Kiss

Yang Yulan started every day with a light morning workout. In good weather, she often ran out for a run, causing all the servants in the pavilion to stare at her in surprise. Jogging usually took no more than an hour, but it made the girl fall off her feet from fatigue.

In the old days, she could run all morning and then calmly go to training, having had breakfast before that with only some greens. Now she was glad to have walked a couple of meters, after which she still naturally began to feel a prick in her side.

Yang Yulan made sure to do a short stretch before each serious training. On particularly energetic days, she worked long and hard on the physical condition of her feeble body.

It's no secret that the hands of the original Yang Yulan were very weak and pampered. This is not surprising. The imperial daughter hardly needed serious physical training.

However, the current version of Yang Yulan could not leave everything on its own. If the girl had continued to shoot in the same way as she did many times after arriving in this world, she would have been in danger of serious injury to her arms or sprains. All this time, she managed to ignore even the minimum rules of safe shooting, which at one time her coach explained to her hundred times

Naturally, there was no training equipment in the palace, so Yang Yulan had to use everything she could find in the building. Instead of dumbbells, she used heavy little bags of stuff. Instead of a horizontal bar, there are thick tree branches.

Immediately after lunch, Yang Yulan often took a bow and arrow with her, went out into the garden and practiced archery. The targets that she usually used during trainings also became an unsuccessful product of her amateur activities and were often a pitiful sight. Suitable targets for practice included various stumps, pieces of wood and palace utensils. Sometimes even expensive paintings and antique tapestries were used, which hung in this building for God knows how many years, but did not survive the appearance of a single princess.

The cut on Yang Yulan's stomach began to heal slowly, and now it was not difficult for the girl to perform any exercises. They just shouldn't have lasted too long.

The day it happened was as ordinary as the rest.

Yang Yulan had a hearty lunch in her room and some time later went to the garden, carrying a small painting under her arm. This painting used to hang over her bed. It depicted a plump lady with an unusual headdress. She was sitting on the back of a huge white crane, carrying her through thick undulating clouds.

Yang Yulan disliked this painting for a long time for an unobvious aesthetic reason. It just seemed to her that she did not fit into the interior of the room at all. It was quite small and pale compared to the rest of the flashy luxury pieces of furniture and decorations.

After completing a short stretch before training, the girl approached one of the garden trees. It was located in a small clearing not far from the pavilion itself. There was a thick, strong rope hanging from it. Yang Yulan hung her sacrifice on this tree.

After moving a decent distance from the tree, the girl got into a pose. She pulled the bowstring and took aim. Deep breaths, straight back, tense fingers. The arrow flew forward at full speed and roughly crashed into the makeshift target. The tip of the arrow fell right on the neat upturned nose of the magnificent lady.

– Right on the bull's-eye!!

Each successful shot by Yang Yulan was accompanied by shouts of joy and chaotic jumps. A considerable number of years have passed since the last time she felt such pleasure doing sports. In the real world, it has long managed to lose its shape and become overgrown with lazy moss. However, everything changed after the incident with the manager. Yang Yulan finally realized what she had been missing all these years.

«A purpose. Now I have the purpose!» –– the girl repeatedly repeated to herself every time she picked up a bow and arrow. She looked at her weapon enthusiastically and ran into the clearing with a smile from ear to ear, as she once ran to training after school.

In her home world, she could hardly be allowed to shoot people, even in self-defense. Here, in the world of the book, where she was the first daughter of the Empress, who would dare to forbid her to do anything if she wanted to. Even the parents were in no hurry to limit their daughter in her insane outbursts of anger. Thus, Yang Yulan inevitably fell into the trap of sports excitement again.

– What a beautiful world – the girl looked around and inhaled a full chest of fresh cold air – There is still some benefit from getting here.

At the moment when she reached for her quiver to get another arrow, out of the corner of her eye she noticed suspicious movements taking place from a distance, closer to the building. This person clearly did not want to attract attention and chose a path that few people follow.

This person, upon closer inspection, turned out to be Chu Qi. She crept along the outer wall and turned the corner. She looked extremely anxious at the same time.

Yang Yulan frowned seriously. It was all very suspicious. At that moment, Chu Qi had to take the tray of food to the kitchen and then return to look after her during the archery. That's true, but in that case, where was she going now?

Yang Yulan immediately began to wind herself up. Maybe the new manager was no better than the previous one, maybe Chu Qi got into some kind of trouble, maybe someone is bullying her. Even other servants could become abusers. After all, they often made fun of her for messing with the crazy princess.

In order not to guess in vain, Yang Yulan decided to follow her maid.

