The three day trip ended the moment the carriage entered a city where flowers of all colors seemed to always be blooming. At least, that’s what the name meant. Maybe it was just because it was spring that the city looked so vibrant. It made her wonder what the city looked like in the winter. However, looking outside the window of the carriage, Ning Yun was left in awe. She thought the cherry blossom season in Japan was beautiful, but this was on another level. Untouched natural beauty that wasn’t produced by human hands on any level was something she never imagined. She still remembered that strawberries were supposed to be red inside.

  The moment the carriage arrived in the boundaries of the Ning residence in the capital, Ning Yun preferred to walk to the front door of her house on her own feet. Her personal servants warned her against it, but Ning Yun didn’t really feel fatigue. She was also perfectly fine with walking around on her own. It wasn’t like anything normal would kill her.

  “Hu Li,” Zhong Suyin said, following Ning Yun out of the carriage, “Please thoroughly prepare the Young Lady’s room.”

  Hu Li nodded her head in response, “I’ll be sure to prepare everything according to her every preference.”

  Ning Yun eavesdropped on their conversation. She wondered what she had done to deserve the dedication from the two of them. They had only known her for three months and had done nothing to wake and dress her. Ning Yun didn’t do anything like in the stories to earn their, what seemed to be, undying loyalty. Maybe it wasn’t loyalty to her, but rather the family name that was tagged onto her person. That made more sense.

  “If you’re going to follow along, then get moving,” Ning Yun said, turning her head fully away from the carriage and proceeding in her walk. Ning Yun didn’t want to admit it but her personality was slowly turning cold. She seemed to start caring less and less about other people. Perhaps she was becoming inhumane by the day. Not like she cared.

  “Of course. I’ll be right behind you, Young Lady Ning Yun,” Zhong Suyin said, turning her head to barely view the little lady walking away.

  “Remember,” the servant’s hand touched the door of the carriage, “Don’t forget the special thing.”

  Hu Li nodded her head, “Of course. It is on the top of my list.”

  Zhong Suyin nodded and closed the door to the carriage, allowing the coachmen to keep driving after she was far enough away. To catch up to Ning Yun, who walked without consideration, she had to jog until she was exactly three steps behind her young lady.

  Looking around the capital estate, Ning Yun saw that this place had a different aesthetic then the one in their territory. Unlike the territory house that had ponds decorated with white lotus flowers resting around lily pads that seemed to light up under the night sky, the capital residence was drenched in flowers like the entire city was. With her every step, she stepped on white flower petals laying on the ground. At some point, she had seen an entire flower bud on the ground. She stopped in her path and picked up the little bud. It was a little unborn flower that was never going to bloom. After looking at it for a while while walking, she simply dropped it on the ground to get tramped on by someone else.

  There were flower beds to the left and right with tall trees providing shade over open grass areas. It looked just like the garden’s in the historical, western manhwa’s. It was a cheerful, vibrant beauty that was nothing like the cool, tranquil decorations of the design of the territory residence.

  Ning Yun walked around the garden looking at each flower bed. Every single bed had a different species of flower that was organized in the garden by color. Somehow, this garden even had blue roses which were supposed to be impossible to precure. Maybe, there was some genetic mutation. Ning Yun squatted down in front of the blue roses. The blue was so vibrant that it drew her into the point of being intoxicated. She wanted to touch that vibrant color of blue. It had so much life.

  As though she was possessed Ning Yun reached her gentle, pale hand out towards the blue roses. Before her hand could come in contact with the flowers, a voice cut off her actions.

  “Young Lady Ning Yun, the thorns haven’t been removed from the roses yet.”

  It was Zhong Suyin, quietly standing behind Ning Yun like always.

  “If you’d like,” she said, “I’ll have the thorns removed and place them in a vase in your room.”

  A vase. That would mean cutting them from the bush that gave them life to display them in a room to wither away and die faster right in front of her own eyes. The vibrant blue would turn to the color of ash and fall from the stem in a room concealed from the warm sunlight they loved so much. If that happened, there was no point in these flowers anymore. Then again, being able to die was a pleasure she was never going to have. Eternal sleep seemed to be far out of reach. And being able to die in your favorite place, that had to be the best thing in the world. Ning Yun didn’t have the heart to take that away from a small, delicate flower.

  She retracted her hand and tucked it in her lap, “No. It’s alright. I’m sure they’d prefer this environment compared to being trapped in a stuffy room.”

  She said that, but Zhong Suyin could tell that her young lady truly admired these flowers. Then again, it was her wish to leave the flowers where they were. Zhong Suyin couldn’t understand what was going through her head. The young lady in front of her was nothing like Ning Mei who took everything she wanted regardless of what it was or the Lady who never changed her mind after making any decision. Her young lady was complicated.

