Distant Waters - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Zhaoyun Terrace was in utter chaos.

I mean that literally. Wings were flapping, paws were skidding, and the whole place had erupted.

Before I left, I’d told the princess to feed the birds and beasts I kept.

In the end, she grabbed the wrong feed and managed to enrage the whole lot of them.

The princess looked a little embarrassed. When she saw Gu Siwei come in with me, she looked even more embarrassed.

Feathers and spilled grain covered the floor.

Haltingly, she said, “Wu Zhu, I’ll clean it up.”

“No need. It seems I shouldn’t have asked you to do chores.”

I turned to look at Gu Siwei. Before I could give the order, he had already started tidying up with practiced ease.

The first spell I ever taught him was Object Movement. I admit I had selfish reasons. I wanted him to clean for me.

At the sight, the princess’s eyes went wide, and her lips turned a shade paler.

She said, “Lord Gu, do you come here often?”

“Mm.” Gu Siwei finished the spell with textbook precision. “Back when you used to come make trouble, I was the one who cleaned up too.”

The princess’s lips went even paler.

I found it rather funny. “You’ll learn this from Lord Gu today.”

Then I said to Gu Siwei, “Teach her properly, and I’ll interpret your divination.”

Both of them nodded.

I headed for the inner chamber, intending to bathe.

Every time I finished meeting that old emperor, I felt as if a chill clung to my skin.

Lately, it had grown worse. It was practically the stench of death.

Warm water rose over the scars on my body.

It would be good if he died soon. What eternal dynasty, what reign for ten thousand generations? Better if they all died early.

I had seen the statues of me built across the land.

After Gu Siwei became Chancellor, there were even more of them.

He said they were gifts of gratitude for being accepted as my disciple, but I firmly believed they were an excuse for embezzlement.

Some were gilded. Some were bronze. Some were stone.

Without exception, the faces were always made solemn and dignified.

“What would I want these for?”

“The Lady Witch carries the fate of the nation upon her. She is beloved by all the people. It is only right.”

What use was any of it? I was pinned here, nailed firmly in place.

I scooped up a handful of water and poured it over my head.

My body, the body I built for myself with my own hands, was the same age as the princess and Gu Siwei were now, forever stopped at nineteen.

Chaotic ripples spread across the water’s surface.

When I came out from the inner room, the princess was shakily lifting a feather.

I looked closely. The feather was hovering a hair’s breadth above her fingers.

Gu Siwei asked, “Lady Witch, does this count as her having learned it?”

The princess said nothing. Her eyes were shining, and she was too overjoyed to speak.

I narrowed my eyes and said, “As expected, you really are talented.”

The princess exhausted her strength, and the feather fell back into her hand.

She gasped for breath, but even then, she didn’t forget to flirt.

“Oh, it was only because Lord Gu taught me well.”

No matter how hard the princess tried, and no matter how I hinted, Gu Siwei still listened to my divination in that focused air he always carried around with him.

Except when he was about to leave, he suddenly cupped his hands to the princess.

“You truly do have talent.”

The princess’s face flushed scarlet in an instant. She even forgot to thank him, and had no idea where to put her hands.

In my view, Gu Siwei hadn’t understood a thing. With that temperament of his that only knew how to study, he had said that simply because he had suddenly met a classmate no worse than himself and was shaken by it.

But that did nothing to stop the princess from being happy all the way into the evening.

During dinner, she propped her chin on her hand and looked at me.

“Wu Zhu, actually, I look a little like you.”

I glanced at her.

“I know. Whenever the palace servants mention it, you fly into a rage.”

The princess looked a bit awkward.

“Because I don’t want Lord Gu to treat me like a substitute.”

“What is a substitute?”

“Lord Gu likes you. Since I look a little like you, he’ll be nice to me because of that.”

I said, “You really should read fewer romance novels. If you put the energy you spend on those books into studying with me, perhaps you could scrape by as a witch and wouldn’t have to marry out.”

The princess stuck out her tongue. “Wu Zhu, you look so young, but you talk like such an elder. Anyone who didn’t know better would think you were my mother.”

The princess’s birth mother was unknown.

In the historians’ records, there was only one note about the night she was born: a torrential rainstorm, rare in all the world, fell over the capital.