VOLUME EIGHT, CHAPTER 136 **It’s not the Place, It’s the People!**

Sahara had teleported to where she had teleported herself and Eunuch Han quite some months ago. It was what she would think as the primal area to the royal palace. Of course, when one enters into the palace, there are some twists and turns, but this area she had seen with her stars when she was younger and found that it was the best place to go from one area to another inside of the palace…

But…She still wasn’t sure where she was…

As she looked and tried to come up with a way to go, Sahara did tend to see her thoughts going to Matthew and wondering what he was doing.

He should still be with those two, right? Should I expect him to come back for me? Would it be bad of me to expect him to…Am I jealous? Haha…Me…Me, jealous…

Sahara stopped and sighed…She couldn’t help but think that she’d prefer him to be with her.

So…I guess I am jealous…

Even if she did actually want to go break up the party between her man and his other wives…She didn’t know where they were so that she could do it!

Hell, they were in the palace, and she had no idea even where the emperor was!

She hadn’t cared previously on which ‘house’ was which and how the layout of the palace was…The only thing that she had done was look at the ‘ancient’ type of buildings and marvel about how some of it looked like some the pictures that she had seen on the internet…Of course, here…Being another planet and all…There were some differences. Like that of the type of material used and how well built the buildings were…But, in general, it was still similar to that of the pictures that she had seen.

Through all types of weather, the buildings here were able to stand tall and proud all the time, because of that of cultivation. They had gone through a severe thunderstorm without much problems, and Sahara had remembered a type of cyclone at another stage, and the buildings were never damaged. It was figured out back then that cultivators enhanced the stone or bricks, or whatever the ‘houses’ were made out of, making them a lot more stronger and tolerate to the potential natural disasters…

Just imagine if cultivation was also on Earth…Nope…Can’t imagine that…Earth was Earth. If cultivation had been done there, it would have been different, like here. Bah who cares about Earth anyway, I’ve been here for sixteen years already, and I’m used to this place now…

But this didn’t help her find her way at all! She was lost…And inside a place that had enough power to behead her. On top of that she had no idea on where Matthew was either…

The only thing she could do, was what she usually did when she got lost and had no idea on what to do…And that was, to follow her instincts.

And, of course, her instincts came up wanting to speak, yet Sahara only wanted to feel them, not talk to them.

Taking a long road, in which she saw guards and a maid or two, she wondered where she was going.

Not only did she not want to go to Matthew’s estate without him, but she hadn’t much spiritual essence left to just use it for no good reason. Teleporting the Empress Dowager had taken what she had preferred to keep in an emergency and the next best idea, was that of being safe and taking a pill to restore some lost spiritual essence.

Feeling like she was finally able to breathe again, from being away from two ‘sheila’s’ that want to best of her, she followed her instincts, seeing the prettier places start to disappear and another type of place start to show itself in front of her.

There were more guards here, making her wonder if she had followed her instincts up the garden path…Normally, they were pretty good to her…Did that suddenly stop to start giving her bad luck instead?

Actually, a certain type of thought finally made way inside her head…She had taken away the Empress Dowager, so…Wouldn’t they be searching for her now?

The Empress…It’s something she would do…I suppose I should take extra precautions…

Narrowing her eyes, she jumped into a close by tree and had a better look around. She was sure that she had already been seen, but did those people know that the Empress may potentially be looking for her?

She hoped not…

Seeing that the walls of the palace were still around her, Sahara started to get confused. It looked a lot…Colder…But still had people like maids and eunuchs…So, it wasn’t the cold palace…The cold palace had been more desolate and had less…Servants around. There weren’t as camouflaged either, as there was definitely a path leading to this place, whereas the path to the cold palace looked abandoned and unused…Even the cold palace, that looked pretty good on the outside, Sahara knew that the inside was cold and dreary. It seemed that a few servants lived there and that what they needed, like food and water, looked as though it would only come once every blue moon…And that was a huge difference…But she felt like both places were similar, and that’s why she was seeing strange similarities between the two, as well as differences.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Seeing three guards personally escort someone closer to the muchly guarded, different looking ‘house’, Sahara watched and realized that it must be some type of prison and faintly sighed to her thoughts having been most likely right.

Why would my instincts bring me here!? Do I belong here? Pfft…Probably!

Taking a deep breath and rolling her eyes, Sahara sent out a star and watched as they put the person that had just gone past her outside, in a holding cell. Scouting out the rest of the place, she suddenly found someone that looked familiar and went into thought about who it was.

…Blinking a few times, she shook her head and shrugged…Still having no idea on who it was…

Sighing, she felt that her instincts were calling for her to not leave though…

What else was she to do then, but teleport to the person that looked familiar…Besides…

If this is a prison…Wouldn’t it be the safest place to be if they really were searching for me? Ah…Whatever! I should be able to take a pill here and restore some muchly needed, epic, ultra…That’s too much…Why can’t I just say, ‘spiritual essence’? There’s no need to be cocky and emphasize! Honestly though…I don’t even need a key! How can I say that isn’t epic, uh!?