  “I understand.”

  Ning Yun crossed her arms on her knees and rested her head in a position where she could just stare at the vibrant blue. All while Zhong Suyin stood behind her in silence. There weren’t even birds or wind to fill the hole of sound.

  When the carriage arrived at the front of the house, Ning Qian assumed that when he walked out of the carriage, he would see his daughter coming out of the second or third carriage, but she wasn’t there. Out of the second came his sister and mother, and the third was a single servant. The rest of the family seemed equally surprised when the youngest member was nowhere to be found. Ning Qian approached the servant, “Where’s my daughter?” he asked. Hu Li bowed her head in front of him, “The Young Lady was interested in the garden and chose to walk around the garden. Please don’t worry, Zhong Suyin, who transferred from the capital residence to the main one, is by her side at this very moment. I can assure you that the Young Lady is in the best of hands.”

  Ning Qian looked away from the servant, “I see. Thank you.”

  “It’s my pleasure,” Hu Li said. Ning Qian walked past the servants and the parked carriages to go find his daughter who was wondering about their large estate.

  If Ning Qian knew the opposite gender well, it was the flowers that caught his daughter’s attention. However, their estate was large and was filled with all sorts of flowers. But, he knew that his daughter was quite the fixated person. Once she was focused on something, she would give her full attention to it as long as she was interrupted. Given the circumstances of the gardeners going home and the only servant next to her being a person who could stand in silence for, god knows how long, it was clear that, if there was a single flower that caught her interest, she would be right in front of it. Ning Qian just needed to figure out what flower it was.

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  Ning Qian wandered around the flower garden thinking about what would catch his daughter’s eyes. He doubted that anything normal would catch her interest, and he also thought that there were any trees that would catch her attention. There had to be something rare in their garden, but Ning Qian hadn’t been there for so long that he’d forgotten what type of flowers were in each of the flower beds.

  There had to be something. Ning Yun racked his brain, but as he was doing that, he caught sight of a bright yellow piece of silk resting on the garden floor. His sight followed the silk fabric to see a young girl intently focused on blue roses as her head rested in her arms.

  Blue roses…Ning Qian forgot that he’d planted those flowers when he’d first come to the family’s capital estate when he was younger. He couldn’t tell how long his daughter had been in front of those flowers, but since the sun was dimming, he decided that it had been long enough.

  “A-Yun,” his voice cut through the silence that Ning Yun and Zhong Suyin rested in.

  With the silence broken, Ning Yun’s eyes were drawn away from the blue roses. Her head was turned to the side to make direct eye contact with Ning Qian; however, she didn’t say anything. She just stared at him like she did with the majestic blue roses, her eyes more focused than ever.

  For a second, Ning Qian was unsettled. It was like those eyes stared deep into his soul. It was like she knew everything. The past, present, and future. It looked like everything was in the palm of her hands. Ning Qian wanted to back away, but those eyes piercing through him were his daughter’s. There was no way he could back away.

  “It’s time to go inside,” Ning Qian said with a somewhat awkward smile. Ning Yun’s head and gaze turned back to the flowers. She started for a little while longer before standing up, “Alright.”

  Walking side by side, Ning Qian still felt slightly uncomfortable after being pierced through by Ning Yun’s gaze. However, he had to brush it off and try talking to her.

  “You decided to ride with the servants on the way here,” Ning Qian said as one of those mentioned servants were walking three steps behind them.

  “I did,” her voice was dry and uncaring.

  “Why?” Ning Qian asked, not holding anything back.

  “Because I was uncomfortable in the other carriage,” Ning Yun said.

  “Why was that?”

  Ning Yun’s eyes started looking around at the other flowers in the bed, “I don’t feel like talking with you about.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want to talk about it,” Ning Yun was firm and slowly closed herself off more and more as he tried to pry.

  Ning Qian nodded, “I see. Then was it comfortable riding in the other carriage?”

  “Yes. It was quiet and there was a lot to keep my attention,” Ning Yun responded.

  Right now, the conversation was so dry that a glass of water wouldn’t do anything. It was dry and uncomfortable, so Ning Qian decided to close his mouth and allow the three to walk to the house in silence. Slightly uncomfortable silence.

  “Here’s your room. Your servant should’ve already prepared it for you.”

  Ning Qian’s initial plan was to guide his daughter only to the front house, but he couldn’t find the suitable time to take his leave.

  “Thank you,” Ning Yun said, nodding her head and grabbing the handle to her room.

  “Dinner will be prepared in two hours,” Ning Qian said.

  “Alright.”

  Just like that, Ning Yun opened the door to her room without a second glance towards her adopted father. And, the door was closed right in his face.

