YUN SHI QI (雲诗琪)

  Day 6, 4th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Taishan Province, Tian’an Sect

  In charge of everything, but the guest list. The Empress made that certain.

  I pushed my fringe from my face and turned over the leaflets in my hand. The paper rustled against my desert dry palms. I’m going to get a paper cut aren’t I?

  I looked at the roster that was cradled in my arms. Empty checkboxes leered at me. It felt like I had done nothing, and the Emperor’s birthday banquet was only two days away. I threw my head to the ceiling. After the decorations were put up, there would still be a taste degustation to check all the banquet dishes.

  I inhaled deeply. The scent of sweet pastries filled my lungs, making my mouth water. It was like a perfume, fumigating the room and matching the brightly candlelit walls. I could almost imagine their crunchy, buttery crusts, swiftly brushed with egg wash and neatly hand wrapped in rice paper.

  Xiu would have wanted to be there.

  But she wasn't. Years ago, she had an asthma attack on Yun Rongxian’s birthday and was deemed an unlucky star. Soon after, she was forced to complete her trials as a mortal to atone for her sins and bad fortune. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have let her play in the meadows with me. Especially when her cough played up.

  How could I forget about the pollen?

  She did seem happy that day though.

  I wish I could say the same for myself.

  I clenched my shoulders, then relaxed them and smoothed out my outfit. Those decorators from Huadu Sect would be coming soon, and it would be extremely shameful if everything were unprepared for their arrival. Blinking heavily and hoping my eyelids wouldn’t shut forever, I turned toward the entrance.

  Blossom Chief Ju appeared, wearing a pink coloured dress with peonies embroidered into the cuffs. The dress had a short translucent train that draped lightly over her hunched shoulders. Two gold-crafted dahlia combs were inserted on either side of her head, reflecting the fire in the candles around the hall.

  A youthful girl was beside her. The girl dressed as equally well, her silver combs mimicking branches and leaves. As they entered I could only stare. I had seen her before. She looked as beautiful as she did that day.

  But that was not why I could not take my eyes off her.

  Today, she had amethyst irises sparkled with slivers of silver; like a starry night; other-worldly. A cheerful luminance was ingrained in her face like the sun itself. The alchemist curtsied.

  I inclined my head. On that day I saw her… I thought she had brown eyes. The tickling of jade hairpins sounded adjacent to my ear reminding me how impractical dangly jewellery was.

  The Blossom Chief curtsied, and her skirts brushed the tiles. The girl deepened hers which caused her dress to bunch into a messy lump at her feet. They bowed their heads in unison.

  “Greetings, Your Highness.”

  I gestured with a hand. “At ease. This is the banquet hall.”

  “We will begin immediately, Your Highness,” Ju Ying replied.

  She nudged the young alchemist. The girl stood from her crouched position and hurried off in the direction of the wall. Her skirts went flying, revealing white pants under her dress and stiff fabric shoes. I was surprised that she managed to keep those shoes in such pristine condition; Ah Xiu had ruined hers almost every month.

  The Blossom Chief smiled at me, the awkward type of smile which showed some teeth, and she fidgeted with her hands.

  She held out a hand and bade me to follow. We trailed after the girl, whose fast feet had stopped two steps before the wall.

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  “May I speak to her alone?” I asked.

  I knew the Blossom Chief’s demeanour by now, after her disobedience to the Empress’ demands at our previous encounter. She seemed…overprotective. Like she was hiding something. Even the girl didn't seem to understand the Blossom Chief’s antics. I watched the girl who was flicking her chestnut locks over her shoulder.

  The Blossom Chief seemed startled, as if debating if she should obey my request. She furrowed her eyebrows but consented.

  “Of course, Your Highness.”

  She moved toward the entrance but remained in earshot.

  The girl was growing flowers, her tongue sticking out a little as she produced carnation after carnation. Every single one was without blemish, their crisp petals as white as snow.

  Suddenly, our eyes met. I had been staring at her.