A small light noise escaped a hidden spot in the tree, before an unseen figure disappeared…

“Prin…Cess!” Band One called out huskily.

Sahara looked at him and blinked…Nothing coming to her at all upon who he was, “What?”

“Ah, what…You…Doing here?” He asked, his voice sounded really choked and low, like…Like he hadn’t had a drink in ages…He had wanted to speak more formally but his voice ended up as a whisper when he finished just saying what he did, and his throat was suddenly a lot more painful.

Seeing this, unable to stop herself from being observant, she took out some water from what she ‘stole’ from around the area for a short period while she healed the Empress. Of course, it hadn’t been a big deal to Sahara and had only taken a few things and it had taken very little time to do, but to have made them wait longer was her prime objective at the time…That, and the fact that she had been mad with the Imperial family…And now it was just coming in handy, that she had some nice, fresh water!

Sighing to her awesome ability to steal so easily, Sahara really pondered on if this type of habit was starting to become obsessive or addictive…Really, if it was, then how was she going to stop!?

Holding out the water, Band One looked at it longingly but wasn’t able to reach up to get it.

Seeing him being so fragile, Sahara bent down and attempted to give it to him herself.

Fragile was indeed a good word to Band One’s state of health right now…Which may even be the reason why she did not recognize him. If she had to be honest, it was probably because she had just healed someone that was fragile and really didn’t want to meet someone else so soon that needed healing…But…Obviously things didn’t turn out that way!

He was skin and bone, no longer the muscle man that used to be forever by Matthew’s side. His cheekbones could clearly be seen, and his eyes was sunken in. The man…Was hardly a man, as he could hardly move his arms and legs, yet they are still chained down in shackles.

Sahara frowned and narrowed her eyes…

It’s gotta be the palace! The palace is fulla dead or nearly dead people! Why? I wish I could bulldoze the whole thing! Wait…Hang on…It’s not the place, you idiot…It’s the people!

Sighing, she sat down and made a straw with her spiritual essence, then an attachment to the water satchel. Hanging it around Band One’s neck, Sahara then said, “Sip that for now, I’ll heal you soon.”

As Sahara plunged a white pill into her mouth and went into meditation right there in the prison cell, that Band One was being held in, Band One could only nod to the light ‘command’.

Even though he had never seen this particular type of ‘equipment’ before, Band One accepted it and quickly understood how it worked. But, in a short moment, this new, impressive ‘equipment’ was not thought of as he took another short look at the Princess.

He had not seen the Princess since the day the two of them had asked the emperor to get married. Since then, she had definitely changed, and it was a very satisfactory change…

With watery eyes, Band One sipped a tiny bit more water and bit his dry lips. He had seen his Master last just before he had left to go to Purple Haven. He knew that the Prince could do nothing for him, as he wasted away down here in the dungeon.

After all this time, the Second Prince was still determined to save him and Band One could only sigh and feel like the Second Prince can stop…Stop from keeping his life sentence in a cell, to that of just being beheaded. Because…Because what was there to life in here? He was unable to do what he had lived for, what he was bound to do, what he gave his life for!

And not only that, he was dying. Malnutrition and thirst, and even at one stage beatings…Luckily the beatings had stopped, most likely because his Master had found out, but since the Second Prince had left for Purple Haven, the Prison guards and masters had gone back to mistreating him once again.

Band One could only feel that his Master should have just let things go and just let him get beheaded in the first place. He was not a man that gave up easily, as these feelings were still quite new, but he knew that he was posing a problem for the Second Prince’s reputation, by still being alive. Loyalty drove him to want an easier death, not only to help the Second Prince in terms of reputation but that too in being a burden. The last thing he wanted was for the Second Prince to be brought down because of him…Especially since he had become so weak now…

But…With the sudden occurrence of seeing his Master’s Princess, Band One felt a joy that had gone completely dormant since he had last seen the Princess with his Master…

A deep profound happiness spread amongst Band One, as he saw the obvious evidence of the Princess being with a child. He knew she had no other lover, as he had followed her for quite some time. The only man that she did live with was called Steven, and he was more so like a brother. As he had watched the Princess, she didn’t seem opened too much of a relationship of any kind, other than that of a quiet friendship with Steven and a physical, fighting one with the General. In fact…Band One was sure, with everything that he’d seen, that the Princess did have troubles talking to people…

Not only that…His Master did tell him once, not in specific details of course but through some signs, and Band One had figured that his master’s had gotten intimate with each other. Even though it was surprising on how quickly they had gotten that close to one another, at the same time it wasn’t surprising, because there was something else Band One had noticed with how Sahara acted with two people. With both Talon and Matthew, she was different. She seemed more relaxed and happy, looking like she was more familiar and more herself…And with that in mind…And with how much the Second Prince adores the Princess, Band One was sure that the child could be no others…As…Surely his Master would not let it come to pass that she was to be with any other man…