Yingyue twirled for the third time, just so she could see the orange skirt of her new silk dress spin in its eye-catching manner.
"A-Yue, you'll bump into someone"Xinyue sighed.
Unlike Yingyue, she was still dressed in the Mist Oasis uniform, her hair in its signature all up bun. She had not planned to attend the festival, and she had even gotten permission from the Sect leader to release her lantern inside the Mist Oasis. But of course Yingyue had dragged her out, not only to help her dress up and make her hair into twin braids, but also to "have fun" with her.
Xinyue would rather not be in the midst of all this hustle and bustle, but Yingyue was indeed having fun, so she endured it all without a word of complaint.
"Jiejie, look at this"Yingyue twirled back to her side to offer her a red apple.
"Thank you".
Xinyue bit into it, but her face paled, and only her good manners kept her from spitting it all out.
"Who in the world stuffs candies into an apple?"she asked in horror after she had heroically swallowed it.
"Is it bad? I really like it".
"Of course it's..."Xinyue paused at the hopeful look on Yingyue's face "no, it's fine".
"Right? I should buy a few more. A-Ling is going to love this".
"No, I don't think I will".
The two girls turned to see Ling walking towards them,a lantern in his hand.
"A-Ling, you found us!".
"Of course I did, how could I not when your voice is that loud?".
"Hey!".
Ling turned to Xinyue and bowed respectfully.
"Shijie".
"There's no need to be so formal here,"the Saintess replied"so you're Guangchang Ling. A-Yue talks about you all the time".
"Join us, A-Ling. Jiejie and I are looking around before the time comes to release the lanterns".
"Sure".
"Is A-Lian here too?"Xinyue asked.
She still needed to apologize for upsetting the other girl. Thanks to Sect leader Pan, she did not regret her actions that day anymore. But she really had upset Meilian, and she felt the need to apologize.
"My sister does not attend festivals, Shijie" Ling replied politely"she's too important".
*
*
*
Yuchen kept himself busy with the documents in front of him, but his eyes were treacherous, and would not stop straying to the beautiful yellow lantern at the edge of the table.
Gods only knew what Junjie was thinking when he made the lantern himself out of the materials Yingyue had brought, and then left it right here on the table, even though he knew that Yuchen had agreed to spend the day helping him out with some work while he strengthened the barrier at Haibin town.
Yuchen's eyes were not the only ones who had turned into traitors,as it turned out. Because his memory just kept replaying her words in his head.
You'll be happy you came, she had said, especially since it's your birthday.
His birthday.
Yuchen had actually forgotten, before she reminded him. Today was his eighteenth birthday, and it would pass as uneventfully as any other day.
Just like all his birthdays ever since his father died.
More memories rushed to the surface, this time of his father. Gentle eyes,a gentle voice,a gentle smile.
As a child, whenever he tried to imagine the Jade Emperor in the bedtime stories he was told, he had always thought of his father. Majestic, and powerful, and kind. Nowhere felt safer than in his arms.
But that safety had shattered abruptly one day, the day he helplessly watched his father bleed to death on the ice cold floor of the courtyard, stabbed so suddenly by the one he least expected would do such a thing.
Yuchen shook his head,as if to clear the memories from it.
His cultivation path forbade him from dwelling on the past, and yet here he was.
Yuchen sighed, his gaze once more traveling to the edge of the table, where the beautiful lantern stood.
*
*
*
"Jiejie, A-Ling, look!"Yingyue called out excitedly.
"What, more exotic candy?"Ling retorted.
His beloved friend had pulled them from place to place, gobbling candy as she went, so much that Xinyue worried that she might double over any moment.
They had peered at every shop,patted every dog,danced to every song. Not that they were complaining. Instead, they were both happy to see Yingyue happy.
"No,"Yingyue replied"a place to sit. You two look pretty tired".
Actually,they were not tired of walking, just drained from being forced to be extroverts, but they did not say so.
The three sat on the benches under a colorful shade bathed in several intoxicating aromas.
"You didn't seem to enjoy all those candies much, so I'm going to get you two something to eat. What would you like? Don't hold back".
Grateful, they rolled off a rather impressive list.
"Are you sure you can go on your own?"Xinyue asked.
"Of course. I'll be back in a bit".
With that, she skipped off.
*
*
*
Her half mask today was a lovely shade of midnight blue to go with her fashionable, floor sweeping cheongsam.
She stood atop the tallest building, looking down upon all the people who had gathered to celebrate the lantern festival. People who would all be dead before the end of the day if her plan to awaken Tuzai went well.
