Zhuan An & Qian Ki 5

'Thank you Zhuan An,' Xiao Fan thought and glanced at Zhuan An, who hadn't considered her words much. "Yeah, she's another, " he said as his head came back to Qian Ki.

"Another one, in what way?" Qian Ki questioned. 'He has gotten himself a second girl? This is just...unfair?' Waiting for the answer made her have many opinions.

"In the same way as Zhuan An is," Xiao Fan responded to her question. 'There is no reason to be lying here. Just make the fall as soft as possible.' He wasn't trying to hide these things.

"Zhuan An is to you?" she paused for a second, "Does it have something to do with her calling you hubby?" During the second sentence, she realised where this might be going. 'Please don't be that. Please don't be that.' She didn't like the idea at all.

"I don't need to say it. You figured it out already." Looking at her thinking of things could Xiao Fan perceive that she was getting closer and closer to the truth.

"You never talked to us two with that tone? Why her?" When realising the truth, hundreds of questions popped in her head. 'I'm not good enough?' 'He doesn't like me?' 'What? What? What?' She couldn't solve all these questions.

Thankfully Xiao Fan explained, "Do you think that I don't love you? What a funny question Ki'er. I have no problem going to your father to ask for you hand, " He laughed, finding her confusion funny.

All of Qian Ki's question went away with the wind when hearing him speak so, "You have no problem?" Though she did want to confirm this.

"No, I do not," Xiao Fan confirmed.

"Then when we are going there, the first thing you will do is that!" For some reason, she felt pressured to make him promise this to her or something.

Xiao Fan was still laughing at her actions. "Sure, sure. Your father will be delighted to hear that someone wants to take you from him." Qian Bai would accept anyone capable enough taking her away.

"Father loves me!" Qian Ki refuted.

"That must be why he wanted you to stay in Hangzhou so badly." He smiled at her.

Both were knowing how things really were.

"Should I congratulate sister then?" Zhuan An left to the sidelines came back to the conversation.

"New sister? I'm the old one, and you are the new woman." She wanted to make this clear.

"An'er she's right. You are the new one," Xiao Fan couldn't but agree.

"You haven't her parents permission yet. You have mine already," she defended.

"Whatever!" Xiao Fan didn't want to get tied with these matters, "You two can make your own decisions without me." He gave the power in this to the people who cared.

Anyway, he was much more interested in those temples that they were starting to see, 'Like Duan Hin told me...they are enormous!' He was awed from what he saw. They were still deep in the forest, but even then they could easily see dozens of pyramid-like structures in front of them.

'So that is Ulaanbaatar. No wonder the tribes quietly broke the rules of not settling here.' He when seeing the structures couldn't disagree with the decision of settling here.

"Girls stop fighting. We are arriving at our destination." Coming out of it, he stopped the arguing between the two women. Thankfully both of them listened and acted like proper women for the time they entered the city.

"Does the Bald Eagle Dynasty have anything on this scale," he asked this from Zhuan An when they were passing through a giant gate that these people might not know how to close.

"I would think that they have something on this scale, but maybe not, maybe the Imperial Palace could be compared?" she wasn't sure, "The one time I was in the capital it wasn't like this," she noted that the two places couldn't be compared.

Walking the streets, they noted that the place did feel empty. Sure, people came to look at them by the droves and everything; however, there were always places that weren't occupied by people welcoming their warriors back, some terraces or bridges were unoccupied. 'Duan Hin was right. This place has way more capacity,' he concluded.

"Are we going straight to her?" On the note of Duan Hin, Xiao Fan turned around to ask this question from him.

"I am going there, you three are not," Duan Hin answered, "We have to have our meeting before we decide anything" he explained that they wouldn't be getting any meeting today.

"Then do we have someplace to sleep?" If this meeting wouldn't be over quickly, he would like to get some accommodation.

"Just find yourself an empty spot and make yourself home" Duan Hin seemed not to care.

'?'

'?'

'?'

The three of them hearing this were confused. "You aren't going to provide us with rooms?" Zhuan An was the first one to ask it.

"We are? Didn't I just say that take a room that you see fit." he, in his mind, repeated. 'We aren't going to babysit you. What are you going to do? Runaway? Try to kill someone?'

"Then we'll find our own rooms, but how will you find us?" Xiao Fan got a grasp on what Duan Hin was saying, but the other thing puzzled him.

"We'll find you, no need to worry about that," Duan Hin didn't say anything else before walking towards the biggest building.

'That's where Fei Sun lives?' Xiao Fan could, of course, think this much.

"Already thinking of visiting her?" And Zhuan An could see what he was thinking of.

"Who is he going to visit?" Qian Ki on the side inquired.

"Fei Sun, who else?" she answered.

