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The crown prince stabbed once, twice, three times, then turned quickly to slash behind him. He took a running start, jumped, and turned in mid-air, only to lose his grip on his sword once he moved to slash with it. He landed clumsily on his feet and walked over to where he had dropped his sword, picking it up as he grunted in frustration yet again. “That one movement! I can’t get it right, no matter how many times I try.”
The crown prince had spent too many days just sitting—meditating—and was itching to practice with his sword. So, that night, he went out to run over various moves before the sun rose. It was incredibly dark, being in the middle of a deep forest, where not even the moonlight could shine through the trees. The prince found that he could just barely see the glint of his sword in front of him and little else.
He took a few steps back, steadying himself. Then he took a few deep breaths; he was becoming too irritated to concentrate. Peace, the words of his Guoshi echoed in his head, You need to find peace. Once his heart rate had slowed down just a bit, the crown prince repeated his three stabs, turned, and began to slash his sword.
He was cut short, though, by a hand that wrapped around his arm and interrupted his movement.
The prince’s eyes widened in shock. There wasn’t supposed to be anybody else up on the mountain with him. Thinking instinctively, he twisted his arm out of the grip and swung to where he assumed the mysterious person would be but feeling nothing hit the end of his sword. He spun around a few times, slashing wildly around himself, to no avail.
“Who’s there?!” The prince yelled, trying to listen for the sound of a voice or clothes rustling to deduce who—or what—had grabbed him. But his own breathing was so intense that it was almost impossible to hear anything else.
“Doesn’t it seem pointless to keep slashing around like that when you can’t see anything?”
The crown prince heard the voice come from right behind him, almost a whisper in his ear. He spun and stabbed straight behind, but once again without result. Was it a non-corporeal ghost following him? “Show yourself!” He called out.
“What good would that do in the dark?”
Again, the voice came from behind the prince. He spun and slashed, but all he heard was a laugh come from a few feet away. He ran up and stabbed at where he heard the laugh, but heard the sound of clothes swishing several steps behind him. It followed like that for a few moments—the crown prince desperately attacking at any sound he heard. Eventually, the environment around him grew ominously silent, and the crown prince stood stone-still, waiting for the next indication of life around him.
“How about this,” came the voice from what seemed to be… above? “If you put your sword away, I’ll turn on some light.”
Ignoring the seemingly impossible promise to “turn on some light,” the crown prince asked, “And why should I trust you?”
“You don’t have to. But, I’ll remind you, who’s had the upper hand in this fight so far?”
The crown prince stayed still for a few seconds, then sighed and put his sword back into its sheath. A few seconds later, a warm light seemed to appear all around the prince, illuminating the trees around him. He looked around, but there was no one to be seen.
“Hey, handsome, up here.”
The crown prince looked up to see a young man sitting in a tree just above him. The stranger was his age, perhaps no more than a year younger, with red robes, an eyepatch, and a messily done braid in his hair. The light came from a small flame hovering an inch above the boy's palm—a small fire that somehow had the ability to light anything more than fifty steps away. The prince watched the stranger carefully, unable to believe that this was the person who had been harassing him. This person looked utterly harmless, with an arrogant smile and lazy manner of sitting.
The stranger jumped out of the tree, landing a few feet away from the prince. He took a step forward, but the prince took a step back in tandem. Just because he had put his sword away didn’t mean he trusted this person at all. “No one ever comes up this mountain. What are you doing here?”
“You looked like you were lonely.”
“What? Have you been watching me?” The crown prince furrowed his brows and crossed his arms.
“Am I wrong?” The stranger asked, smirking as he mirrored the prince’s crossed arms.
The prince hated to admit it, but he wasn’t. He had been on the verge of going insane up on this mountain, with no one to interact with and nothing to do but meditate and practice with his sword. He knew the goal was to improve his cultivation, but that didn’t make it any easier to follow all the rules. Still, he couldn’t let this mysterious stalker know that they were right. The crown prince huffed, “Well, I’m leaving, and I’d appreciate it if you stopped following me.”
