Like the wheels of a carriage slowly turning upon the pull of a clear-eyed mare, your assignment was in the onslaught of completion.

 “More wine! More wine!” the drunkard slurred his booming voice and waved the empty bottle in the air as his accomplices laughed on insipidly. He was a fat man, from all the luxury he had in the place but unmarried in what looked to be his late forties. His greying hairs were visible underneath his lopsided cap and spider-red silk patterned his scarlet cheeks. The maid fed him another bottle with sly expectation and he sloshed the alcohol into his mouth straight from the container without bothering to use his cup. The liquid dripped unattractively down his neck, the droplets that missed his mouth being wiped away with the rough draw of his sleeve across his lips. He sighed in satisfaction and thudded down the bottle onto the table.

After the continuation of this process till the man could barely stand, he excused himself, legs tumbling over each other as the maid guided his giddy-headed body out into the corridors. It was like luring prey to the trap; she led him down a series of halls right to a room he didn’t recognise in his drunken stupor. He furrowed his brows and turned sluggishly to look at her but she simply nodded her head curtly, bowed and then walked off in the opposite direction.

“Oi! Where are you going?! This isn’t my room!” He yelled to her retreating figure and that was your cue to step out from the shadows and pull him in with a sultry stare. “Oh, are you not happy with mine?”  you spoke.

His eyes refocused and you saw the lechery playing upon them as the corner of his lips pulled up into a smirk. His bulbous torso staggered forward and you caught him with an iron fist. Drawing yourself as close to him as possible, lips near his earlobe, you murmured sweet words to him as you held down your disgust. “Tell me, handsome…” you trailed – already on pet-name basis, “What would you give to spend the night with me?”

He chuckled dizzily, barely able to stay upright with the wine bursting his veins and showed his yellowed teeth in a sheepish smile. “What wouldn’t I give?” his hands were getting bold now, creeping slowly up to your chest and underneath the fabric and you wouldn’t have that, so grabbed them before they got too close for comfort and pinned them behind his back, wrapping your arms around him in an awkward embrace in hold him in place. Undoing the waist band that held your robes close with one free hand, you secured his wrist tightly behind him and pushed him back so that he flopped onto the bed.

The smirk on his lips returned as he salivated with anticipation, his lips and tasting the muggy atmosphere. He admired the bare dip of your neck, down to your exposed collarbone and silken singlet undergarments. You leant in again, playing the femme fatale as you stood before him, “Well, there’s something I want to know…” you trailed, running a finger across his cheek, his shoulder, down to his chest and resting it there on his waist band.

“Anything…” he breathed, already desperate.

In one sharp tug, you pulled away the strip of material that held his robes together and used that as a blindfold to cover his sight. He in a sharp, excited breath and a laugh escaped his lips. In all honesty, he was repulsive but you had to keep up the role; his overweight gut covered in a sheen of sweat drooped out without the fabric holding it back and you grimaced at the sight, glad that he could no longer see you.

“Tell me what the court is planning, in relation to the new established trade routes.”

He frowned at that sentence and cocked his head up, stifling a snicker. “Why would a woman want to know about the trade routes?”

You rolled your eyes at him, even though he couldn’t see and slowly began to disrobe him, revealing his plump shoulder and tumbling chest, trailing a fingernail down the middle of his torso. He shuddered and you spoke, “Don’t you want to tell me?” asking in innocent blackmail and he caved in.

After he had spilled everything in shivering gasps, you pulled out a sachet from the inner pockets of your robe and poured the contents in a cup of prepared sweet tea – to the side.

“Open up,” you commanded, tapping his chin, your hand gripping his jaw and thinking that he was about to receive his reward, obeyed submissively. You poured the drugged drink down his throat and he coughed a first, before drinking it fully.

“Tastes good.” He muttered seductively, his lips dry and putting that smirk back on. “Now do I get to taste you?”

You scoffed, untying his wrists and putting your waist band back on. “Maybe next time.” You laughed, dusting yourself as he began to raise his hands to remove the blindfold; but in the next few seconds he dropped down unconscious, snoring loudly.

As soon as his snores infiltrated the room, the rice-paper doors slid open and the maid stood at the doorway, grinning. “Works a treat,” she said. “With all that alcohol too, I made sure that with the concoction, he won’t remember a thing.”

Even though you still couldn’t wash off the feeling of disgust from your clothes, you had managed to receive more information which was what you had been sent to do in the first place. Dusting your hands off, you looked back to her. “Please just get me out of here,” you sighed and she laughed again.

