How To Melt An Ice Cube 57 What The Future Will Hold.

"Cough, did you guys not eat while I was away?" Mai asked softly. Though her voice barely had any sound to it both the men had bright red faces as they brought down there chopsticks.

"Not exactly" Han Bing started but was cut off by Zheng Li "It was just no where near as good as this!"

Mai decided to leave them alone and to switch topics.

"So what do we have planned for the rest of the day?" Mai asked Han Bing.

Mai was used to being a college student that was always busy. Even over the summer she would take a cla.s.s or two so that she could finish faster. Doing nothing with her time besides cooking was not something that she wanted to do.

"What do you want to do?" Han Bing asked back. He had no idea what Mai actually wanted to do since this was what most young n.o.ble ladies would like.

"Hmm" Mai thought "I want to go hiking? Fis.h.i.+ng? Maybe even math? How about medicine?" She asked herself each subject, however, reject each subject that she thought about for some reason or another. Mai continued to think about what she wanted to take up her time doing. Something that brought to much attention would only attract the wrong people whereas doing the opposite of the spectrum would cause her to be way to bored.

The silence had stretched on for minutes in the dinning room as Mai continued to go over options in her head. Both Han Bing and Zheng Li were staring at her, trying to figure out what she was thinking about so much. Every few moment Mais eyebrows would furrow together while she muttered no to herself. They both realized that she was putting a lot of thought into her answer and nether of them wanted to interrupt her.

"When do you guys think the Emperor will figure out that you guys left?" Mai asked quietly. Mai realized that a lot of what she would want to do depended on how long they would be staying at this location.

"Shouldn't be for awhile till he discovers that we are here. He probably already knows that we are missing. Probably knew a few hours after we disappeared" Han bing replied.

"How will you know?" Mai asked slightly concerned that they were like sitting ducks staying in this house. Although it was very pretty there was no where that they could run to easily without being spotted in the distance.

"There are some people of mine that stayed in the city keeping tabs on the Emperor for us" Han bing replied. His face returned to his original cold appearance.

"How long does it take news to reach here?" Mai asked. She was concerned that even if they did have people reporting what was going on, did it matter if the news travelled to slowly for it to be worth while.

"We trained a few birds to travel back and forth so the information is very reliable and fast" Han Bing said with a small grin forming on his face.

"Oh messenger birds" Mai said while nodding her head in approval.

Han Bing looked at Mai in surprise. Followed by turning his head towards Zheng Li as if to ask if this type of information was something that people would know about. Zheng Li shook his head signally that the answer was a no and shrugged his shoulders.

Han Bing focused back on Mai with wonder in his eyes. He honestly didn't believe that Mai would be able to help them at all however, at ever turn she surprised him. Just asking about there current situation was something that most young n.o.ble ladies wouldn't even think about. Yet her she was questioning his tactics as well as understanding them.

"We should probably make a escape route, or gather evac bags" Mai started to mumble to herself thinking over the situation.

"What is a evac bag?" Han Bing said attempting to say the weird sounding word.

"It's a bag that has everything necessary in it to survive in the wild for a couple of days" Mai said in a mater of fact tone.

"How about you be in charge of them?" Han Bing said. He honestly still had no idea what there function was but they sounded like something that could be useful.

"Okay I will gather items and arrange it so that everyone had one" Mai said with a smile. Even if she had only found something to do for this evening it was still better than nothing.

—

"Your majesty" said a plum older looking man. He dashed towards the Emperor trying to keep his calm but even he couldn't predict the events that he had to report on.

"What is it" the Emperor snapped at the man in front of him. The Emperor hated to be interrupted during his early mornings and lashed out at anyone who interfered with his peace.

"Han Bing, has disappeared!" The plum servant cried out again. Although he was terrified about talking to the Emperor at this time, he had been serving him long enough to know that any information about Han Bing became precedent over any other arrangement.

"How long?" The Emperor said calming. His hand slowly stroked his beard in thought as he went over the past few week activities. He hadn't been able to find where ever that woman had drifted off to. Her so called father controlled to much of the army for him to make obvious moves against him, everything had to be done in secret. However, it was now obvious that she was probably with Han Bing.

"Replying to your majesty" the old man said with a slight bow. Clasping his arms together in front of him in a futile attempt to look pitiful "approximately a week."

The Emperors eyes narrowed on the servant in front of him. "And how is it that I am only finding out about this now?" He roared.

"The individuals that we had gathering the information met a untimely end. Also he was sick so no one thought that it was weird that he hadn't come out of his room for awhile" the man practically whimpered out.

"Prepare my carriage, I need to visit someone" the Emperor said with a s.a.d.i.s.tic light s.h.i.+ning in his eyes as he thought about the future.

"Right away, your majesty" the servant said with another bow. Forever grateful that the Emperors attention seemed to be focused on someone other than himself.