, taking mental notes. "Which young miss?"
"Young... young miss Xiaolan!"
Meixiu nodded, offering perfunctory comfort before pulling away. She needed an excuse, a way to meet the troublemaking Xiaolan.
***
At the same hour, on the tiered platforms above, the training grounds at dawn belonged to the desperate and the driven.
Lin Yorou was neither.
She arrived late as always and drifted through the tiered platforms, deciding who to target. Other heirs who saw her parted without thinking.
No one wanted to be near Lin Yorou.
She knew this. She liked it.
Today she wandered toward the archery range. Not because she needed practice, her aim was fine,but because the archers were too focused on their targets to notice her until she was already standing behind them.
"Don't stop," she murmured.
Two junior went rigid. Alpha, both of them. Young. Their scent hit her immediately...hot, alive, glands pulsing with each heartbeat.
Her fingers twitched.
She remembered the misty peak trials. Xiaolan's neck under her touch. That undifferentiated Alpha whose neck was soft. She'd pressed harder than necessary. Let her nails graze. Wanted to see what would happen.
Nothing had. Not yet.
Finally, she had an excuse to make a move.
The path downward led through training grounds already warm with activity. And on one platform, alone and furious, stood exactly who Yorou wanted to see.
Far from the servant quarters, nearby Xiaolan's courtyard on the tiered platform, Lin Feiyu struck again, landing a heavy blow onto the training dummy with a loud resounding—
BANG!
She breathed heavily, preparing for another training session when she caught a figure in her peripheral vision.
It was Lin Yorou. The disgusting freak who had tried to touch her glands days back in the trial grounds.
Goosebumps appeared on her skin. She growled, "What the hell? We have a clear line here. You're on my turf."
Lin Yorou, the female Alpha who had rubbed Alpha glands—and two of those unlucky Alphas were Lin Xiaolan and Lin Feiyu—simply smiled.
That smile made Lin Feiyu's stomach turn. She grabbed her training sword, grip tight. "Say what you came to say and get lost."
Lin Yorou tilted her head, mock-innocent. "So cold. I just wanted to check on an old friend."
"We're not friends."
"No?" Yorou stepped closer. Lin Feiyu stepped back. "I heard you had quite the fight with that little puppy. Lin Xiaolan, wasn't it?"
Lin Feiyu's jaw tightened. "What about her?"
"She's been confined to her quarters. Guards posted. No visitors." Yorou's smile widened. "I wonder what she did to deserve that. Or... what was done to her."
Her words were true, but the reason was different. Yes, Xiaolan was confined and had two guards who didn't allow visitors, but that was because she was healing.
Lin Feiyu stilled.
She remembered the fight. The way Xiaolan had swung at her... clumsy, desperate, weak. The way she'd gone down so easily. The way she'd stayed on her knees afterward, not moving, not speaking, just... staring.
It had been satisfying at the moment. Putting a pretender in their place.
But now, hearing she was confined?
Seeing Lin Feiyu's silence, Yorou shrugged. "I thought you might care. After all, you're the one who put her on her knees. If something happened to her after..." She let the implication hang.
Lin Feiyu's grip on her sword tightened until her knuckles went white.
"Get off my platform," Lin Feiyu said.
Yorou laughed softly and left, her silhouette disappearing down the path toward the lower tiers.
Lin Feiyu watched until the silhouette vanished into the lower tiers. Only then did she realize she'd been holding her breath
She stood there for a long moment, breathing hard.
Then she looked toward Xiaolan's courtyard. She told herself it wasn't concern. She grabbed her outer robe and started walking.
Maybe it's a lie. It had been two days since that fight, so why was Xiaolan confined now?
Lin Feiyu doubted Yorou's words, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
Two Alphas, both with their own thoughts. One in the know, and the other in... well, the dark.
Later, Yorou stood at the edge of a tiered platform, looking down at Xiaolan's courtyard.
Two guards at the door. Lights off. No movement.
She remembered the gland under her touch. The way Xiaolan's body had tensed, even unconscious. The energy thrumming beneath the skin.
For now, she'd wait. Watch. Let others do the hard work of getting close.