  The girl smiled a little. “These are carnations.” Suddenly, her eyes widened, “If it offends Your Highness…”

  She picked up all the flowers, as if she were going to throw them away.

  “Su Tang,” I said.

  She abruptly stopped. Perfectly frozen in time. The only thing that moved was her chestnut hair that slowly slipped across her delicate collarbones. The wind blew in from the entrance, causing the candles to flicker, casting strange shadows across the floor. Yet, the flickering flame somehow accentuating the silver gleam in her hair pins…and her speckled irises. Su Tang tightly pinched a petal of a carnation in her slender fingers, as she straightened out its folds.

  Perhaps she was shocked that I had called her name, or perhaps that I had remembered it. She blinked twice.

  “Yes, Your Highness?”

  I crouched on the ground with her. The young alchemist turned her body toward the wall…away from me. I kept my eyes on her as I picked a carnation from the pile and fingered it within my hand. It was perfectly crafted, as if it were made of synthetics. Everlasting. These flowers would not know death. Nor rot. I turned it within my palm and the soft petals tickled my skin. Soothing my cracked hands.

  “How did you make this?” I breathed.

  Su Tang scratched the back of her neck. She looked towards the ceiling like she was hoping someone else would answer the question. She bunched some of her hair into a fist.

  “To answer Your Highness, the Blossom Chief teaches us how. She supervises the development of all—”

  “How come only you can?” I cut in.

  The alchemist stared at me with her rounded eyes. I pressed a finger to my mouth. I was starting to sound like the Empress.

  Demanding and controlling. Embarrassed, and feeling my cheeks flush red, I faced away.

  But I was curious. She was only a low-level alchemist. By right, her magic well should have been fully depleted by now. So how exactly did she grow so many flowers? And rumour had it that the Empress had picked her because she had won the past one-thousand-and-eighty-eight Blossom Cultivation competitions; in which, the Blossom Chief had deliberately hidden her supposed winnings.

  The young alchemist turned her head to the side, fixing her eyes on the lime-glazed tiles that the floor was covered with. Her hands were resting in her lap, yet they were tightly balled into fists.

  “I’m not sure I understand your meaning, Your Highness,” she said, as she stood up.

  She began tossing the flowers against the wall. The flowers’ stems reached out, latching onto the wall like hooks. She waved her hands as if she were pulling out the leaves and petals of the flower. Sure enough, the flowers’ stems intertwined, creating intricate swirls. She drew a line through the air, causing a green vine to climb down from the carnations toward the floor, before curling off. Soon, it was a mural. A breathing, living floral mural.

  “It’s beautiful,” I breathed.

  She stepped aside. “I cannot take credit, Your Highness.”

  I tipped my head to the side. I was surprised that she possessed manners. Rumours described Su Tang as being unruly and sharp-tongued. Yet, my personal encounters with her were anything but.

  The alchemist grew a magenta-tipped lily from her palm, then blew over it. The waterdrops that appeared on the petals sparkled like precious gems.

  But how? How could a tier-two alchemist do this?

  A memory flicked across my mind. Usually, such memories were disrupting, disturbing or hurtful. But this one cleared my thoughts like an uncontrollable fire raging through a forest.

  On the day we were choosing bouquets. The Empress was a cruel flower, as beautiful as the dawn on the outside, as rotten as a corpse on the inside. Yet even her hateful vines hesitated when she saw Su Tang. One could say, they even recoiled.

  I didn’t know there was anyone in the world who could scare the Empress.

  The alchemist had almost finished decorating the western wall.

  She tilted her head at me. “Your Highness, is there anything else that needs decorations?”

  I inclined my head, glancing at the completed floral mural. I gestured to the eastern wall. “If you will.”

  “Of course, Your Highness.”

  Su Tang swiftly walked to the other side. I followed her, as Ju Ying silently monitored my actions. Asking questions was not a smart thing to do, considering the Blossom Chief’s unusual amount of care regarding Su Tang. But it would only be a matter of time before this secret was revealed.