The Stone King's Lover (石王的愛)

Chapter 36

Xie Yi-jun

1295 years after The Long Night

Hêi'àn City

<Training Ground>

After three weeks of not being let outside, having today's lesson on the training ground was a blessing sent from heaven to Xie Yi-jun, who'd started to plan his escape out of his bedroom window again due to boredom.

Now he stood in a row with the other soldiers, except they were all older than him. Yi-jun had always been trained with those above his age level. His mother's instruction.

He watched Jiang Guiying explaining to everyone what the course was, but the young Prince was too busy making lewd and disgusting faces at Su Lan behind their teacher's back to pay any mind.

His friend just smiled and shook his head...

Xie Yi-jun was just itching for his turn to show off, but he had at least three others in front of him. The wait seemed like a life-time and he only started paying attention when it was Su Lan's turn.

The older boy was light on his feet despite being so tall, and was famous among their class for never falling, always landing on his feet. Hence the nickname Leaping Cat. Xie Yi-jun had nicknames too, but none of them were very pleasant.

Studying and admiring the way Su Lan flew through the agility course; climbing up the wall and balancing across the rope twenty feet high, Yi-jun rocked back and forth on his heels in excitement.

At the archery range with moving targets that Jiang Guiying had enchanted, Su Lan did fairly well but his eye-sight wasn't perfect so he missed two. Finally there was a one-on-one sword fight with their instructor, who was never silent about correcting their stances and grips. Yi-jun almost never received such comments, being the best swordsman among the twenty of them at only fifteen...

Su Lan managed to block several of Jiang Guiying's attacks, but was too hesitant when it came to advancing, so he ended up losing the duel quickly.

As his friend hurried back to them, Xie Yi-jun smiled and patted his arm.

"Good job,"

Su Lan glared at him because Yi-jun was covering his laughter with his other hand.

"I'm sure you'll show us all how it's done-"

"We'll see just how good the Little Prince is once I'm finished."

The deep voice from behind them sent chills up Yi-jun's spine. Su Lan arched his brow, crossing his arms and turning to Meng Bai.

"Go on then," Su Lan said, his smile carefully measured.

Xie Yi-jun and him watched as the eldest of their class began the course, completing the climb and rope-walk quickly even though he seemed the opposite of agile.

If Meng Bai had a nickname, Yi-jun hadn't heard it. The boy, nearly a man at the age of nineteen, had what could be considered an even better claim to the title of Prince than Yi-jun did.

His uncle's son, Meng Bai had royal blood on both sides of his lineage whereas Yi-jun did not. It was only because Yi-jun's father had been the eldest brother that now he was next in line.

Xie Meng Bai never treated Yi-jun like a cousin. They rarely spoke. When they did, Meng Bai would always address him as Little Prince, respectfully. Yi-jun would have liked to have an older cousin, but he stayed away from the boy because of his mother's constant warnings not to trust anyone, and it just seemed to him that if anyone might hate him it would be that person...