"Was this man messing with her?" Mai thought "how could she possibly even know what his problem was."Not only that, she was also trapped in his arms and no amount of struggle could help her escape.
The man once again grinned and lifted her as if she was a feather over his shoulder.
"HEY! LET ME GO YOU JERK!"
Mai was even more afraid of this brute. Who cares if he looked gorgeous? He clearly had no manners or knew about anything about the word "no".
The man completely ignored the loud squirming girl in his arms, with long strides he silently walked down the alley towards the entry into one of the manors.
Once they pa.s.sed the manor door and Mai looked at all the servant walking to and for with not a single glance towards them. Almost as if bringing a girl over your shoulders into your home was an everyday occurrence.
A young man dressed in armor appeared near the ice cube that was holding her and also spoke in the same language that she could not understand.
They sounded as if they were arguing with each other, while the armored man mouth started to twitch. It looked as though he got forced to do the unthinkable.
Since Mai couldn"t understand what they were talking about, she was admiring the courtyard. She had never been in one before, however this one had a flowing stream cut across it. With wooden bridges that led to open aired pavilion that sat raised above the stream. If you looked closely into the water, there was various fish of all sizes that would occasionally jump out of the water and fall back in with a splash. Rocks lined the stream with different arrangements of bushes around the bends. In the middle stood a peach tree that had large fruits hanging from its branches.
After going through most of the details in the courtyard Mai thought that she was finally going to be put down but instead was transferred to the armored man.
As quickly as possible he brought her to a room and practically threw her onto the floor as if she had a disease that he could catch from her. Then proceeded to lock the thick wooden door behind him.
Mai pathetically rolled on the ground as she tried figuring out what was going on. Glancing around the room she noticed that it was virtually empty besides the bed in the corner.
After sitting up Mai went through every explanation she could think of. There were two possibilities that really stood out either she was actually this man"s bride and ran away from him or she was his prisoner and couldn"t escape.
"Both sounded equally as bad, who wants to be married to such a brute? Oh, I"m not getting my way mind as well throw you over my shoulders and make you do it anyways." Mai chuckled to herself in bleakness as she imagined herself saying no and the same scenario happening again.
"Let"s look at the bright side at least this is a dry and warm place to sleep at night. Tomorrow I can try figuring a way out of here but for right now I should find out as much as possible. None of the servants seemed to recognize me nor have any personal ones showed up. So, either I"ve never been here before or I am just a lowlife girl."
After ages pa.s.sed in thought Mai"s stomach growled signaling that even if she didn"t know what was going on she should really be worried about what she was going to eat tonight seeing that she had eaten nothing earlier.
Just as she was going to attempt to break free to find some food, a knock came from the door.
Mai paused in thought "who would knock on the door in this age, wasn"t it more likely for the people to just walk in on their prisoner?"
"Oh my, look at you, such long black hair and jade skin you have. What a beauty!"
Mai completely ignored this little old lady who walked in that seemed to want to torment her. Until she realized that the lady had spoken English.
"You can speak English?" Mai asked.
"The only one besides you that can" the old woman answered cheerfully.
"Do you know what it"s going on then?"
The old woman just shook her head, closed her eyes and sighed.
"It shouldn"t have been you, but since it is you we will have to do your best to get used to this place. I will help you a little, eat this little red bean by tomorrow you will be able to speak the language. This is the most I can do for you. Remember that the customs here and where you are from are very different."
The old lady handed a rather small red bean to Mai with her wrinkled hands clasping Mai"s hands around it. The way the old lady treasured this red bean you could tell that it was incredibly precious.
After examining the red bean for a while Mai had thought of a lot of questions to ask the old lady.
"So, what do I do with it?" Mai asked, still staring at the bean, yet no reply came. After waiting a few more second Mai glanced up to give the old lady a questioning look, but she was nowhere to be seen.
"Well that was very abnormal. What did she mean by it wasn"t supposed to be me? That my perfectly good life wasn"t worth transmigrating over here because I agree! Also, what is this crazy red bean, what is it even going to do to me? How does it work? Do I just eat it!?!" Mai sat there in a daze as she was lost in thought about the red bean.
After deliberating for a long time, she decided to eat the bean before she went to sleep. So, if it did anything weird at least she could pretend to be sleeping.
Mai"s stomach still had nothing to nourish it and complained loudly. Mai clutched her stomach as she moved towards the bed.
"Who needs to wait for night time to go to sleep? I will just sleep now and hopefully they will remember that there is an actual girl stuck in this room and bring food!" Mai thought with a fierce look in the eyes.
She laid on the bed, pulled the covers over her, and put the red beans in her mouth. She instantly noticed a sweet taste in her mouth as she swallowed the bean.
Mai"s mind went on a journey from childhood till adulthood. Each stage she learnt more and more words from the language until you could consider her a native speaker. Her knowledge of the current culture grew from that of an ignorant girl to a pampered young lady.
While Mai went on the spiritual journey her body entered a deep sleep that was impossible to awake from.