LEGEND OF THE GOLDEN TIGRESS 97 Getting Lost in the Wilderness

Xing thought she'd be able to return back home after a couple of days but there was no indication of her uncle making travel plans even after a week.

Xing wrote letters to Shengli daily and once every three days to her father and brother. Of course she wrote her brother of her recent findings about the secret being his supposed abandonment by his birth father and received his response and even though Rijun had written as if he didn't care much, she could sense the happiness in his writing.

Lin Mubai visited her and in his loud voice chattered for a long time.. Sister-in-law this, sister-in-law that... Brother this, brother that...

The condensed version of his hour long speech was that Shengli misses her, Shihong is dealing with the troubles in the East as Lord Chu's confession has caused stirs there and also those two who meant to meet Shihong were interrupted and dealt with. Also in the capital Lord Ran is pissed off at Lord Táng for seducing his third daughter who is now on a hunger strike asking for Shihong's head!

All in all, she was asked politely by Mubai, to stay in the South for at least a month until all those hypes dies down as the Martial Arts tournament will be held in seven weeks and that will be the new hype soon.

Zedong who was with Xing listening to Mubai cannot help but laugh at the situation in the capital. Father and daughter had managed to seduce the first and third daughter of the Ran family and it made his day. Xing just sighed and didn't know what to do...

Maybe I should stop talking to women! Five minutes.. Just five minutes is enough to make a girl fall in love? Xing thought, but then again she fell in love with her man just with a glance! How weird is that? How weird is love?

Xing spent her days with the daughter-in-laws and her nephew and niece. Xing who loved little girls found that little girl very adorable, she was scared to even touch her. That girl was so pink, soft, chubby and beautiful that made one feel that one touch would make her hurt. She would just sit beside her and watch when her mother one day just made her carry that baby and Xing didn't let go of that sweet smelling, soft girl again.

But sadly her spending more time with that baby girl made RuYang jealous and he pinched his sister and seeing that baby girl cry made Xing's heart bleed. So RuYang was educated by his mother and Xing spent equal time with her nephew and niece.

But soon Xing got bored and she was brought to the Jade Workshop by her uncle. She saw all those beautiful carvings done and she was amazed. After a long time Xing wanted to learn something new. In the past few days, Xu mama tried to help her learn embroidery but Xing flunked miserably. But when she saw those people carving those jade stones and polishing them to make amazing sculptures, her interest got piqued. And once Xing's interest got piqued nothing can stop her from learning it.

So she asked her uncle and her uncle brought her to Old Tong, their Master carver. He had a small courtyard inside their workshop where he lived.

Xing saw the amazing carved figures inside his place,

"Whoa! These are all amazing! Old Tong you are awesome!", she spoke exhilarated.

"Ah! Princess! You are back! I was waiting for you!", an old man well over eighty walked slowly with a walking stick towards her and handed over a pendant with a beautiful dancing girl carved in it, "See! I did it for you, Lord Bojing, have a look too!", the old man who had lost most of his teeth and his entire body slightly shaking of old age turned at Zedong and he looked at Xing apologetically.

Turns out the old man confused his memories a lot as he aged and Xing could understand it and she played along and accepted the pendent.

But before long he had a deep look at her and started hitting her with his walking stick, "Who are you? Why are you imitating the Princess? You are not the princess! ", he shouted surprising Xing and her uncle protected her.

Guess I do sound like my grandmother!

The commotion brought out Old Tong's son who was the supervisor of the workshop there and he apologised profusely to both Xing and Zedong .

"Old Tong! She is Xiao Tian's daughter!", Zedong spoke loudly making Old Tong stop waving his stick at her.

"Liar! Xiao Tian is still a child, how can he have a daughter?", Old Tong got more furious and tried to hit her and Xing was brought out.

Everyone in the workshop were expecting the Young Miss who looked like a celestial maiden lose her composure after being hit but her request made them perplexed.

Xing who is an opportunist, used the guilt to ask the son of Old Tong, Tong Yu to teach her jade carving.

"Young Miss, your delicate hands will be ruined. It is not a pass time for elegant ladies like you", Tong Yu said and his tone was laced with skepticism and sarcasm along with respect.

