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The Great Puzzle Chapter 14: 3k

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The Great Puzzle, ch 14

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Mulan, General and Ghost Bride
Previous Parts Here

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For a long moment, Mulan just stares.

It’s not possible. It’s just not.

Liu Guo is a good man. A good soldier. He protects her and keeps her secret and trained her and promoted her and that it’s just to die doesn’t matter, he still chose her. He believed her about Jinhai and he’s kind and makes her laugh and he’s maybe the best friend she’s ever had.

He can’t be a traitor.

If he were, why did those soldiers kidnap him? If they were on the same side, there’d be no need. Liu Guo loves his father and everyone knows that General Liu is loyal. He wouldn’t betray his father, his country, his emperor.

He wouldn’t betray Mulan.

She doesn’t decide to move, it’s just that one moment Jinhai is shouting her name and she’s shoving him off her and the next she’s grabbing Liu Guo by the back of his collar and yanking him away.

He’s bigger and stronger and steadier than her, but she’s pissed and he’s not expecting it. He stumbles back a step before righting himself, instantly turning around and stepping int from the Temujin soldier. Protecting him. She’s going to be sick.

“Mulan,” he says, the stark terror on his face dropping into apprehension.

It just makes her angrier. “What are you thinking? What’s wrong with you?”

“It’s not what you think,” he tries.

“Really?” she demands, because just how stupid does he think she is. She reaches around him, fingers curling around a slim wrist and then yanking the soldier out from behind Liu Guo. She’s half tempted to kill him and then maybe she’ll be in the mood to hear Liu Guo’s excuses.

The solider isn’t that much bigger than she is. He’s got pale skin and large eyes and he keeps looking nervously between her and Liu Guo. He then pauses and frowns. “Uh, are you a–”

“Shut up,” she snaps. Great, the enemy soldier Liu Guo is kissing isn’t an idiot, that’s just perfect. “Seriously, Liu Guo, what are you thinking? There’s a whole camp of men who wouldn’t turn down a little stress relief and you’re sneaking out to this?”

The soldier’s face shifts into something offended. She doesn’t think he appreciates how easily she could kill him right now.

“Mulan,” Jinhai says urgently, right at her shoulder. “His hands.”

What?

“It’s not like that,” Liu Guo insists.

Mulan turns the soldier’s wrist, looking at his hands, trying to figure out what Jinhai is talking about. It doesn’t take that long to figure it out.

He has soft hands.

No scars, no callouses, nothing. He’s not a soldier, not even a very new one.

When the enemy soldiers had kidnapped Liu Guo, he’d told her they’d done that rather than kill him so he could be used as a bargaining chip. She hadn’t pressed against who. She probably should have. “What’s your name?”

“Don’t,” Liu Guo says. She’s not sure which of them he’s talking to.

“Shilong,” he answers, offering her something between a grimace and a smile.

Mulan lets go of his wrist but only so she can press her fingers to her suddenly throbbing temple. “Liu Guo. Tell me that this isn’t Temujin’s son.”

Jinhai curses from somewhere behind her. She waits, hope curdling a little more with every second.

She’s never before heard a silence so loud.