Chapter 55: Fun & Games
Misha had an oddly vivid memory of visiting the Forbidden Palace, though he’d never been able to place it properly in his memories. His parents had split when he was young, and his father had taken him to live in the UK immediately. He couldn’t remember the face of his mother, so wouldn’t it follow that anything from before the split was too early for him to remember? If so, then when had he ever visited Beijing?
This had been a small mystery that had occupied him when he’d had nothing to do - this had been before video games had entered the house - yet he’d never found a satisfying answer. He’d asked his father once, but the man had dismissed it. He’d been working on a particularly complicated arbitrage case at the time so Misha had left it at that.
As time had gone on, and video games had occupied his free time, Misha thought less and less about this strange memory until he’d almost completely forgotten about it.
That is, until this interlocking wooden fortress on the side of a misty mountain brought it all back to him.
It was a different place, of course it was a very different place, but it had many of the same architectural trappings and colours and it made Misha feel like he was walking in a dream.
But it wasn’t just that the place reminded him of that memory he thought had been long forgotten. The estate itself was complex beyond anything he could imagine with wooden stairs going up and down and long platforms connecting all the different ’island’ buildings perched all over the rocky mountain.
It was mesmerizing and beautiful, the way the fog would drift over the bridges and hide the supporting columns of the intricately interlocking buildings, making it look like they were floating in the middle of the air.
"Dragon-brother!" called out a little voice, calling Misha back to reality.
"Coming!" he shouted back and jogged along the wooden bridge and toward Gou Wun, the little snake girl leading him through the place. Despite her lower half comprising of just a single snake tail, she was incredibly fast over land and it made Misha wonder if he should try slithering on the ground as a dragon some time just to see.
Gou Wun took a sudden turn into one of the long side buildings and Misha followed. He was momentarily blinded by how dark it was by comparison to the outside, but after a moment his eyes adjusted. The walls of the room or hall were lined floor to ceiling with pots and glass jars and little wooden drawers with a large collection of strange looking instruments along the far wall where a woman sat.
She was sitting on a raised section of floor by a short table and she smiled as Gou Wun and Misha approached. "I was worried you might get lost if you didn’t have a guide," she said as Gou Wun slithered up to her and fell into her lap with a grin.