Chapter Eight.

Fuhua knew Consort Chen was relying on him to ensure Zhang Leihan handed over the jade pendant. Since he didn't want to disappoint Consort Chen who he respected much,he sacrificed his young master's pride. Since Zhang Leihan was two years old,he had changed a lot of bodyguards. A little misunderstanding led him to fire them even without his mother's approval. So far Fuhua had stayed longer than others. Zhang Leihan was unusually quiet on their way back to Consort Chen's residence .Fuhua was sure Zhang Leihan would fire him out of anger and so he kept thinking what he would do incase it happened.

At Empress Han's residence,her personal maid Tian Qi brought her ,her evening tea. Empress Han was a tea lover and had tasted almost all flavours of tea that existed.

"A-Qi,is there any news about the Zhenyan Prince?"

"Something strange happened. The Second Highness just visited him this evening."

"Second Highness? That cold and mean kid? What could he have gone to do there?"

"No idea but he stayed there for a while."

"That's good. He has now become human."

As Zhang Leihan said,that night there was a full moon. People of Zhenyan State didn't believe in ghosts so obviously neither did Yan Yu. He silently looked outside through some openings at the window. He didn't see any sign of shadows whispering like Zhang Leihan said. But still after confirming he tied the Guardian Foo Dog jade pendant on the window. He was slowly starting to believe in the Qijun State beliefs. He was a child after all and his Zhenyan State beliefs weren't as strong as those of an adult so it was easy for him to be swayed to believe another state's beliefs.

The Qijun Palace was big enough to even have the Martial Field where the princes and princesses were personally taught martial arts by Master Lv. The field had several bullseye archery targets where the princes practiced archery on. As Yan Yu woke up in the morning he could see several kites flying in the air. He suddenly remembered flying kites with his brothers.Despite being controlled by someone kites would fly freely in the air on their own. This unrestrained nature of kites is what Yan Yu loved the most about kites. Yan Yu saw several arrows being shot in the air. He could also hear some giggles from far. The princes and princesses were definitely practicing archery by shooting kites. Yan Yu suddenly became curious and he sneakily left his residence. He hid behind the flower fence surrounding the Martial Field. He sneakily watched the others shoot kites happily. As usual Zhang Leihan was shooting kites away from them. Zhang Leihan was a good shooter but due to his frail nature,he got tired easily. He signalled Fuhua who was standing further away to go closer. Fuhua took out two deep purple pearl-like candies with a lustrous sheen and gave them to Zhang Leihan. Zhang Leihan simply threw them into his mouth and began sucking them . From the expression on his face,the candies were irresistibly sweet. Fuhua went back to his position. Yan Yu thought it was cool to practice archery while eating candy. As Yan Yu tried to move to a better position,he slid and fell alerting the imperial guards who were guarding the Martial Field.

"Who is there!"

Yan Yu froze for a moment. The guards caught him and dragged him back to his residence. He had clearly forgotten he was nothing more than a prisoner.

At Consort Chen's residence , Consort Chen was busy making plans to ensure Yan Yu received the necessary education. She even sent some of Leihan's books to Yan Yu's residence. If she took Leihan's books there then Leihan would be forced to go and study there. As for that day the plan seemed to work like she wanted.

Xuezhan Institute was a school where the princes,the princesses and children of those high rank officials and businessmen went to learn literature, cultural and political knowledge. The sibling prince and princess normally rode the same carriage to the institute while Zhang Leihan rode alone and even if he had a sibling he wouldn't ride with him or her. At Xuezhan Institute, there were four ranks of classes according to seniority. The highest rank was Peak Class followed by High Class,Middle Class and lastly Lower Class. Zhang Huojin was in the Middle class,Zhang Huolian,Zhang Feng Xiao and Zhang Wuyan belonged to the Lower Class. Students learnt in the same class for two years then they would be promoted to the next rank after passing the final exam and Zhang Huojin was supposed to be promoted to High Class but he was a little of a slow learner so he had to stay in Middle Class for two more years and wait for the next final exam. Zhang Leihan had just been promoted to Middle Class so he would study in the same class as Zhang Huojin.In terms of knowledge, Zhang Leihan was smarter than Zhang Huojin but in terms of strength Zhang Huojin was stronger than him by far.

That morning as the two princes entered Middle Class,some of Zhang Leihan's classmates who had been promoted together with him were surprised to see Zhang Huojin still there. They couldn't help but badmouth him. Zhang Huojin stood at the doorstep afraid to face the others. Although Zhang Leihan was younger than him he had an intimidating aura. Everyone knew Zhang Leihan was frail in terms of strength but this didn't affect him at all. For the first time he stood up for his brother. He grabbed Zhang Huojin's hand and dragged him inside leaving his classmates in shock.