From Time to Time part 3: The Birthday

I stayed in the village for 7 years, and I sell fruit rather than stealing it. I lived in a small hovel all alone. Sometimes, I couldn’t help but wonder whatever happened to Quaing. Later one morning, it was my 20th birthday, I was walking to work in the dusty pathways when I heard cheers and laughs faintly in the distance. I noticed that nobody was out, so I followed the sounds I was hearing down the street. When I turned the corner, I saw huge ribbons of red, gold, and silver covering all of the houses and buildings like a blanket. It appeared to be a celebration of sort… perhaps a birthday. I spotted the man who lived in the hovel next to me in the huge crowd of people.

“ What is all this?” I asked him, “ Oh, you must not have heard. This is a celebration of the Emperor's daughter, she would have turned 20 today. But something happened to her when she was born, she went missing. We assume that she is dead.” He answered.

A thought popped into my head. Today was my 20th birthday. And I was found in the forest when I was a newborn. Maybe, I was her. It could just be a coincidence, but I decided to check.

Later that evening, I went to the gates of the palace. The gates were made of stone, and it had a tall green roof. It was built high, and only with one opening for those who came. There was writing on the top of it, though I didn’t take time to read what it said. When I approached the gates I met 2 tall and strong men. I believe they were guards. I asked them to see the emperor, they looked as if they were judging my poor hemped shirt and pants. I could tell by the way they looked at my body. My clothes were old, raggy, and smelly. It was almost as if they had taken pity on me, when they let me in I noticed that were comparing their looks to mine. I walked up the long trail up to the door of the palace and I opened the door. The inside was red with silk and other soft and shiny fabrics; all were foreign to me. They also had porcelain bowls and vases, some of them were full. I look inside of one, and I found many different coins, I picked on up and it was cold in my hands. It was golden, perhaps made of bronze. I saw writing on the walls. Almost everything was a light red, and there was some green. There were also huge pillars in the middle of rooms, also red. Around, there were very many animal statues. Statues of birds, rabbits, and lots of other animals. I liked it though, it was really beautiful in there.

I wandered around for quite a while, when I finally saw the emperor himself.

“Who let you in here, what are you doing?” He asked. He seemed angry by the way his eyes glared. It was like being stared at by a hungry animal.

I tilted my head, “I came for an important reason! I promise!” I said quickly, hoping he wouldn’t doubt me.

“ You should leave, my guards shouldn’t have let you in.” He said. I looked at him. I watched as he looked up and down at me, “ Do you; have a job?” He asked this like he too felt bad for me.

“ Yes.” I answered. What was he getting at?

“Why don’t you stay for dinner? We have some wonderful food I think that you will appreciate.” He answered this like he regretted it.

He brought me up a case of stairs, and I was led to a room where there was a woman lying in a big bed. The bed was large, and it had fancy silk blankets. I noticed that her feet were very large on the top, it was kind of creepy.Then I realized that she got her feet bound.

“Who is this?” She asked.

“ I’m... “ I hesitated and looked at the emperor.

“ She is staying for dinner.” The emperor answered

“That’s, fine I suppose” She looked at him questionably.

Later in the evening, I found myself at the dinner with the emperor. To be honest at the start it was just him and his wife talking. But I decided to speak up. I told them about the festival I witnessed.

“ Yes, 20 years ago,” He seemed sad when he talked, “ our 3 day old daughter disappeared. We don’t know where she went, but it’s been so long we assume she’s dead. Today she would have turned 20.” He finished explaining.

“ I turned 20 today..” I said this under my breath, and I didn’t expect him to hear me.

“Did you really?” He asked.

“Um…” I hesitated, “ Yes.”

Then he reached out his hand and lifted my droopy head. His hand was under my chin.

“I never got your name, what was it?” He asked.

It took me a bit to answer him, “Xun.” I finally answered. Then the emperor and and his wife exchanged surprised looks.

“That is what we named our daughter.” He explained.

“You think I’m your daughter?” I questioned.

The emperor looked at his wife again. “ Yes”

We sat in silence for a long time, I could hear the cricket in the front of the palace.

I finally spoke, “So, you’re my father?”

“I suppose so.” He answered

I spent the rest of the dinner catching up with my parents. My parents... They had given me some real nice silk gown to wear, it fell on the floor and dragged along behind me. It was just gorgeous. They also had asked me if I wanted to bound my feet to be beautiful, it was never too late they said. BUt I respectfully declined and continued to celebrate the reunion. When we were at the table, I saw so much food! It was probably more food than I had eaten in my entire life! There was all sorts of meat! They had rice, wheat, millet, pork, chicken, duck, goose, pheasant, dog, yams, soyabeans, turnip, spring, onion, garlic, fish, soup with shark fins, bird nests, bear paws and sea slugs inside of it. I could just go on about the wonderful things they ate! All I had ever really eaten was dumplings, pancakes, and rice. Just enough to survive, I was never able to get such meats and luxuries as my parents. While we were talking, I reached for an apple, I was stunned to find that inside of the apple there was a note. I put it in the little pocket the gown had made for me and continued to eat and talk with my parents.

Several minutes later, we noticed that the palace, seemed to be shaking. I was terrified and we all moved to another room. Seconds after we all moved, we heard popping and sizzling.

“ What’s that?” my mother almost screamed this, she was more scared than I was. As my father got up to go see what these noises were, I held my mother close and hugged her. It felt like a long time before my father returned. But when he did, he was panicking,

“ Hurry, we have to leave now.” He was obviously in a rush.

It wasn’t long before we had gotten into the front of the palace where the gates were. The palace was on fire, all the candles in the house had been knocked down. They were they only way to light the house, and they started a fire! There was no sign of any silk left, all of it was burned to a shriveled up piece of black sand paper. The palace was torn. My father held me tight, then I remembered the paper I had found in the apple. I pulled it out as my parents read over my shoulder (well my mother couldn’t read but she was looking.) I read out loud,

“ I am going to kill you for this, you ruined my life for your own benefits. And now you will die Xun. I will get you.” I looked up at the burning house. Whoever this was, just attempted to kill me. And I knew who I was, I could tell by the handwriting that Qiang had hired the scribe. The Scribe he used every time he needed to write something down. I fell to my knees as I realized that Qiang was trying to kill me.

Later that night I found myself eating lying in bed; in a new palace. Apparently my parents had 3. I felt very sleepy, more sleepy than normal. I was at peace, I wasn’t worried about getting killed, I felt safe that I was with my parents again. Thinking this, I drifted off and didn’t wake up.

“Xun, was poisoned. We don’t know with what, or how, or why. But she was.” Said the man observing Zun , lying in her death bed. Dead.” But we know it was no accident, this was done on purpose. There was someone in her room with her that night. We assumed that is who killed her.” He ended. Xun was dead. Her story, was over.

“Being happy doesn’t mean everything's perfect, it means you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” -Xun