"Fangfeng Bei!" The woman in bright yellow, long flowing robes called. Her eyes glinting with anticipation of the fun she would shortly be having with her newfound playboy-of-a-friend, she sprinted towards a youngster dressed in expensive-looking wine-colored robes. 

Her exquisite beauty as she closed the distance between them made innumerable eyes turn. 

The man smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. Of late, it hardly did. "Xiao Yao, slow down," he said, grabbing her forearm lest she run past him in her excited state. "I am not going anywhere."

"You are the only interesting one in my life at the moment," The princess flipped her hair over her shoulder and crossed her arms over her chest, "Can you blame me for being a little excited?"

The man's fingers lingered on the woman's delicate arm for a few seconds more than necessary before falling away. 

He hated that they couldn't have what they had before…before Xiao Yao became the Grand Princess of Haoling. They were much closer, he reckoned, when she was a he, quite literally. 

The man turned away from the object of his affection… his desire. 

The love bug he had taken into his heart for her made him tear up. 

'I am Fangfeng Bei now. I am her friend. She doesn't need to know that I am Xiang Liu: the serpent demon she actively tries to kill every chance she gets,' he thought; schooling his features into one of smug indifference, he turned towards her, "Would the princess care to join me today at the pleasure house?"

Any other girl would have rejected the offer, but Xiao Yao wasn't just any girl. Before regaining her title as the Grand Princess of Haoling, she had spent years in a male body, living a hard life practicing medicine in a small town that belonged to no king called Qiungshui. 

"Sounds great!" The woman readily agreed; looping her arm through her friend's, she gestured to him to lead the way. 

Chapter Word count: 334