  Ning Yun slowly walked around her room playing spot the difference. First, walking around the border of the room, she realized that it was smaller than her first room. Her bed and bathing area were the same size, but the common area was smaller. Opening the door to her closet, she realized that it was smaller too. It wasn’t like her wardrobe was big, especially when she compared it to Ning Mei’s. Ning Mei wasn’t there half the time, but her wardrobe was enough to fill her entire room. It was really excessive, but also a little admirable seeing as she had a different outfit for every day in the year.

  The room was decorated in a monotone look. The bed sheets were a gray color that matched the canopy. The cushions on the wooden chairs were black, and all the decorations in the room were white. The curtains to cover the windows were black which made sense.

  This was what her personal maids thought was her taste…It was quite bland.

  Ning Yun appreciated the thought, and she was sure that Hu Li had to go running around this estate and pack things from their other home to put this room together. However, if Ning Yun had to be honest, she preferred the green, fairytale aesthetic rooms she’d seen on the internet in her past life. That was actually one of her dream room styles. That and a room full of the purple aesthetic. Still, it wasn’t her maid’s fault that this was the decor they chose. After all, when choosing her outfits, her taste usually gravitated towards the darker colors. It was a habit she picked up from her past life since it didn’t feel like any color meshed well with that body. Though, thinking about it now, maybe it was just her being insecure about yet another thing.

  When she got the chance, maybe Ning Yun could tell her that this wasn’t how she liked her room decorated.

  After dropping his daughter off at her room, Ning Qian took a look around the place he hadn’t been since he was a small child. Walking through all of the corridors, remembering where everything used to be and still is. The white vases that had been switched with green ones. The end halfway tables that turned into simple paintings hanging at the end of the hall. The hole in one of the walls from one of his sister's rough housing moments that he couldn’t even locate with the nice, smooth walls.

  He’d been away from his family for ten years and almost nothing changed. Well, nothing too noticeable at least. Maybe it was because he was older that he felt this way. He wondered what his daughter would see in his eyes. Being gone from a place for ten years and suddenly coming back, would she find these changes that seemed so insignificant to him important? He wondered what the entire world looked like through her eyes. If he could, maybe he could figure out why she was acting the way she was. If this was all about change in the environment then Ning Qian was slightly worried about his daughter’s future. She was destined to live far longer than anyone in the family. If this was how she reacted to change, how was she going to manage coming back to a place that wasn’t even there? No matter how extensive the family’s history, the family name was bound to disappear. He was a bit worried that it was going to happen when his daughter was alive, and there would be no place for her to go back to. How would she be able to deal with that?

  There was a knock on her door.

  “It’s your father.”

  Ning Yun, sitting at her desk, closed the book on herbs she was reading and stood from her chair to open the door.

  “Good morning, Father,” she said. Since Ning Yun decided not to go to breakfast, this was the first time they saw each other that day.

  “How would you like to take a tour of the capital today?” Ning Qian said, making clear notice that the door was open only for him to see his daughter and not her room.

  Ning Yun thought about it, and she really didn’t want to go. But, then again, her mind wandered back to the blue roses in the garden…

  “That sounds delightful,” she said.

  “I’ll wait for you next to the blue roses in the garden,” he said and walked down the hallway.

  That’s odd. The blue roses were near the main entrance of the estate, and there was no suitable path for a carriage to make a U-turn there. Since that was the case, it didn’t seem like they were going to be using a carriage at all.

  “I suppose I’ll have to find some comfortable shoes,” she thought aloud, closing the small opening to her room.

  Meeting at the blue roses, Ning Qian was wearing his outing clothes which were usually colored with pastels. This certain outfit was an accident with pastel blue while the base was white. It was a bit surprising to Ning Yun since she had actually chosen one of her baby blue hanfu’s. Maybe it was because of the mentioning of the blue roses, but she was actually feeling a little bubby about that fact that they were kind of matching. Her past family never casually matched with each other like this which was something she kind of wanted to do.

  When Ning Qian spotted his daughter walking down the garden paths, he was glad that he bought those light blue ribbons that popped out nicely when braided in his daughter’s black hair.

  “I’ve noticed that you rarely wear hair pins and such,” Ning Qian commented when Ning Yun stood in front of him.

  “I dislike the way it offsets the weight of my head,” she said, giving her father yet another thing to note in his head.

  “I see. Well, let’s be off before Ning Mei notices that we’re going out without her.”

  He made it sound like his sister was going to throw a fit if she figured out that she was being left behind. Ning Yun smiled a bit imagining such a childish sight, “Of course.”

  Ning Qian was almost surprised. It’d felt like a decade since he’d last seen her smile. It was a little different then he remembered.