The next morning, the official had woken to blackness, a blindfold, a pounding headache and the most peculiar gap in his memory to which he could not remember anything at all for the life of him. It was strange, wasn’t it?

After a few rounds of seduction, tempting a select few officials in power, you had managed to retrieve a thorough understanding of the intentions of the court. The nation they wished to trade with consisted not only of Italy but also many empires of the Middle East. But somehow there was something very sinister about the motive behind these new relations. Was it all necessary, especially when ships and boats were already making trade over the seas?

Next on your target was the Concubine’s Quarters.

You swapped dress with the maid and balanced tea and sweet cakes on a waiting plate. You finally scuffled unnoticed out the cobblestone and reached a courtyard that was shrouded in the most beautiful of peonies, cloaked under a stone arch. You looked upon the landscape and sighed a little, feeling despondent all of a sudden that the women you were going to meet held such uneventful fates. Imitating the meek shuffle of a server’s gait, you made you way past the garden, along the wooden corridors to the innermost chambers of the perfumed rooms, free hand poised to knock.

But just as you were about to make yourself present, repeating your lines of “Oh! I’m just a new, humble maid here to serve you- blah, blah, blah…” if they ever asked when you saw a glimmer of gold peek out from the green near the end of the rooms.

Curiosity got the better of you and you put down the refreshments and move in and listen better.

“Mother, have you eaten well? I brought your favourite, red bean rice cakes. Here, you look so thin. You really shouldn’t be wasting away like this.”

‘Mother…?’ you thought – weren’t they forbidden in these parts? Tiptoeing to the corner and peeking in, you saw the eldest Prince holding out a package of neatly folded leaves to an elaborately dressed beauty who sat in front of his standing figure. She looked haggard but still retained all traces of class and elegance in her jaunt face, exuding an air of grace. Her hair was let out and flowing down her back with only one bejewelled pin keeping the mess out of her face and her powdered wrinkles were just visible in creating her expressions. She sighed dejectedly, taking the parcel in her hands and without so much as a second look, placed them on the stone bench beside her. The Prince looked on in clear disapproval.

“Mother.” He said, frowning.

The lady looked up at her son for a while and lazily brushed a caress over his robes, straightening them and fixing any creases in his clothes. “I know it’s tough for you with your Father gone like this, but you still need to follow the palace rules and be a role model to your brothers.”

He had no words of protest, listening obediently as you watched him supress any emotion that was beginning to ade his system. With a strained smile he looked to her, “My brothers are well and they know how to take care of themselves. Did I tell you that Tao’s now leading an army?” He tried his hand at humour to lighten the atmosphere but the lady didn’t show any amusement. She merely smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes.

Taking on a different subject, the woman looked down to her lap as if she couldn’t bear to meet his gaze, “I’ll pass on the brother’s regard to their mothers. Now you have to go back being Prince...” she paused, “Son,” murmuring now, “don’t miss me.”

The eldest smiled sadly, “Yes ma’am”.  His nod was adamant but it held no resolution and you watched on as if he was trying his best to regain determination. Xiumin turned swiftly on his heels towards you and quickly, you struggled back to your post – pretending that you had just arrived.

He was surprised to see another person in the empty courtyard and as you pretended to pick up the tray, he froze dead in his step.

“Good afternoon, your highness.” You bowed, making sure to obscure your face. He had never really seen you up close anyway and now, he was too concerned over getting caught than paying attention to your identity.

“I was never here.” He spoke hurriedly, obviously flustered and strode off, leaving your bowed figure to chuckle silently to yourself. After he had left, you straightened yourself up and was about to knock again, when the Lady walked around the corner, eyes soft and impassable. She crossed her arms over her chest, staring vacantly in your direction.

“You heard everything, didn’t you?” She smiled. You stood there dumbly, frozen with your hand still raised in a fist and knuckles ready to rap quickly along the wood; there was an unmissable expression of guilt painted on your face. Losing your voice in the moment, you could only nod a reply and she cocked her head to the side.

“Come,” she ushered, “I need tea.” 

~

A/N: I'm so sorry for such a late update! I've just been really busy but I'll make it up to you soon. There's more to come so wait a few hours~ In this chapter you finally meet Xiumin! But this fic already has pairings (Kris, Luhan and maybe Lay and Chen) - Tao was just sort of a crush and Xiumin isn't really interested... I guess. It would've been super weird if they all fell for the same girl - that would be unrealistic I later found out. But anyway, thank you so much for reading. I'm eternally (LOVE) hahaha, nah, I'm eternally grateful! If you're bored and an EXO fangirling wreck, try out my other stories while you're waiting. I hope you enjoy them too!