Bai Qian
The rules of our arrangement were clear as spring water: favor for favor, ledgers balanced. Since I had chosen our picnic, it was only fair that Ye Hua select our next encounter.
My fox imagination conjured endless possibilities for a Celestial Crown Prince’s idea of “date”: perhaps a stiff-backed hour in some ancient hall while scholars droned about military strategy; or a hushed library where he could display his mastery of immortal bureaucracy.
I could scarcely contain my delight when he named Lotus Shade Retreat, his guest residence, as our meeting place. A secluded garden sanctuary hidden behind willow and bamboo, its courtyards opening onto a lotus pond that mirrored the heavens. This was where my parents had honeymooned—and now it would become a stage for intrigue and gossip, as Ye Hua and I would be alone there, unchaperoned.
My first thought was scandal. My second—laughter bubbling like spring water. I nearly snickered aloud, pressing my silk sleeve against my lips, imagining how rumors would race through the realms: the Nine-Tailed Fox Princess and the stiff Celestial Crown Prince, secreted away at so intimate a retreat. Even if our romance was only make-believe, surely word would reach Mo Yuan. Surely it would prick the God of War’s pride, like a thorn under his armor.
The thought was wine on my tongue—sweet, heady, intoxicating.
When I arrived, Ye Hua stood waiting at the gate, posture ramrod straight beneath the willow shade. His black robe was layered with flawless precision, silver Dragon embroidery scattering sunlight like starlight on water. The upper locks were gathered in a severe topknot, the mark of his station, yet the unbound strands trailing down his back softened the austerity, brushing his shoulders like silk ink strokes. The only movement was a small twitch in his jaw. He looked, I thought, exactly like a man walking into torture—which, in a sense, he was.
His bow was precise, perfectly measured like a celestial compass befitting our station. “Princess Bai Qian,” his voice resonated like polished jade, “I trust the day finds you well.”
I tilted my head, a smile curling my lips like a fox contemplating mischief. “Ye Hua, you make it sound as if we’ve come to sign a treaty, not share an afternoon.”
His ears flushed red as peonies. “I only meant.”
But I was already gliding past, the embroidered peonies on my peach robe brushing his sleeve. Inside the main gate, the pond lay motionless as polished jade, lotus blossoms drinking honeyed sunlight, willow fronds weaving silk curtains in the breeze. The sandalwood pavilion carved with Foxes cast shadows that danced over moss-veined stones. Somewhere in the bamboo grove, a nightingale sang sweet enough to halt even an ancient immortal mid-step.
I leaned close enough that my sleeve whispered against his robe, my perfume of peach and osmanthus floating between us. “A man and woman… alone… no witnesses…” My voice dipped to a conspiratory whisper, my eyes glinting slyly. “What would the world think?”
He stiffened further, every joint locked as if by imperial decree. “That is irrelevant. We are here under honorable pretense.”
I bit back laughter, my lips pressed tight as winter porcelain. If propriety had a face, it would look exactly like his—handsome as carved jade, rigid as palace pillars.
Without smiling, he declared, “They would think we were playing chess. Or reading quietly at a distance.”
I nearly scoffed — the laugh swelled inside me like nine fox tails bristling beneath silk, desperate to break free — but I bit it back until my lips pressed into a seam so tight they ached. Instead, I echoed him with mock solemnity. “Oh yes. Reading at a distance. That is exactly what men and women do when left alone together in a secluded garden where even the willows turn their backs.”
I sighed inwardly. The things one does for love.
With nothing more to say, he turned his back and walked straight into the manor, each footfall precise as a metronome’s beat. No ladies first. No escorting me by the arm with a gentle touch. Just stiff shoulders draped in midnight-blue silk, rigid spine like a bamboo rod, and off he went — leaving me trailing behind like an attendant after a royal procession.
My eyes rolled so hard the whites must have gleamed like full moons. I had to slap myself firmly on the back of the head to keep them from getting lodged there forever. So much for romance, Crown Prince.
“Have you made yourself at home?” I asked as I followed him in, scanning the room where sunlight spilled through latticed windows onto polished cedar floors. Not a scroll out of place on the rosewood shelves, not a jade cup moved on the lacquered table, not a single cushion’s embroidered tassel misaligned. The eerie perfection made me wonder if he had touched nothing at all — or if he had, only to set it back exactly where it belonged, measuring each object’s position with invisible celestial rulers. Watching the strict precision of his stride, the way his robes barely whispered against the floor, I suspected the latter.
“Did you eat? I’m making congee.” His voice, casual as falling plum blossoms, broke my survey.
At once I sniffed the air, catching a savory fragrance that curled through the room like morning mist over Qingqiu’s valleys. My heart bubbled with excitement, and my breath caught in my throat. A gasp escaped me as I darted past him toward the kitchen, my peach-colored sleeves billowing like sails, trying to crane around his stiff form, my movements like a dance of fire under my feet.