Xing smirked, she can be called a lot of names but 'delicate' is definitely not one of them. Hell! She can even act elegant but never delicate. She just showed him her hands that are calloused with her sword training and Tong Yu paled seeing such a beautiful girl to have the hands of a trained warrior.

Seeing him having no objections, Xing started her basic training in Jade Carving and studied about the various types of stones, how to chose a design based in a stone and how to use a fault line and so on reading the books they had.

Zedong was shocked at the way she concentrated and left Xu mama with her to monitor her entirely as he saw her forgetting to eat and sleep even. She even didn't reply to her letters and just sent a note to Shengli that she took jade carving training and the next letter from him was sent to Zedong to watch over her as this girl can starve to death if not looked out properly when she is concentrating on something.

Zedong felt the same and he knew that jade carving is a skill needed to be learned for years but she was pretty smart and she had already grasped the basics in a short week surprising everyone.

Zedong noticed Xing didn't even cared when Old Tong hit her everytime he heard her talk accusing her of impersonating the Princess and learned as much as she can. Zedong felt her over enthusiasm fatal to her and decided to distract her by taking with him to the borders.

Xing didn't care at first but even though she has grasped most of the basics, Tong Yu said that carving a small piece of jade may even take months depending on the details you put on it and she found her interest wavering as she was not someone with that amount of patience.

Zedong the brilliant businessman he is, baited her to come with him to the southeastern borders where he has plans to meet Ming Yushen as he could sense her wavering heart and as he expected, Xing took the bait.

So Xing and her Uncle travelled in horseback to the borders as Xing found that more comfortable reached one of the villages where Haru was.

Xing didn't change her hair colour but wore men's clothings and with her recent development in the chest area, she had to bind her chest to fit in the role of a male which she found uneasy but it was a necessary measure and so she endured it.

Haru and Shurei were delighted to see her and Haru was only relieved after dissing her for a whole morning and her dissing him back. Zedong and Shurei who were being the furnishings in the room watching them speak in undesirable manners, found it surprising how these two uncouth and disrespecting beings Co-existed this long without killing each other!

Haru and Lord Zedong were discussing business in the afternoon and Xing who was bored to look at Shurei who was embroidering solemnly and went to join Haru and her uncle.

There in the next room they were discussing details about the trade route that Zedong and Haru owned and trying to bargain for best tarrifs.

Xing realised looking at the map that most of the best routes were owned by the rich merchants and they charged high tarrifs for them making the small range merchants not able to use them. Of course there were many other routes but they were not as secure as these routes.

So Xing voiced her concern on behalf of the small-scale businesses with those two like-minded business people whose sole aim is to earn more money and was thrown out of the room for having 'Huang Stupidity' putting common gain more than personal gain trying to help others.

Xing who was bored, decided to take a stroll and since she feared she'd get lost, she magnanimously decided to take her uncle's horse he recently got from the Sima Tribe and the same one he never allowed anyone to touch and left the village wearing the cape Shengli gave her.

Xing didn't know that this was a warhorse and stronger and much faster than regular horses, lost Shengli's people and her uncle's people who were watching her and stormed into the great wilderness.

As she followed the path of the wind like a wind, she felt the wind in her face and felt refreshed and continued to ride on. After a while when she had come to her senses, she could sense no one around her and she realised.... I AM LOST!!!

Xing looked around to see stretches of open land with not much vegetation and was dry and wondered which direction she should go. She pondered for a while and her silly directionally challenged brain which never helped her on finding her way in her own home stayed true to it's character and didn't help now too!

What to do? What to do? Xing panicked. That's when her horse that ran for a long time, snorted as if it was exited.

Xing wondered why he was excited for no reason and told the horse, "Go home!" in the Guyu language and it obediently followed.

Xing was relieved to see the horse gleefully galloping and hoped that the horse will take her back to her home.

But what poor Xing didn't realise was that the horse did go home but sadly it was not going to her home but to it's home, the Sima Tribe who were living nearby. The same Sima Tribe, Xing and Prince Lee Dae Jung poisoned seven years back and the same Sima Tribe whose horses Xing personally set out, which lead to the loss of Sima Tribe during the last battle and killed most of their men.

So as the sun begin to set, Xing was travelling towards the Sima Tribe who might still hold grudges on the golden haired boy, who single-handedly lead to the destruction of their tribe.

Chapter end

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