Little Purple

"Puh!" Hu Zi almost splurts out her tea. "What did you say, your highness?"

The Wind Dragon wasn't just a title that will gain Hu Zi honor and prestige, it also came with huge advantages, one of them was being almost completely immune to edicts such as the marriage edict that the emperor once gave to the first daughter of the left counselor .

She was not completely immune to all of the edicts though, that was why Qing Bo was busy blocking the imperial family's steps.

"Are you interested in marrying into the imperial family?" The empress repeated her question. "And yes, this is a proposal from this empress, would you like to marry one of our suitors?"

"Of course, I wo…" Hu Zi swallowed the next word. When she thought about it, this was a good chance for her. Even though marrying to the imperial family meant that she would be tied down to the Jin Empire, she was still the Wind Dragon, they wouldn't be able to chain her up completely. On the other hand, since the tattoo man was must have come from the imperial family, she could use this chance to investigate him.

But, did the imperial family members were the only one that had the tattoo?

Qing Bo had been investigating about the tattoo man, but he found out that none of the imperial family members could be in the memorial palace at that time, everyone had an alibi and people who could justify that they weren't involved in the massacre.  

So Hu Zi had been thinking, could anyone other than the imperial family members have it? Just to make sure, she asked the empress, "Your Highness, before I give you the answer, can Your Highness answer my question?

"Yes, do ask."

"Where do the imperial family members got their tattoo?"

The empress blinked twice, wondering why Hu Zi asked about that. "The imperial family's tattoo wasn't made by a human. Rather, it was made by a dragon."

"Huh?" Hu Zi wasn't prepared for such an answer. Her eyes widened in disbelief.

The empress chuckled when she saw Hu Zi's eyes widened, showing the perfect purple irises that looked like two beads of amethyst. "At least, that's what the legend said." The empress smiled.

"So it wasn't something someone could copy? It was there when an imperial family member was born?"

"When Min'er was born I saw someone who had a white hair and a pair of blue eyes, he was the one who gave Min'er the dragon tattoo." The empress tried to remember. "When he came, it was like I was pulled into a land of dream, he took Min'er and gave him the dragon tattoo."

Hu Zi tilted her head, a bit confused about what the empress was talking about. The mysterious appearance of the white-haired man was something she couldn't stomach, but now she knew that the white-haired man was the one who gave the tattoo to the imperial family member.


She wondered if he also gave it to someone else, she wanted to meet him and ask him about it.

But for now… "Your Highness, can you give me some more time to think about the proposal?" She wanted to discuss it with Zhi Yu and Qing Bo first.

The empress fell into silence, she then tell her. "There will be a ball in our palace a few weeks after this, you will need to come then and meet with the princes. You are the Wind Dragon, I can't force you to marry one of our princes, but please at least meet him once."

"Meet him?" Hu Zi frowned, she wondered why the empress looked very worried. "Who?"

The empress looked straight to Hu Zi's eyes, the tension around her made Hu Zi felt anxious. "That boy who had been missing for a decade, the previous emperor's only son, Jin Lan."

-----

Behind the waterfall on the Dragon Mountain, there was a beautiful and enormous hidden cave. The greyish cave wall was engraved by some kind of scripts, protecting it from the radars of element users.

The cave was very tall and there was a huge hole right at the ceiling. Some of the river water went to the waterfall that was outside of the cave, while others went to the hole on the ceiling and pour down the water along the cave's wall, giving the cave another smaller waterfall that streamed down to a lake below. The lake took half of the cave's area, while the other half was a piece of land that had the hut.

Most of the land was a part of the sandy shore but there was a big area near the wall where vegetables, fruits, and flowers could grow.

The sunray came in from the big hole and hit the garden that was located right on the side of a two-storied wooden hut. There wasn't just garden around the hut, there was also a small pond made of rocks what was watered by the slow stream from the waterfall.

The flowers also bloom on the walls when spring came, The birds flew by and the butterflies came to and go by.

Hu Zi came here almost every time she trained at the mountain, yet she never noticed the cave because of the scripts. Maybe if she wasn't blind, she would be able to see the hole on top of the waterfall when Shou threw her from on top of the waterfall.

He did it to help Hu Zi learn how to fly, but in the end, she didn't master flying even when her core became purple, indicating that she became the master of the wind.

To her, the air stopped around the top of the cave, the cave was practically a nonexistent. Since the wind stopped at the top, she thought that the area was just flat ground surrounded by trees and the second floor of the hut looked like a bush from her radar perspective. The place was made so that even when the animals came and go, the radar would be blurry about it and element users would think that they came from bushes near it.

The boy was cleaning around the hut, packing his things before he went up to the second floor. The second floor of the hut was way smaller than the first floor because it only contained one bedroom. There was a bed, a table, a huge window, and a door in that bedroom.

When he opened the door, he could see the top of the cave. He only needs to jump a little to get out and get to in the forest that was located on top of the waterfall.

There, he found the bear had been waiting for him since forever, looking sad and gloomy.

The boy chuckled and caressed the bear's fur. "Don't be sad, Brownie. Take care of Han Xu Ren's hut while I'm gone alright?"

The bear gave a growl as an answer.

The boy looked at his pale hands, he sighed. He could feel that he was getting weaker and weaker by days.

He had been thinking of going back home since months ago, his thirst had been unbearable. The imperial palace's library, the council's library, or maybe the books around the imperial city of Jin. As an empire that looked up to knowledge so much, there must be something around its capital that could lead him to find out how to stop his endless thirst.

His eyes glow as he turned his back, walking and moving forward with determination.