I whispered in awe. My words tumbling out like pearls from a broken string: “Could this be… the Congee of Celestial Enlightenment? With Immortal Rice cultivated on the emerald terraces of Kunlun, watered by the diamond dew of celestial blossoms, nourished by heaven’s purest golden Qi? Using Spirit Water from the Jade Pool where the Queen of the West’s nymphs bathe their silver feet? The flesh of the Three-Tailed Golden Carp that swims between stars?
I gulped, anticipation bubbling like a child watching a candy-maker pull molten sugar into golden threads.”…the Nectar of the Thousand-Year Peach that drips like liquid sunlight is the huà lóng diǎn jīng?”
My hands trembled like willow leaves in autumn wind as I reached for the lid — only to have him slap my fingers away, sharp as a sword strike, his touch cold.
“No.” His reply was flat as a stone tablet. “Mushroom and rice. I used chicken stock. Heavy foods are unsuitable first thing in the morning. A simple, coating meal prepares the stomach and provides steady energy throughout the day.”
Confused, I blinked at him, my lashes fluttering. The grand vision of Kunlun’s spirit rice shattered and replaced with ordinary congee steaming in an earthenware pot. So boring. Such a killjoy. Why in all the eight realms and four seas did goddesses and princesses lust after this colorless fellow with his perfect face and the soul of a dried squid?
I collapsed against the table with a sigh worthy of a dying empress. “Well, I suppose I could taste it, since you went to all this trouble.”
“I didn’t make it for you. I made it for me.” His monotone carried a sting of judgment, as though he were schooling a wayward child. “Princess, the world does not revolve around you. Not all men do everything just for women. Sometimes,” his brow twitched as though delivering a great truth, “we men simply do things for ourselves.”
“As in self-gratification?” The words slipped from my mouth slick and fast, like a peeled lychee sliding free of its skin.
The wooden spoon clattered to the counter as he dropped it, his gasp loud enough to startle the steam rising from the pot. “How indecent!”
Color flooded his face, painting even his earlobes the shade of summer peonies. I arranged my hands primly in my lap, voice honeyed innocence. “I simply meant doing things that bring you joy. Why should that scandalize you so?”
His eyes narrowed to obsidian slits beneath those perfect straight and thick brows. A short “hmph” escaped him, but his hands moved with betraying care—setting out two bowls instead of one, each placement measured to invisible coordinates on the table. Without meeting my gaze, he began brewing tea, the percussion of his movements creating their own quiet music: ladle tapping porcelain, lid settling against clay pot.
Despite his offended dignity, two bowls of steaming congee now waited. I watched him pour, wondering if he approached everything with such precision—did he dress the same way each morning? Right foot first into silk trousers, then left, never varying the sequence?
I swept into the kitchen, balancing a second teapot and cups in one hand like a tavern maid. The porcelain clinked precariously with each step, threatening disaster.
His ear twitched at the sound. Without looking up: “You’re dripping tea everywhere. You could have made two trips or used magic.”
“Where’s the challenge in that?” I set down my burden with a flourish, droplets speckling the polished floor. “In Qingqiu, we don’t summon magic for every little thing. We use our hands. We sweat. We work the soil.”
I poured with exaggerated care, letting the steam curl between us. My smile curved like the lip of the teacup. “We prefer simple joys here.”
His gaze tracked the tiny dark beads of tea that speckled the floor. Three… two… one — he rose before I could say anything, moving precise, inevitable economy of motion. Of course he would wipe them up.
“Eat before it gets cold,” he said as soon as he sat again. “You don’t need to wait for me.”
Who was I to displease a Crown Prince? I lifted a spoonful to my lips, inhaling as steam caressed my skin. The vessel was nothing special—earthenware with rustic brown streaks—but that first taste! The rice melted like snow on a warm tongue, each grain swimming in broth that carried mushrooms’ earthy essence and chicken’s gentle strength. Sesame whispered beneath, scallions brightened above. Every one of my tastebuds rose and sang, a tiny orchestra paying homage.
I glanced up and caught him watching, the barest lift at the corner of his mouth. The smile fled the instant his eye met mine, vanishing like mist when you blink; but I’d seen it. That small, private advantage he’d thought to tuck away.
“Where did you learn to cook like this?” I asked between hurried bites.
He sat down beside me, careful and unshowy, then scooped from his own bowl, filling mine more as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He spoke flatly, as if reciting facts from a ledger. “I used to study from dawn to midnight. I didn’t want to burden the imperial kitchens for myself, so I would slip away and learn. It was a break from the books. A hobby.”
The way his hand moved — measured, generous — shifted something inside me. He was more than crown and ceremony. He was a man who’d stolen small freedoms, who’d tucked away a private softness into the busiest hours of his day.
“One day your wife will surely enjoy the fruits of your labor,” I said, teasing. “Not all men can cook. My father would burn the den down if he tried.”