The stranger’s face fell almost immediately. “No, don’t leave!” But the crown prince just ignored his call and turned around to start heading back up the mountain. Behind him, the stranger yelled several more times for him to stay, but he ignored him. Suddenly, he felt someone grab his hand and say, in a much more serious tone, “Gege, please.”
The prince turned back to the stranger, surprised by both his familiar term of address and by the fact that he had to look up to look him in the eyes—eye. Looking closer, the prince could see diverging scars coming out from the eyepatch that the stranger wore—deep, jagged scars that made the prince wonder how such an easy-going person could receive such fierce injuries. But before he could ask, the stranger shook his head a bit, letting a piece of hair fall onto his face and covering the eye. The stranger tightened his grip on the prince’s hand and said again, “Don’t leave.”
Something about the stranger’s disheartened face, so contrasted from the confident smirk he had worn only a minute ago, tugged on the crown prince’s heart. He gave in, just a little bit. “Why shouldn’t I leave?”
“There’s something I want to show you.” The stranger smiled again.
“What?”
“Well, it’s not a surprise if I tell you.” The stranger paused for a few seconds. “Will you come with me?”
It was an incredibly strange request, coming from someone that the prince had only met a few minutes ago. And yet, the prince offered an even stranger answer. He said yes.
The stranger’s face lit up for a split second until it settled back into the casual smile he had worn when the prince first saw him. “Allow me, your highness,” the stranger said. Lighting the way with the fire in one hand, the stranger used his other hand to hold the prince’s hand, guiding him slowly down the mountain.
When it became evident that the stranger was leading him entirely off the mountain, the crown prince stopped for a second. “I really shouldn’t leave this mountain.”
The stranger looked back at him. “What’s stopping you?”
Nothing. The answer was nothing, so the crown prince took another step forward—the last step—and officially stepped off of the mountain for the first time in almost a year.
The stranger—although, perhaps it wasn’t quite right to call him a stranger anymore; now, the prince thought of him as his companion—anyway, the prince’s companion took him to a small town at the foot of the mountain. It was a town the prince had passed by when he first traveled to the mountain, but never actually took the time to explore. His companion, however, seemed to know it well, given how easily he navigated through the streets.
There were many people out, for how late in the night it was. The prince looked over at his companion to ask what the people were outside for, but he interrupted the prince by asking if he wanted anything to eat.
The prince quickly turned down the offer, but a second later, his stomach growled, betraying him to his companion. The prince had been fasting the past few days while he focused on his meditation, and hadn’t realized that his body was hungry. His companion, hearing how hungry the prince was, led the prince over to a small stall that seemed to sell many different foods. Next to that stall, a large group of people was crowding around, buying something from a seller that the prince couldn’t see due to the crowd.
“Do you see anything you want?” The prince’s companion asked.
“Uh…” The prince trailed off. In reality, he was a horribly picky eater, so he ended up getting a simple bowl of rice. When he reached into his sleeve to grab money to pay, his companion stopped him, pulling out his own money pouch.
“Allow me. This outing was my idea, anyway.” The prince began to protest, but his companion was already handing a few coins over to the stall owner, ending the conversation. He smiled back at the prince, leading him over to a table where he could eat.
“You’re not having any?” The prince asked after his companion had watched him take a few bites.
“I’m not hungry,” he replied, but a few seconds later, just as it had happened to the prince, his stomach rumbled.
“Here, let’s share.” The prince held out the one pair of chopsticks they had for his companion to grab, but he didn’t. Instead, the prince’s companion just opened his mouth and looked expectantly at the prince. It took him a few seconds to realize what he wanted, and when he did, the prince blushed. Avoiding eye contact, he took some rice and reached over the table to feed it to his companion. They continued like that, the prince taking a few bites, and feeding a few other bites to the other person when he opened his mouth. The prince’s face just grew redder and redder, but he secretly delighted in seeing the satisfied look of his companion every time he took a bite of food.
