The journey of returning to Li Mansion is quite long. It gives enough time for XiaoRue to explain the condition in Li Mansion.
Prince LiZouWei is the seventh son from eight sons of the present King. Compared with other princes, Prince Li is the humblest one and having the smallest authority than other princes. Rather than involve himself into the internal power struggle in kingdom, he is more focusing in folk education and taking care his own place. It makes him looks like unharmed sheep on his brothers and even on the king"s eyes. But since HuaMutan, who is a granddaughter of the Lord General Hua who controls half of army power in the country had eyes on him. It makes the King finally took out his decree to marry HuaMuTan with Prince Li and as the gift of their wedding, the King bestowed this Li Mansion to them.
"So Hua Mutan" s family background has stronger influences than i thought, no wonder the Prince Li was so respectful to Madam Hua before. From beginning, this Prince Li had been forced into unwanted marriage that he couldn"t reject at all." Somehow TanTan feels sorry to this Prince. But that doesn"t make her can forgive the Prince Li"s att.i.tudes toward her before.
TanTan continues listening XiaoRue"s explanation,
In that mansion, there are 4 people TanTan must know;
There are Uncle Tong who in charge of all finances of the house and his wife Aunt Tong, who in charge in all house ch.o.r.es. Both of them are the faithful servants of Prince Li"s deceased mother. They are also watched over the Prince Li growing up, and because they don"t have any son so they has been considering Prince Li as their own son. They will do anything for the Prince Li"s happiness.
"How do they usually treat me at that house?" TanTan curious how XiaoRue will answers it.
"Ng...they are doing their duties very well XiaoCie... they treated you as the wife of their Master..." again, another unsure tone in XiaoRue"s voice. She is really not good in lying.
"Ah..is that so..." TanTan didn"t pursue it more, as she can see the story line here. If this Tong elders cares a lot with the Prince than they must be having a resentment for a girl who had robbed the prince"s happiness.
"Then who else the other two?"
XiaoRie continue explaining, there is Young Miss LiFangFang, a foster daughter of Prince Li. Her biological father is the closest friend of Prince Li who died in the battle. After her Mom had died due to disease, Prince Li took care of her to fulfill his promise to his deceased friend. Young Miss LiFangFang is just 7 years old now and she is a very active little girl. XiaoRue warns TanTan not to be close with this little girl. When TanTan asks why, XiaoRue tries so hard to explain with a lot of kind words but in the conclusion, it is because in the past HuaMuTan ever almost burned LiFangFang alive for her jealousy and since that Prince Li forbid her to talk or do anything to LiFangFang.
"Jealous to such little girl, how crazy is this HuaMuTan?!" The more TanTan hears stories about this HuaMuTan. She becomes more understand the bad comments she heard in the last funeral... She just can"t believe that she is being in this evil woman"s body right now...
The last person XioRue tells is the bodyguard who is sit beside Prince Li outside of the chariot right now. He is ManQi, also is known as the Prince Li"s shadow. His martial art is very high and he has been following Prince Li since he was teenager. He is a very quiet man, almost like a cold statue most of the time. No one knows his family background or his past but one thing for sure, he is very loyal to Prince Li. He is also will do anything even the worse things ever for the Prince. TanTan can imagine that this ManQi won"t hesitate to kill her if the Prince commands him to.
Then suddenly a "shooosh" sound comes from no where, TanTan can see there is an arrow sticks on the inner chariot wall, followed by other arrows who pierces to outer chariot walls.
"XiaoRue, lay down!!" TanTan pulls herself and XiaoRue down to avoid the arrows. "Someone is attacking us".
ManQi preforced to stop the chariot as some black-clothes men are attacking them from the front.
Prince Li and ManQi are immediately taking out their sword and put their defence acts.
"Is it a robbery? Then unfortunately you won"t get anything because you choose the wrong people to messy about..."
Prince Li tries to scare them...but then Prince Li realizes that these enemies" purpose was not their wealth...
Cause one by one, the enemies try to enter the chariot and attack TanTan.
"They"re aiming to Hua MuTan, why?"
"ManQi, protect her..."
ManQi nods but before he can do that he must defeats three men who together attack him at once.
Inside the chariot, XiaoRue has been screaming and terrifying, seeing many men try to enter and pulls them out but TanTan manages as much as she can to fight back, she hits, bites, pushes every bodies who enter. She even uses the arrows on the walls to hurt their hands. But finally one of the enemy uses his sword, tries to stab TanTan. As her instinct, TanTan falls out of the chariot, the enemy doesn"t waste the time, he tries to stab TanTan again but TanTan uses her karate technique to avoid the attact. There is the other enemy behind her want to attack her once more time. But then Prince Lie manages to kill that man, after that he looks at TanTan weirdly, "Since when this evil woman can fight?"
Unaware, there is another man tries to stab Prince"s back,
"YOUR BEHIND!! WATCH OUT..." TanTan who stands closer to the Prince, is immediately taking an action to protect the Prince, she pulls him and she is turning her body to take the prince Li"s position and so the enemy successfully slashes her back with his sword.
TanTan loses her balance and falls on Prince"s Li"s chest, while ManQi had killed the man who just now attacked TanTan. And turns out it was the last enemy who attack. No more enemies, all died.
XiaoRue who realizes its already safe to come out, shocks to see TanTan got hurt. She rushes to TanTan and seeing TanTan"s back cloth has coloured with her red blood.
"Xiao Cie...."XiaoRue cries.
"I am okay...ugh..." TanTan feels so pain on her back, but she manages to stand up firm again.
"You are not okay..." Prince Li suddenly carries TanTan"s up to one of the horse chariot and then loose the horse and the Prince himself sits behind her on the same horse.
"ManQi, XiaoRue...clear all these and then return to Li Mansion right away. I will take HuaMuTan back right now to treat her wound..." Without waiting for the answer, Prince Li has driving the horse faster he can.
"Ugggh" The shaking was too strong, making TanTan feeling more painful.
"Hang on....We almost there..."
TanTan doesn"t give any respond, she just glare on the Prince Li"s face, he looks so worry...and then TanTan can"t help herself to stay awake ,she is finally fainting on Prince"s chest.
While in Prince"s mind, everything that just happened confuses him a lot,
"Why there is someone who want to kill HuaMuTan?"
"Why did this HuaMuTan suddenly become brave to fight enemy like that and even willing to take wound for him?"
"She never did such things before, in the past no matter what happened, she was usually just hides like a weak woman and only cares about herself."
To solve these mysteries, he must save HuaMuTan first.... so he focus to drive his horse entering the city and then headed to Li Mansion.
Not too far, among the people who witness a horse that is driven crazily so fast pa.s.sing through them. A young beautiful maiden recognizes the driver of that horse and she is wondering,
"Is that Prince LiZouWei...Li*Ge? But who is the woman who with him just now? Is that.....Hua MuTan?" Suddenly she turns worry and then rushes to somewhere.
Notes:
*Ge: calling for a big brother.