"She's here?" 'Why would Xiao Fan's woman be here? Isn't this the opposition camp? Is she a barbarian?' Again many questions popped up in her head.

"Somehow she got mixed with these people when we came here..." Zhuan An told Qian Ki the short version of the story while Xiao Fan stared at the temple, trying to think how could he get inside there.

When Zhuan An was done with the explanation, Qian Ki spoke, "So that explains the burn on his cheek."

"Yeah..." Zhuan An's tone told anyone that she wasn't happy with it.

"You want to go and have a talk with her?" Qian Ki saw that, and so proposed a plan. 'This Fei Sun girl dares to do something like that? She needs the be taught a lesson!'

"Let's go already!" Hearing that Qian Ki agreed with her thought, Zhuan An didn't waste a second before looking towards the temple with a resolute look.

"Sure thing." Qian Ki was already going towards the entrance that Duan Hin had used.

"Hey! Where are you two going?" Xiao Fan, who was being left alone, asked the two women who were marching towards the temple he had been looking at the whole time.

"We're going to take a look at the place. You find us someplace to sleep!" Du Lan shouted back at him, not taking him with them nor telling more.

"How I'm supposed to find you two?" Sure thing, but how could they find each other inside this massive holy site?

"You can find me, can't you?" Qian Ki spoke while tapping a specific spot on her head.

"I don't think that is how it works!" Xiao Fan wanted to argue about the feasibility of that plan; however, he wasn't given a chance before the two of them went inside that pyramid-like structure.

'Oh, this is nice. Stranded in a new place full of hostiles...maybe I follow them?' Not having any good idea on what to do, he decided it would be for the best to tail the two women. 'They might be doing something they shouldn't...right,' he reasoned it to himself before running into the lobby of the temple.

'Now, where did they go?' he acted something along the lines of sneaking and normal, he had no idea how to tail someone. 'Oh, there they are!' Nevertheless, he saw the two women taking stairs going upwards.

'Wait a moment and then go.' After they had gone off his field vision, he counted to ten or so before going towards the same stairs they had used.

When he came to the first floor, he not seeing the two women quickly looked upwards, 'There they are!' He got a visual on them, well, not them as he only saw Zhuan An's hand which was taking support from the railing. 'She's still not completely fine?' he thought as he tailed them.

'Yeah, her hand is twitching,' he confirmed that Zhuan An was still fearful of Qian Ki by observing the hand slightly twitching, 'Still, it is impressive how far she has recovered.' He wasn't going to intervene if things were at this level.

At some point, there were no more stairs up, and the two women were now on the lobby of the top floor while Xiao Fan waited at the stairs, trying not to be found out yet so that he could follow them.

"Can you see her footsteps?" Qian Ki asked Zhuan An to find her friend's footprints to solve their cluelessness of where Fei Sun might be.

"This...floor doesn't show any footsteps?" Zhuan An answered after a moment of looking for them.

"Wow, it doesn't" Qian Ki looked behind her, noticing that she didn't leave any either, even Xiao Fan in the stairs tried this out and realised the same.

"Maybe follow the smell." This time Zhuan An had an idea.

"The smell? How is that going to help us?" Qian Ki did not follow.

"She's practising to be a shaman or something..." she explained it for a moment or two. "Nevertheless, they use a lot of herbs and that kind of stuff, I think." She emphasised the last word.

"So if you are correct we should go towards the strongest smell?" Qian Ki got the idea.

"Yeah"

"So towards there?" Qian Ki then pointed towards a hallway that seemed like it had been cleaned once, that once being when this building was finished.

"Going by the smell yes." Zhuan An's optimism died down a little until they came to the hallway as when there she noticed something. "Look, you can see footprints," Zhuan An whispered that finding.

"Do they look like hers?" Qian Ki happily noted this and then whispered back to her.

Zhuan An not wanting to make more noise than needed got onto one knee and inspected the ground "Yeah, she's here," she spoke in a voice that Qian Ki could just hear.

Xiao Fan peeking from the top of the stairs only saw her mouth move before she got back up and continued deeper into the hallway with Qian Ki.

'One...two...three.' Xiao Fan started to count to ten like before, but when at eight he felt a hand on his back.

"What are you doing here, kid?" the owner of the tone asked.

Realising that someone had taken hold of him and that the grip was strong enough to cut all his movement, he surrendered.

"I was following my friends," he gave out the information the other person asked for while thanking the fact that he wasn't doing anything really bad.

"Tailing your friends? Tsk, tsk. At least you could look behind you, sometimes," The voice reprimanded before easing the hold enough that he could move his head.

"Hag?" he blurted the name out.

Indeed the person who was holding onto his side was the Master of Fei Sun.

"What did you just call me?" The other hand which held the walking stick rose.