Severing Time & Space

The Vivacious Princess, Part IV

Hou Jingshu wandered the streets and looked at the small buildings, so different from what she was used to. The architecture was unlike anything she had seen before. They did not have the majesty of buildings found in the capital. Her brothers would have called this place dull and small, but she found the quaint buildings charming. She would have said they were rustic. The only building that held anything resembling the aesthetic of the capital was the auction house.

Perhaps it was because they were surrounded by forest, but there were a lot of trees spaced throughout the city, making her wonder if they were placed half-hazardly like this on purpose. There were trees inside the capital, too, of course. However, all of them lined the streets and parks and were evenly placed at exact intervals to be symmetrically pleasing to the eye. This was comparatively chaotic.

“Ha ha ha! Look at this pathetic creature!”

“Come on! Cry some more!”

“Stupid animal! Do you think you can get away from us?!”

Hou Jingshu was jerked from her musings by a loud cry, followed by several voices. The cry was not human. She looked around. Several young boys were running into an alley. It seemed like they were chasing after something. She frowned and, curiosity getting the better of her, followed the group of boys into the alley, which eventually emerged into a clearing surrounded by several trees.

There, she saw something that made her blood boil.

Five boys were surrounding a small black cat that had pressed its back against a large tree. The cat was shivering. It cried and meowled in fear as the boys jeered and threw rocks at it.

“Look at how it hisses!”

“You’re a mangy thing, aren’t you?”

“Take that! And that!”

Hou Jingshu fumed as she watched the boys t*****e the poor animal. What sort of cruelty was this?! Why were they picking on that poor kitty?! Perhaps it was her propensity as a princess, or maybe she just couldn’t stand to see such cruel acts take place before her eyes, but she was unwilling to remain on the sidelines.

“What do you people think you’re doing?!”

The boys stopped taunting the cat at her shout. She rushed past the group, interposed herself between them and the cat, and spread out her arms as though to protect it. Eyes fiercely narrowed, she glared at the boys.

“How dare you harm this innocent kitty!”

None of the boys looked like they knew what to do right away. They glanced at her, noticed her clothes, then turned to each other.

“Who is this? I don’t recognize her,” said one of them. He looked like the leader. His black hair was mangy and dirty. He wore plain brown trousers and a white shirt, letting her know that he was of common birth. All of them were wearing similar clothes.

They couldn’t have been much older than her. She guessed their leader was maybe two or three years older than she was, but the rest seemed closer to her age, though it was hard to tell with all the dirt covering their faces.

“I don’t know, but check out that getup. It’s super fancy. She must be a noble,” another one said. His hair was a lighter brown and he had gray eyes. His two front teeth were larger than normal, which made him look like a rodent.

“What should we do, Lin?”

“What do you mean ‘what should we do?’ We can’t let this brat ruin our fun!”

“But… if she’s a noble…”

“Don’t be such a coward, Mink!” The leader—she guessed his name was Lin—turned back to her and sneered. “Listen, girl, you had better leave here right now or I will put you in your place. I don’t care if you are a noble. You’ll be calling me father by the time I’m through with you.”

Hou Jingshu narrowed her eyes. “Are you… threatening me?”

The boy’s sneer widened. “That’s right. What are you gonna do about it?”

Having lived in the palace her whole life and been spoiled rotten by her father, Hou Jingshu had never had threats directed at her like this. Of course, she did get the occasional threat on her life, but those were rare and usually dealt with by the guards before they ever got to her. She only heard about some of those incidents after the fact. This was the first time someone had ever threatened to “put her in her place.”

“How dare you. Do you not know who I am?” asked Hou Jingshu, drawing herself up as though to intimidate these boys.

“I don’t know, and I don’t know why you think I should care,” said Lin with a fearless grin.

It was a bold declaration, one that only served to further piss off Hou Jingshu. She opened her mouth to let this plebeian know that she was the princess of the Shang Kingdom, and that he, as one of her citizens, should have been getting on his hands and knees to beg for her forgiveness. Yet just before she said something that could harm her father’s position, she remembered that she and Father were traveling incognito.

No one was supposed to know who she was.

There was also a high chance these boys wouldn’t believe her anyway since the Imperial Princess coming to a small city in the boondocks was unheard of.

Hou Jingshu bit her lower lip.

What should I do? I really didn’t think about what I would do once I confronted these boys… but it’s not like I could do nothing. They were hurting that poor kitty. That’s right. I had to do something, but… oh, I really didn’t think this through.

The boys saw her hesitation and grinned. They didn’t know why she had stopped talking so suddenly, but they weren’t going to miss out on this opportunity. As the boys closed in, Hou Jingshu backed up, though she made sure to keep herself between these boys and the cat. She tried to think of a way out of this situation. Surely, there was something she could do, and yet no matter how she thought about it, not a single idea on how to escape from her predicament came to mind.

After all, Hou Jingshu didn’t have any strength.

She was just a young girl who had never trained a day in her life.