Nash wrote:
Chang: Is this some kind of test or something?
"I...I tried telling you, but then you pointed your sword at me and scared me, even though I meant no harm. All Father's saying now is true, but you threatened me to stop talking about it and I was completely defenseless..."
Liangyu sobbed, then put the spear down gently before moving off to the side to sit down in a cushion and catch herself and her emotions. And she kept on whimpering,
"It was horrible! I had to pretend all day I was still leaving in the time of King Ying Zheng just so you wouldn't kill me! And after all I went through to find you, only for you to be mean like that. But noooooo...You wouldn't listen! You just pointed that sword at me and tell me I'm some sort of spy. Well, I'll have you know I'm a princess of the noble Xia clan and I don't like being mistreated like that!"
Suddenly, shifting from sorrow through to fury, she grumbled,
"I almost decided not to come back, but...I just couldn't leave well enough alone. I felt bad for you, stuck there serving...well, nothing, with the Empire falling apart! No food, no help, no company...And so I came back, because I thought that maybe, if someone older told you so, you might listen..."
Seething, with tears still marring her rosy cheeks, she flat out said her point all along,
"I've been trying to tell you this all along. It's been TWENTY years since the date on those rocks in that valley of yours. TWENTY years of being stuck in the middle of nowhere, serving a dead King, with no one really knowing where or why you are there."
Sagging in desperate sorrow, she begged,
"I'm tired of pretending I'm living in the year that I was born. Either you believe that or you don't...But please, please...I just can't bear the thought of you going back out to that hillside, living there, waiting for something I know will never ever come. You're too good a fellow to be wasting his life away on a hilltop, defending against an attack that'll never come, and waiting for reinforcements that won't come either! You've wasted twenty years already...It's time to catch up!"
Then she caught herself and calmed down. There one last plea and she was washing her hands of this whole nerve-wracking ordeal. She had finally snapped, and she hoped something had gotten through to the man in her pained expression. Liangyu rubbed her aching head, still sore with that bandaged cut on her forehead...
