“Johann informed me that there was an intruder, but I find it hard to believe that he got away from all three of you.”
Back in Eric’s study, the prince looked shocked to hear the news about Liu. And why wouldn’t he be? We had never once let an assassin escape before.
Liu possessed inhuman powers, and he was such a maniac for battle that it was hard to believe he was Lingsha’s brother.
Lingsha sometimes gets carried away in a fight, but it’s not like she enjoys combat for its own sake… I thought.
I looked over at Eric. He was also deep in thought, arms folded, chin down.
“Is something the matter, Eric?” I asked.
He jolted back to earth, made an awkward face and said, “Er, sorry. I just can’t get over the fact that the intruder was Lingsha’s brother. Fang Liu… Sorry I have to ask this, Lingsha, but can you tell us everything you know about him?”
“Oh, yes. Liu is the fourth eldest prince of the Ren Empire. Anyway, he…”
And so, Lingsha recounted to us the story of Liu. He was one of the most promising princes of the Ren Empire, and he was a son of the eldest daughter of the Fang clan. In the Ren Empire, only the emperor took the surname Ren; all his children took the surnames of their mothers.
“My mother, Xu Xiangling, was a domestic servant in the Fang house, so she raised me and Liu together, see?”
I’d previously heard that in the Ren Empire, it wasn’t uncommon for the emperor’s concubines to live in the houses of his other concubines as domestic servants. I had a hard time wrapping my head around a polygamous society, but I recognized that the Ren Empire had its own customs.
My Elshaidian sensibilities make it totally unfathomable…
According to Lingsha, she and Liu were not only raised together as brother and sister, but they had a rather close relationship despite only being half-siblings.
“I always thought of Liu as my real big brother, see. But after the head of the Fang clan, his grandpa, was killed, he changed, oh yes…”
Her face twisted with emotion as if she was reliving the moment. The Fang clan was a powerful noble house, but when its master was assassinated, their power gradually waned…and after the heirs were eliminated one by one, a young Liu wound up the master of the clan.
It was then that Liu got to work. To save his clan from total financial ruin, he made it his mission to gain the emperor’s throne.
“Liu pushed himself to the brink to blast away all his rivals, see. And before I realized it, we were surrounded by enemies…” Lingsha’s sad gaze cast downward.
According to Lingsha, only the greatest could become the emperor of Ren. It was a land where only the strongest and the most gifted had the right to rule. The emperor had eleven sons and fifteen daughters. They all formed alliances, and their struggles for dominance went from bad to worse.
Because Lingsha came from such a harsh world, she had to make some terrible decisions in order to survive. Surely, Liu must have also made a series of heartless decisions to realize his position of power.
But those terrible decisions had taken their toll on Lingsha’s family…
“Me, my mom, and everyone in the Xu clan were thrown in the dungeon, see…” Lingsha bitterly bit her lip.
What a gruesome existence. Hearing about the Ren Empire’s cruelty made me understand all the more why Lingsha had run away to escape the mayhem. Just imagining an entire family getting thrown in a dungeon made me shudder.
“But I managed to escape, thanks to my mentor. Oh, yes.”
Johann and Eric nodded solemnly. They knew everything Lingsha had been through to escape to Elshaid. In short, she had lived a gruesome life in the Ren Empire—barely escaping alive.
“Okay. So that’s the sort of man Fang Liu is. You see, he’s actually on the guest list for our wedding.” Eric said.
Our jaws dropped. This was the same intruder we had just fought and lost to. It was surprising enough that he was a prince of the Ren Empire, I never would have dreamed he was on our wedding guest list…
“Uh, Prince Eric, is it true that Prince Liu will be in attendance?!”
“Why would I tell such a lie? I told you I sent invitations to the royalty of neighboring states, remember? The Ren Empire’s imperial family is huge and cutthroat from what I’ve heard, so Liu is here as a representative of the emperor.”
As a representative of the emperor? Did that mean Liu was the last one standing from the intensifying dynastic struggle that Lingsha told me about? He did seem regal when we met. That feeling almost hit me as hard as when I first met Eric.
“In other words, Fang Liu is basically as close to the emperor as one can get,” Eric commented.
“Liu… So you kept up the fight, all this time…”
Lingsha’s eyes filled with conflict when she heard the words “close to the emperor.” She was literally a victim of Prince Liu’s quest for power. Her ambivalence was palpable.
“One more thing. Liu sent two letters in reply to the wedding invitation.”
“Two letters?”
Eric removed a letter from the envelope on his desk and handed it to me. When I unfolded it, a burst of light flashed and a voice intoned, “Illustrious crown prince of my beloved Elshaid, my name is Fang Liu. I am the fourth prince of the Ren Empire. I will visit Elshaid very soon as an envoy from the Ren Empire.”
“How…”
I wasn’t expecting the letter to talk to me. It felt like he was in the room, speaking to my face.
“It’s Ren Empire sorcery. I’ve heard they practice forms of magic unknown in Elshaid.”
“That would explain it. So if Prince Liu sent you this letter, why did he sneak into the palace like that?”
A part of me was still in awe of the Ren Empire’s magic, while another part of me was confused by the contents of the letter. If he was in Elshaid as an envoy, why would he break in and cause a commotion?