Chapter 2
After I ordered Mei Lin’s servant to bring her belongings to her room I started this silly tour.
I asked her what she wanted to see, but she only nodded the whole time. When we were on our way to the library, I tried to start some conversation.
“Do you like to read, Mei Lin?” I asked her, trying to speak calm. We just entered the big library hall.
She was walking right beside me. I must confess that she was much taller me and I wasn’t that short either.
“Oh!” She seemed to be very impressed by our rich library. “Yes, Ms. Yin Xue, I love to read!” That was the first actual thing I’ve heard from her in these last 20 minutes. She had brightened up suddenly and her tone had gone up. But her voice was strange also. It was generally deeper than I expected. I wouldn’t say that she sounded like a man, no not at all, more like boy with a slightly higher pitched tone.
I was looking again at her strangely and then she noticed that, we just stopped walking also.
“I’m sorry, Miss, for my outburst.” She said quietly and looked at the floor. Now I noticed a strange roughness in her voice.
“No, no, just … don’t call me Miss please. This is strange.”
She nodded and her cheeks became red.
Our awkward silence was interrupted by Minseok who greeted us.
“Princess” He nodded and gave me the flirty smirk he mastered so perfectly. Then he looked at Mei Lin, raised his eyebrows a little in surprise and then gave her a smile as well. “Miss Mei Lin, I suppose?”
“I give her a tour.” I snarled and rolled my eyes.
“I see.” Minseok looked at me again. “I got your new books by the way, Princess.”
Minseok was our home teacher. He was still young though, in the middle of his twenties. He was a very attentive and considerate man with a sense of humor. I sometimes even treated him like a friend.
Kim Minseok was also Korean and came to our country with his parents when he was around my age. They had a lot of money and could afford him a very good education here. His family had a high status also, so he was permitted to work in our castle what he said was a very big honor for him.
Here in China his name was Xiumin, but I preferred to call him by his real name, just as Jongdae.
“Good. I will come back later.”

I explained to Mei Lin where the servants lived. I showed her where the dining hall was, some other places, but we didn’t talk about anything else much.
We finally arrived at the guest rooms. Mei Lin had to stay here; she wasn’t allowed to sleep with Yi Fan in one room before marriage.
I was relieved when we finished. I was still angry though that my father wanted me to do this task, since we had enough servants.
“Yes, so this is your room. Someone will inform you, when we will have to meet for dinner.” I told her, trying to end this conversation as fast as possible and escape back to my room again.
She nodded and when I already was about to turn my back to her, I heard her using her voice again.
“Yin Xue?” I looked at her and raised an eye brown. She was looking straight at my face. Her scary eyes looked so cheerless.
“Thank you very much that you took some time and showed me your wonderful castle.”
I just stared at her, not knowing how to respond. She decided not to wait for my reaction and continued. “But I have one question left. I might be somewhat off-topic. Do you know how we will continue now?”
Her rough voice irritated me so much. I was standing still, observing her face again, her strange expressions.
“We won’t continue here at all, at least not me and you. This is your and my brothers’ business, perhaps our fathers’ also. But I have nothing to do with this all. You should be the one who is informed.” I replied snappy and gave her a cold look. She instantly lowered her gaze.
“I am sorry. I just … it’s just… that I am not.”
So we remained in silence. I was still watching her, but my expression became softer. She looked so hopeless.
You’re not very fond of arranged marriage, are you? Life does not always go the direction we want it to go. You should be happy to marry the prince.
There were many things I could say and yet I couldn’t. I felt so lost in her expression that I was left speechless.
“Princess? Miss?” A voice interrupted us. I looked that direction and saw Mei Lin’s servant I already met before. “I did what you ordered.”
“Thank you, Hai Su. There isn’t anything else I need now, you can leave.” Mei Lin said in a quiet voice. Hai Su nodded and went away quickly.
I looked at her again for a last time. “I will leave you now, too.”
She bowed to me and I just nodded.
I was finally able to leave. I felt so damn upset.
I was rushing through the hallways to my room and hid myself there. I stepped at the window and looked outside to relax myself a bit. I tried to block out my thoughts, which seemed to just stream into my head. I suddenly felt so exhausted.

“I’m so happy that we finally could introduce the young couple to each other.”
My family, Mei Lin and her father were sitting at the dining table and were chatting.  I was just staring blankly into space. I wasn’t very interested in those conversations, yet in eating now. I almost didn’t touch my food.
And then I caught myself looking at Mei Lin again. She was sitting right in front of me.  I noticed that she has barely eaten, too. Just a moment ago she seemed to smile when the others were mentioning her and talking with her, but now her face had the same strange expression as when we talked in front of her room. Why did she look so damn distressed?
And she was acting so shy and sweet all the time. I think this was what put me in rage. I almost felt ashamed for my spiteful behavior, almost.
Would I be able to enrage her? Would I be able to make her scream just for once?
She returned my look. Her eyes widened slightly, when she noticed my expression. I must have looked mad again. I wasn’t a person who could control her facial expressions.
And then I gave her an even more provocative glare. It seemed that she wasn’t one to control her facial expressions, too. I’ve seen probably like ten different ones just in about two seconds. She looked so scared, poor thing.
A smirk appeared on my lips.
“The only one I’m still a bit concerned about is my little girl, Xue.” I heard my father saying. “It is way harder to find a worthy man for her.”
I looked at him struggling to hide my skeptical expression. I hate it when he mentioned this topic.
“That is true, but I think she still has some time. Her older brothers aren’t even married yet.” Mr. Yang said and chuckled.
“Yes, but girls are usually younger when they get married and she's already sixteen. Your daughter is also just a year older.” My father replied.
Mr. Yang laughed a little nervously again. He had just the same strange expression as Mei Lin. He also looked so damn lost. I couldn’t see any other resemblance though.
I looked back at the girl right in front of me. I didn’t even notice that she just stared at me the whole time! Well, I wouldn’t say that she stared exactly but she was definitely observing me while she felt unwatched. When our eyes met, she lowered her gaze shyly.
Our eyes didn’t meet this night anymore.