Chu Qi walked quite slowly and often looked around, which is why the girl had to hide behind trees and bushes.

After walking for some more time, Chu Qi turned the corner again and immediately stopped. Yang Yulan thought that she had finally met someone. The princess was in no hurry to come around the corner and get into the dialogue, as she could not act rashly in such a situation.

After a while, she heard her maid's voice. It sounded pleading.

– Wait, don't do this here.

Yang Yulan's eyes lit up with hellfire.

«After all, another rapist» – she thought, and ran around the corner, seething with anger

– Hey, you..

The words she was about to say suddenly stuck in her throat. She froze in place, as if she was pinned to the ground by something. The picture that unfolded in front of her did not fit into her head. Two girls, Chu Qi and an unknown maid, stood in an embrace, pressed against a wall covered with thick ivy, and kissed. Of course, right up to the moment when their kiss was interrupted by an angry scream coming from the side.

Both sides froze in awkward silence.

Unable to withstand this tension, Chu Qi immediately ran away from the scene of the crime. Her face was flushed, and various thoughts were swarming in her head.

Of course, Yang Yulan had heard about this kind of relationship before. She has lived a long life and seen a lot. However, she had never come face to face with such a thing before. She had never had any lesbian friends, not even acquaintances. She was a little skeptical about this phenomenon. Like something out of this world. How, for example, do people relate to... unicorns. Unicorns are often talked about, but they don't really exist.

Yang Yulan patted her burning cheeks a couple of times. She decided to push those thoughts away. And unnecessary thoughts could only be stopped by severe fatigue. Therefore, the girl returned to the clearing and continued her training.

Yang Yulan was walking back to the palace in a calmer state of mind. They did not discuss the incident with Chu Qi until the end of the day. And the situation got worse, because the next few days passed the same way.

An awkward understatement hung in the air between them like a thundercloud. At one point, Yang Yulan got so tired of this tension that she couldn't stand it and decided to talk to her maid first.

It happened during an afternoon workout, when the sun was still high in the sky. The girl tried not to look into the eyes of her maid and spoke to her as if casually.

– Are you being bullied by someone?

– No, Your Highness – Chu Qi replied to her rather dryly and continued to stand silently in place.

Yang Yulan hesitated a little, but did not give up so quickly.

– That means.. This girl. Who came recently. Is she new here? I haven't seen her before.

– She works in the main imperial palace.

And silence again.

– So she came to check on you? Are you... friends?

– She's my beloved.

- Ah.. – Yang Yulan continued to stretch her arms, but with a dumber, awkward face.

Now the manager's words to Chu Qi, which Yang Yulan accidentally caught during the first weeks of getting into the book, became more understandable to her. Apparently, the man somehow found out that Chu Qi was in an ambiguous relationship with another woman.

Remembering the manager's face, Yang Yulan's fists itched involuntarily.

– Are you disappointed, Your Highness? – Suddenly, Chu Qi's voice startled the girl who had flown into her thoughts a little.

– What? Oh, no, no – Yang Yulan hastened to reassure her in turn – I'm rather just surprised. I think I need time to digest this information. But of course, this will not affect the attitude towards you in any way.

– Thank God – Chu Qi suddenly smiled lightly. For the first time in a couple of days – that's more than enough for me.

From the changed atmosphere around, Yang Yulan's mood also lifted.

– May I ask how you met?

This question couldn't help but stick in Yang Yulan's mind, as she couldn't imagine that same-sex relationships were allowed in a world like this. Even in the modern world, it was often condemned.

And she did not remember that the author of the novel conceived a same-sex relationship in the book. So something was wrong here.

Chu Qi seemed to understand her ward's train of thought.

– There's a place where girls like me can find shelter. It's called «The Golden Orchid Society». Girls who ran away from their families, girls who were sentenced to death, girls who want to love and be loved. All of them can be found there. That's where I met her.

– Really?

Yang Yulan had never heard of such a place. So it was definitely not mentioned in the novel. And this in turn means that the author did not intend them.

It was only at this moment that Yang Yulan realized that the world she found herself in was more multifaceted than an ordinary short story and went beyond the main plot.

In any case, since they talked about it and solved the problem, the two girls' relationship has naturally improved. And although they no longer returned to the topic of love, they continued to communicate, just as they always have.

From that moment on, the days continued to flow tediously and slowly. The same workouts, the same food, the same garden. And as soon as Yang Yulan began to get used to her quiet life, the idyll was immediately disrupted. A maid came running to the White Lotus Pavilion with the news from the main palace.