Faithful Heart (Flesh of my Flesh...Blood of my Blood 2)

Chapter 12

The Nine Heavens bordered with Quing Qiu to the south, its mountainous terrain and floating chunks of land that dotted the sky over the Sea of Innocence had been terrorize by a monstrous Water Dragon and his minions for hundreds of thousands of years. Clashing with the Nine Tailed Foxes that live in Quing Qiu until His Lordship, Donghua Dijun had come with his armies and stroke an alliance with the newly minted Fox King, his brother, Bai Zhi. At the highest floating island, lush with greeneries and waterfalls, His Lordship had constructed his capital from which he ruled the Four Realms and Six Directions, crowning himself Heavenly Lord. The initial Heavenly Palace was conservative but when Hao De, second Heavenly Lord, had ascended the throne after his father had passed on to the Realm of Nothingness, he had begun to spend and expand the palace, adding halls that where ever more luxurious.

Below the main Palace floating island where the lower levels for merchants and food establishments, further below that the soldier barracks where situated as well as the Third Prince's main headquarters where he received reports from all the Realms under the cover of a bawdy house. This is where Si Ming and Lian Song where currently sitting by a low, wooden table drinking cheap wine and eating even cheaper food... gossiping about His Lordship.

"Si Ming, you and I have been on good terms for hundred of thousands of years. You must know when Dijun and the Little Princess started this romance of theirs." Lian Song prodded.

"I shall never betray His Lordships confidence." Si Ming said mysteriously, enjoying the fact that he knew something that Lian Song was not yet privy to, this was a veritable feat to outsmart His Lordship's spymaster.

"So, you do know something." Lian Song pressed.

"I will not tell. No." Si Ming said shaking his head.

"If you know a good gossip tell now, we both saw them before they left for Bihai Cangling, the Little Princess is in love but I have never seen that look on his face when he looked at her. Did this start with the mortal trial?" Lian Song said and refilled Si Ming's cup of wine.

Si Ming drank, he had to tell someone the gossip or he would burst, Lian Song was as close as it got to not telling a soul. "Do the secrecy vow." He urged Third Prince who opened his eyes in anticipation.

Lian Song raised his hand in the air, magic gathering around him, and chanted. "I do so swear, by the Four Realms and Six Directions, that I will not betray what is now being told me in confidence in words, actions or straight though either directly or indirectly." After this was said Third Prince casted a privacy shield and waited for Si Ming to begin his story.

"It started when the phoenix attacked her, his face was terrible when I brought her in wounded, I thought he would strike me dead with the Cang He but instead he chase us all out of the room and whatever he did... he wanted kept a secret because the Little Princess was in perfect health afterwards..."

Lian Song was riveted, he had been away from Tai Chen Palace attending war and spy reports, he had completely missed the Little Princess prancing around the Palace.

"The Little Princess afterwards thought she was deceiving him by remaining in her fox form and by the Heavens he was charmed by her, she would sit on his lap and he would pet her fur. It was all terribly romantic..." Si Ming drank some more wine, it felt good to finally tell someone all the secrets he had kept for three hundred years.

"Is there more?" Lian Song asked and refilled SI Ming's cup.

"The one day something dreadful happened, Lady Zhi Yue somehow found out that the fox was the Little Princess and grew so jealous she locked up Her Highness in the lower levels of the Evil Sealing Pagoda..."