xiv.

“your highness. it’s me, handmaiden sheng.”

the empress closes her book. “come in.”

then her handmaiden, a mid-age lady, comes in and bows before sitting down in front of the empress. “your highness, your personal spy has come. he’s waiting outside this palace of yours.”

the empress raises her eyebrow. “i see. let me talk to him.”

“yes, your highness,” and with that, handmaiden sheng gets out to call the ‘personal spy’.

while waiting for him to come, the empress gets nervous. about a week ago after reading the article, she hired the top-rank of royal intelligence secretly to find out more about zhang yixing. she needs to know. what she’s nervous of is, what if the result is out of her expectation? what if zhang yixing is not a good person like people said? many questions are filling up her brain, but she better keeps those unspoken.

a minute later, the personal spy has already seated in front of her. he puts a brown envelop onto the table and asks the empress to open it. the empress finds many photos of zhang yixing. not only that, she also finds some pictures of zhang yixing and the crown prince wu fan. at that, she feels her heart is surrounded by uneasy feeling. zhang yixing indeed is handsome but compared to wu fan, yixing is rather pretty. she assumes yixing is a dancer because there are three pictures showing him dancing. according to the other pictures, yixing maybe a cheerful guy with bright aura around him. maybe that’s why he makes a lot of friends—since there are many pictures of yixing and his friends. and maybe that’s why wu fan likes to stick with him… and the others that showing wu fan and yixing make the empress wants to sink her head into the bathtub. the way wu fan looked at yixing, the way yixing looked back at wu fan… they remind her of something. the blood is rushing to her head, but she manages not to collapse.

“say, what have you found?”

“so,” the personal spy starts, “this zhang yixing guy is majoring in modern dance department, only a year below the crown prince. he came from changsha, hunan. his family is not a rich one, but fine enough. he has been leaving his house in changsha for two years because his life in beijing is kind of hectic. he once had been the back dancer of chinese top singers like danson tang, jay chou, and wang lee hom.”

“i guess he’s good in dancing?”

“true,” the personal spy confirms. “he’s the best in his year.”

the empress nods. but… dancer? “so, what else? maybe about his relationship with crown prince wu fan?”

“they have been friends lately. his highness, together with young masters liu chao and song bing yang got a class project to make a documentary movie and they got to film the modern dance department. because it was zhang yixing who was able to be the main actor in the movie, they got closer and then became friends. actually not only with zhang yixing, but also with two guys named lu han and jin min shuo from same department as yixing, just a year above him.”

so that’s the reason why…

then the personal spy adds, “when they were in changsha, according to his highness’ , his highness and zhang yixing got out from the hotel at 10 pm, the night after attending the charity event and came back to the hotel at almost 2 am. maybe they wandered around changsha because his highness were so excited to visit changsha and zhang yixing is changsha native. so at that night, maybe his highness asked zhang yixing to show him his hometown.”

okay, it’s too much information actually, the empress mentally scoffs. she registers the information one by one. and oh, she almost forgets. it may be rude but she has to ask. “and about… you know, zhang yixing’s...”

“as far as i know, zhang yixing hasn’t been in a relationship with anyone. i figured that he once had a girlfriend but she was arranged in a marriage, hereafter he’s single. thus, i don’t know about his ual orientation.”

that’s it. it will be easier if yixing had a girlfriend, but he doesn’t. she got some search that someone can change ual orientation when they grow up, and that’s what she’s scared of. the most important thing is their stare. she knows it very well.

“and your highness, i don’t know whether you have read it yet, but today’s newspaper informed that crown prince wu fan asked the ministry of arts and culture to renovate modern dance department’s building,” the personal spy says, handing the newspaper to the empress.

there, she can clearly read the article saying that the ministry of arts and culture is going to renovate the modern dance department of beijing college of arts’ building. the empress feels her heart is sinking. why only the modern dance department’s building? what about the others? is it because yixing asked him to? or what?

“okay, that’s more than enough for me, you may go,” the empress says, handing an envelope to the personal spy—the fee. he thanks the empress before going away. after saving the pictures the personal spy gave to her in a safe place, she calls her handmaiden.

“yes, your highness?” handmaiden sheng asks.

“arrange a meet up with the emperor,” the empress orders. “i need to talk about something with his highness.”