As they walked around the town after eating, the prince slowly noticed the uncomfortable stares of the other townspeople at him. They weren't offended glares, but the people around him definitely acknowledged the way the prince’s expensive clothing and the sword at his side didn’t fit in at all. His companion took notice, too, watching as the prince shrunk from the gazes of the townspeople and tried to subtly move to the other side of his companion, to hide from the other people around them.
The prince’s companion steered him to one corner of the town, a place where the crowd had thinned significantly. “Wait here,” he said to the prince, holding the prince’s shoulders with his hand as he gave him a small smile and turned to enter the crowd again. The prince saw his companion disappear around a corner, but soon left the place where he had been left to follow his companion.
When he finally caught up with his companion, the prince hid himself around the corner of a building, observing him as he seemed to be wandering past two people sitting on a bench, one in black and red robes and the other in whitish-blue. Whoever the people were, they seemed unconcerned with the world around them, merely talking and holding hands, without even bothering to notice that the boy that was looking at them carefully.
But he wasn’t looking at those two, per se, but rather something that lay beside them. And while the two were increasingly focused on each other, the boy snuck up behind them and grabbed a pile of cloth that one of the men must have put down at some point. It was some kind of cape or covering, an outer layer of clothing that was nothing more than a large piece of white fabric with a clasp in the front.
By the time the couple noticed that they had been robbed, the prince’s companion had already dashed behind a corner. The prince had too, trying to run back to the corner where he was supposed to be, so his companion wouldn’t know that he had been following him. When the prince returned, his companion returned only thirty seconds later, with the coat in hand.
The prince couldn’t help but want to scold his companion for stealing, but he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to know in the first place. And, when his companion stepped closer to gently drape the cape around him and fasten the clasp in the front, the prince found that he really didn’t want to tell his companion to stop and return the cape.
“Now no one will look at you strangely,” he said, adjusting the cape so that it covered the prince’s outfit. It was a very long cape, reaching down to the prince’s heels. “And if they do, I’ll make sure to beat them up for you,” his companion added. His face seemed deadly serious for a second until it lightened into another relaxed smile. The prince didn’t know how to respond, so he just pulled the edges of the cape up to cover his blushing face.
They stood there for a bit, looking at each other until a voice rang out from next to them. “There they are! Hey, kid, what’s your problem?!”
The prince and his companion looked over to see the couple they had stolen from, the one in black robes pointing accusingly at the boy. The prince opened his mouth to explain but couldn’t think of any possible excuse for stealing. Thankfully, his companion had another idea; he grabbed the prince’s hand and took off running. Out of the corner of his eye, the prince saw the man in black robes start to give chase, but the other man grabbed his arm and said, “Just leave them. He reminds me of another certain person who was a teenage troublemaker.”
The prince didn’t know what they were talking about, but it made the man in black robes stop pursuing them, so he was grateful. The prince’s companion led him through the town and took him to a place outside the town, a clearing with a large lake and forest on both sides. It was a beautiful place, and, without all of the people that filled the town, incredibly peaceful. The prince and his companion found a place to sit down—a patch of grass that the prince’s companion made sure to clear of all rocks and assorted sticks before the prince sat down.
His companion remained standing, putting his hand out to stop the prince from getting up to follow him. “Wait here,” he said, turning to walk away until he threw one last glance over his shoulder at the prince. “And actually stay where you are this time,” he added.
The prince laughed nervously as his companion walked back through a small path through the forest to reach the town. Of course, the prince wasn’t as subtle as he thought—his companion knew he had followed him earlier. The prince waited for his companion to return, watching the reflection of the unnaturally bright moon dance on the surface of the lake. He thought about the other boy, how incredibly strange their first meeting had been—and only a few hours ago. And yet, the prince trusted him.
It wasn’t long before the rustling of nearby bushes alerted the prince to the return of his companion. He entered the clearing with his hands behind his back, facing the prince directly to obscure what he was holding. The prince leaned over to see what it was, but his companion stopped and readjusted his arms to block the prince’s view of the object he was holding.