After drawing the evil-summoning array in the air, she lifted her gloved hands towards the sky as all of their negative emotions surrounded her in form of a thick wave of diabolic energy.
They pray to the Jade Emperor today, don't they? Well, she would see if the Jade Emperor would save them.
*
*
*
Yuchen came for the lantern festival.
He had not planned to come, of course. It had just happened somehow, and before he knew it he was already there, holding Yingyue's yellow lantern.
This was largely because he had not permitted himself to think as he grabbed the lantern from the table and headed out of Mist Oasis. Now that he was already here, though, he wanted to turn right around and return back to the documents in his uncle's office.
He had been wondering what in the world he was doing here ever since he found himself in the midst of all the lights and sounds and aromas.
He was just about to take his leave when he heard her voice.
"Shixiong!".
Yuchen turned, and was instantly blown away. The girl walking towards him, cradling a swollen bag of goodies, was the same Yingyue he knew, of course.
But this was a Yingyue he had never seen before. A Yingyue with a delicately made-up face and a new, flawless hairdo with all these lovely ribbons and equally lovely jewelry and a magnetic flowery dress with a form fitting bodice.
A breathtaking Yingyue.
"You came!"her voice alerted Yuchen that he was staring, and he looked away.
"I did".
"It feels so good to finally see a familiar face"she said gleefully.
"Finally?"Yuchen turned back to look at her.
"I went to get Jiejie and A-Ling something to eat, but then I got lost. I've been wandering around since then".
She was looking up into his face as she spoke, and Yuchen suddenly found himself looking away again without understanding why. He had never been the type to notice beauty, after all, and yet for some reason her current appearance was doing funny things to his breathing.
As for the way his heart just skipped a beat... well. That could be explained away in a million different ways.
If Yingyue thought he was acting strange, she said nothing about it.
"Did you just get here, Shixiong?".
"Yes. Just now".
"Okay. I should show you around,then, since you've never been to a festival before".
Yuchen raised an eyebrow.
"A person who lost her way plans to show me around?".
Yingyue blushed a vibrant pink.
"Hey! I'm just... I only...".
She fell silent, pouting childishly. With that pout and her pink cheeks, she looked like the cutest thing walking.
"Anyway!"she said too loudly"my offer still stands. Are you coming or not?".
Yuchen did not know that there was the smallest of smiles on his face as he responded.
"Let's go".
"Yay! I love showing people around the places I love. You're doing me a big favor, Shixiong, believe it or not".
He fell into step beside her as she pointed out this and this and that, informing him that she loved this and she was a sucker for that and her father bought her this when she was a kid and she didn't really fancy that.
Sometimes she skipped, sometimes she twirled, once in a while she moved in a sort of half dance.
Yuchen followed patiently, listening attentively, not even realizing how much he was enjoying all of it.
"Oh yes, happy birthday, Shixiong. What would you like?".
"What?".
"What would you like for a birthday present? You can get almost anything here. What should I get you?".
Yuchen's mind was blank, not that this was any fault of his. His grandfather had taught him to want nothing. It was a most important ethic for practitioners of the Immortal Cultivation path.
"You can't think of anything? That's fine too. We can just keep walking around, and if anything catches your fancy you can point it out".
So they walked on, Yingyue talking the whole way. Suddenly she gasped with delight and hurried to a sweet shop.
"Shixiong, over here. Do you like these?".
"These" were candies made by coating strawberries in honey and putting them on sticks. There were up to seven on each stick.
The sight took Yuchen on an involuntary trip down memory lane. When he was six, just a few weeks before his mother's tragic death, she had made the very same candies on one of her lucid days, for Yuchen to snack on as they talked. But the strawberries had been sour, and his mother had rubbed his head apologetically, saying sorry over and over again,as if she truly expected him to be offended.
"Shixiong?"Yingyue called when she noticed he was not listening.
Yuchen blinked.
"Yes?".
"I was asking if you would like one".
"Yes,"Yuchen could feel the clouds of nostalgia gathering in his chest "I would".
"We'll have a dozen,then"she said to the seller,
who eagerly complied.
"I should refund you"Yuchen said as they walked away.
"Hm? No need. I did make you pay for my dumplings back at Haibin town, so you can say I'm paying you back".
Even as she spoke, she was already stuffing her mouth.
"Eat up,"she pushed one into his hand"it's not all the time cultivators like us get to spend a whole day in peace".
Maybe she shouldn't have said that, because providence could be very unsympathetic whenever it felt tempted.
That was when a blood-colored array chose to appear in the sky, covering the entire venue of the festival.