🌊⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖°🫧 Clever, cunning, witty, and brilliant. Those all described Lahan to a point. He got into the outer palace on smarts after all. You were invited to the inner palace under the guise as a diplomatic representative. Your real job, see how everything was going with the royal family and make sure secret children stay hidden. You weren’t new to the game, the capital made it more fun.

The La clan were wolves. They came with sharp teeth, great smarts, each one charming in their own way. But even wolves can be tricked. You knew it would be hard to sneak past MaoMao and Lakan. Those were your biggest challenges, you completely underestimated Lahan. Being the snake you are most people thought you were a lovely, kind, honest person. Telling stories about your family back home, giving sweet prep talks, and being a warm person. That’s what it took to get easy access to the library history section. With the library access you were able to sneak into Jinshi’s office with some sweet talking to the guard.

So there the snake was, going through scrolls of information. You had to write quickly a summary of what you read. After reading and putting the scrolls away you take your copied version and sneak back out. On your way back to the diplomat office you see Lahan who looks like he’s struggling to learn go. You put back on your friendly person act and head over to Lahan. Since he’s alone in a gazebo, you think he’s an easy target. You sat across from him

“Playing go for practice? I’ll help you.”

you said with a sweet smile. Lahan looked up at you and smiles. He hands over a small bowl of black stones. That takes you aback since black goes first. You look up at Lahan who’s grinning

“You should go first. I’ll learn off you anyway.”

Lahan said as he grabbed a white stone and tapped it against the table waiting for your movie. You look down at the board before playing the black stone. You look back up to see Lahan frowning and looking down at the board. You decide to smile and speak up, before you can Lahan spoke up first

“Usually Master Jinshi’s office is locked. How did you get in?”

Lahan asked before looking back up at you, placing his white stone. You blink a few time and your smile dropped. You start to think of a reasonable explanation.. how did he know? Guess wolves do catch snakes..