“Do you know what day it is?” He asked.
The prince thought for a bit. “Sunday?”
“It’s the Mid-Autumn Festival.”
“Oh,” the prince realized. It was, indeed, the Mid-Autumn Festival. That was why there seemed to be such large crowds; they were all celebrating the festival. It had been a long time since the prince had thought about anything other than cultivating. He hadn’t even realized that the holiday had come.
The prince’s companion again started walking towards him, only revealing the object he held once he sat in front of the prince. It was a sky lantern, still unlit, made of lower-quality paper and with no designs. It was one of the cheapest lanterns that one could buy, very different from the lanterns the prince had always seen during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
“You brought a lantern?” The prince asked. “Shouldn’t we be putting this with a temple or something? For the gods?”
His companion smiled knowingly. “The god I want to give this to doesn’t have a temple yet.”
“Oh, really? Who is it?”
His companion said nothing. He used another fire summoned on his finger to light the lantern and handed it to the prince. The prince looked at him with confusion. “Do you want me to release the lantern?”
“You can do what you want with it. It’s for you.”
“It’s for me to dedicate? I thought you had a god in mind already…”
His companion laughed lightly, “I’ve already dedicated it.”
The prince stared at him blankly for a few more seconds; then his eyes widened in realization while his cheeks reddened. “But… I’m not… I’m not a god…”
“You’re sacred to me.”
The prince was stunned into silence, choosing to focus on the lantern instead of the other boy’s face. “Uh, should we release the lantern now?” The prince held out the lantern, and his companion placed his hands over the prince’s. They stayed like that for a few moments, looking at each other above the lantern, until the prince finally let go. His companion, however, did not release the prince’s hands; instead, he held them as they both watched the lantern float off into the sky and over the lake, floating right to heaven.
When the lantern became too far away to see, the prince looked back at his companion, only to realize that he had been looking at him the entire time. The prince’s companion pulled him a bit closer, then whispered softly, “Can I kiss you?”
One side of the prince’s mind brought up the lecture his parents and Guoshi had given him before he went up the mountain—“Don’t ever lose focus on your cultivation.” He was sure that this entire day had been a direct violation of that. And engaging in any sort of romance would break it even more. It wasn’t a thing that he should be doing. He should be thinking solely about his cultivation, avoiding any enjoyments of the material world.
And yet, what was so wrong with the “material world?” There was a reason why people sought out relationships so passionately—whether they be romantic, platonic, or even familial. They made people feel needed, supported. It made them feel whole. Why should the prince deprive himself of something so fundamental to the human experience? Piles upon piles of art were made about love—books, poems, paintings, songs. Politics was dominated by the passage of power through romantic relationships and familial ones. The prince had been told to seek peace his entire life—peace in himself, peace with his peers, peace in the world.
How could he explain to everyone else that he could see the peace he sought in the eyes of the boy in front of him?
And, boy, did the prince want to kiss him. Just looking in the eyes of his companion, the prince felt a magnetic pull that he had never felt before. He had never met anyone like this before, and he couldn’t let him get away now. So, he gently nodded, meeting his companion’s lips halfway.
And in that kiss, the prince realized two things. One, that he had gained a level of understanding that no sword fighting technique could teach him. An understanding of the power of caring for another person so deeply that you forgot yourself, something that the prince had never thought of before today. Maybe he hadn’t reached that point of devotion yet, but he could feel it on the horizon, like one senses the rain just from the feeling of the air.
Two, that his parents were right. This would distract him remarkably from his cultivation. But was that such a bad thing? A little rebellion was reasonable, and it was fun. With something so revolutionary, even if the prince never saw this boy again—although he would do all he could to keep him close—he knew that he would carry this moment with him for a long time. He could hardly believe it when, only a second later, they pulled apart, and the prince looked over at his companion.
Although, perhaps it wasn’t quite right to call him a companion anymore. The prince thought of him as some sort of beloved.