The Magnolia Beauty

"Who is that?!" His eyes darted to the window and hurried to look out to see who it was. There was nothing but the moon facing back at him as the darkness faded in. Jianhong turned back with two guards bowing down at him. "My lord! We are ready to depart!" The two guards said in sync. The ident.i.ty of the two guards was Weizhe and Zhaoyun, taking the opportunity to fake their ident.i.ties to be their guards for the ride to General Feng"s home.

"Okay, okay. Let"s go." Jianhong uttered, tempted by Suyin. He quickly tried to shrug it off so he could carry on with his mission.

"Carry the woman and throw her in the carriage." He mentioned, leaving the room. Suyin continued to fake her unconsciousness, unaware that the two guards were Qin Fuhua"s people. --------------------------

"Where am I going?" Suyin thought to herself, keeping her eyes glued shut through the entire time. "Qin Fuhua said to run to the south where the sun meets the moon after getting out..." She had repeated that through the whole b.u.mpy ride to Junli"s manor.

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There was a sudden halt in the carriage and Suyin could hear a couple of people talking to each other. All of a sudden, the sound of the swords coming out from the sheaths could be heard, with men yelling at each other.

Was it time for Suyin to make the run? Or should she wait? Qin Fuhua did not make any instructions on this and only mentioned what he needed. With more men yelling and some groaning from being killed, she opened her eyes immediately, noticing that no one was in the carriage.

Suyin hopped up and began to loosen the ties that Qin Fuhua had done earlier before. She took a peek out from the carriage curtains and noticed that there was a fight going on around the bamboo forest. Although it was around five in the morning now, Suyin could see a glimpse of the surrounding environment and decided that this was the perfect time to head out and run to where Qin Fuhua told her. Two different parties were sword fighting against each other in the midst of Suyin getting ready to get out of the carriage. One of the party was dressed in all black and the other was grey. Suyin couldn"t tell whether or not she should trust any of them.

There were about six to eight people around the area with all of the mess, but she couldn"t find Jianhong, Qin Fuhua, or anyone else. The people looked unfamiliar, but Suyin needed to leave soon.

As she jumped out of the carriage and quickly scrambled away from the scene, one of Jianhong"s men caught her. "Where do you think you are going?!" One of the guards asked, pulling Suyin"s wrist closer to him. Suyin tried to fight him off by pulling her wrist back but the soldier was stronger than she was.

"Let me go!" Suyin yelled, glaring at the soldier. A soldier laughed and was about to strike her with his sword until one of the soldiers in black jumped in to strike him from behind. They suddenly hurried back to help their comrades in the sword-fight battle.

Shocked with what had just happened in front of her, she froze in place for a second.

"This is real," Suyin whispered to herself. Seeing blood was nothing to her but to be in a position where she saw someone die in front of her first-hand by someone"s shed of blood was new to her. She needed to keep calm and continue to move on otherwise she would be stuck in this battle.

Suyin lifted her hands up and down, taking a long, deep breath. "Run south," Suyin uttered in her head.

She then dashed as fast as she could down the bamboo trees, dodging them as the sun slowly began to rise up. Where she ran, there was no path but she knew deep down inside that it was the right way to head towards the sunrise.

"Where the sun meets the moon..."

Some riddle that the Prince had given to her. Why didn"t he just tell her where it was at? Suyin couldn"t complain now because she was beginning to run out of breath. The sounds of the swords clashing against each other began to fade away with silent slowly enveloping the area.

Birds began to chirp and the sky was turning into a beautiful mixture of purple, blue, and orange. Along the way, Suyin had stumbled upon a creek with a waterfall flowing down from the rocky ledge. It was the only way from the south now. Upon there lies a foo-dog or known as a lion statue that guarded the creek. Suyin decided to catch her breath next to the creek, breathing heavily as she leaned on one of the tall rocks.

Suyin kept staring at the stone dog, which was out of place from the area. Trees surrounded the area now with the statue in front of the creek was just random. After catching her breath, she walked up the stone dog to take a glance at it. Moss piled up at the bottom of the statue as well as its legs. It was holding a spear that was interesting to Suyin. To protect its land, the face had a snarl, showing its fang against any evil spirits or being around the area.

After studying the statue for a while, she had hit a lightbulb in her head.

"Run to the south where the sun meets the moon."

Fuhua"s voice reasoned in her head again. Where the sun meets the moon! Suyin pointed up in the sky. "When the sun meets the moon, there"s an eclipse." She looked at the lion statue. It was said that in the past, during an eclipse, evil spirits would lurk during the eclipse because of the rare events, so the foo dogs (known as lion dogs) were the protector of the sacred land.*

*(Please note, this is fictional!)

This should be the place that Qin Fuhua wanted her to be. But... what was the possible reasoning as to why he wanted her to be here?

---------------------------------------------------------------- *Qin Fuhua"s POV*Sitting on a horse behind the wretched pig Jianhong, Qin Fuhua quietly watched. The two guards disguised as Jianhong"s were actually the Prince"s. There were another five or six men of Jianhong who surrounded them as well. Weizhe and Zhaoyun glanced around the area and then nodded at each other. At the side not too far from general Feng"s home, the group halted. With the group of men was the carriage at the back, supposedly carrying Han Suyin.

"Go check on the girl to see if she is still unconscious," Jianhong ordered one of his own men. The guard nodded, rushing to go check the carriage. As Jianhong spoke with his men, Qin Fuhua had Zhaoyun and Weizhe prepare for the battle between them as they waited.

"Master!" The soldier ran back in a hurry. "What is it?!" Jianhong replied, looking irritated as he turned his head to the soldier. "The miss... the miss is gone!" "Impossible! I had her drugged! She can not be conscious enough to be awake by now!" Jianhong rushed to the carriage himself, seeing the empty little room without anyone in there."How was this possible?!" Jianhong grumbled, "Without her, our plans are ruined!"

Weizhe and Zhaoyun had placed Suyin in another carriage, taking her to the mountains. Although she was in another carriage, Qin Fuhua knew that trouble would only persist once they have seen that his men are guarding the carriage. It would only mean danger since Qin Fuhua is suspecting that Jianhong is affiliated with another third party.

With Suyin in the carriage and Qin Fuhua"s men taking her, he knew that she would meet trouble sooner or later in the mountains since he was planning on taking her back home. Without the Prince, Weizhe, or Zhaoyun apparent there, he could only take her to one place that only the Prince knew--his secret base.

Just as Jianhong was going to take a step back, a loud sound from the front entrance of General Feng"s home opened. Feng Junli, dressed up in all black covering his body came out with his army of guards. He walked around the manor to where they were at. The soldiers jumped up at the rooftop, aiming their arrows at Jianhong from the home as Jianhong was shocked in place.

"Wha...How did they find out?!" Jianhong said, panicking. He then gave out a manic laugh, lifting his eyebrow as if he wasn"t surprised.

"It"s time for the surprise party to come then."

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