He grimaced and refilled my teacup with a brief, bitter little sound that betrayed his age: young, not yet weathered. “Why do elders fixate on marrying us off when we reach a certain age?” he muttered, more to himself than to me.
I leaned in, ready to share my thoughts. “My sentiments exactly! It’s like they treat us as commodities,” I said, my voice bright with indignation. “Bartered and traded. So — are you being told to marry soon?”
He nodded. The exhale that followed puffed his cheeks. “Yes. My grandfather says I will marry soon.”
Finally — something we shared. I felt a spark of fellowship, raw and real. “My father told me the same last year,” I said, and made my outrage theatrical. “I told him absolutely not. I will marry for love. I will only marry High God Mo Yuan.” I leaned in conspiratorial. “What about you? Did you tell them you wanted to marry your beloved?
Ye Hua ate with the same equanimity he applied to everything. Each scoop measured, identical, methodical — a metronome of propriety. I watched the rhythm and found the steadiness oddly reassuring.
“I do not have a woman in my life,” he said. “And I don’t want one. I’m not the sort of man who will fall in love. Love is an inefficient investment of emotion and time.” He shrugged, a tiny, stubborn motion. “My uncle Lian Song falls in and out of love every other week. He is ridiculous. I want none of that.”
Something in me softened then. I slid my hand over his, covering his fingers without thinking. His skin was warm, the pulse steady beneath — not a throne’s occupant, not a myth, but a young man with small rebellions.
“One day, when you are my brother-in-law,” I said in earnest, “I will be very good to you. I will protect you from unwanted marriages.”
He looked at our joined hands for a second, unreadable, then down at the bowl as if the world had tilted and only these two small things — congee and clasped fingers — kept it level.
A wind stirred the willows outside; a leaf skittered across the flagstones like a small, private applause. For a moment, the Lotus Shade felt like a bubble out of time: two slow heartbeats in a place that otherwise demanded ceremonies and duty.
We ate. We talked about nothing and everything. The day leaned into afternoon, and beneath the conversation, something quiet and dangerous grew — a tiny, foolish warmth that neither of us had planned for, and that both of us were already, without permission, beginning to protect.
I cleared the dishes in careful, measured trips — three there, two back — because if he had a ritual for everything, who was I to rub a dragon’s scales the wrong way? It felt deliciously domestic and petty all at once: me, doing small work in his borrowed house, pretending not to notice how his spine always fixed itself into an exacting line the moment he rose.
When we were done, we took up different places in the receiving room as if by choreography. He crossed to an armchair carved from some mythical timber that smelled faintly of mountain rain — the kind of wood old poets claimed was grown on cloud-beds and fed on moonlight.
The frame gleamed black and veined like a sleeping dragon; the legs curled like waves. Plush pillows piled against the back, their silk embroidered with lotuses, koi, and drifting clouds, the stitches catching the light like tiny silver ripples. I thought of the chair’s name as it might be sung in a temple: the Cloud-Elm Sumeru Seat — something lofty and a little ridiculous, but perfectly him.
I slid beneath the open window and flopped onto my stomach, letting the sunlight lay like a warm hand across my back. The breeze lifted the hem of my sleeves, and the scent of lavender from the garden brewed a pleasant drowsiness in me. From my sleeve I drew the current mortal trash of my reading — the latest love-in-trouble serial: Madam Wang and the Stablehand part two. Limited edition.
“This place is special,” he said, voice even and low — half question, half statement. He had that habit of making everything sound like a declaration of law.
I propped my cheek on my stacked hands and looked up at him. “Yes. This is where my parents honeymooned.” The admission came raw and unplanned, and the memory tasted sweet. “My father built it for my mother. It’s held together by all their small, silly and cherished things. It’s… everyone’s heart in this house.”
For a man I had convinced myself was carved from stone, his expression softened, just so. He set the scroll he’d been carrying across his knees with a motion that looked almost careful, and for a heartbeat he seemed smaller than his titles.
“I feel lucky to experience such a place,” he said, almost to himself. “My parents aren’t like yours. My family is not like yours.”
Those words slid under my ribs. I let them sit there. They were simple and true and offered like an unexpected gift.
“One day,” I said before I could stop myself, heart a soft, guilty drum, “when I marry your brother, we’ll all be family. You’ll have two families.”
There was a small crack in his composure then — a hairline fissure where the granite softened. His lips turned upward, the corner of his mouth lifting in something that was not quite a smile but the first honest thing he had shown me all day. It was subtle, like moonlight through bamboo, but it was there.
Maybe there was more beneath that cool, Celestial exterior. Maybe he wasn’t a statue at all but a bud kept from the sun too long. If given a little warmth, a little mischief, perhaps he, too, might open.
I shoved my nose back into my mortal tale, the paper’s edge worn soft from countless readings. My knees bent naturally, ankles crossing and uncrossing in lazy figure-eights until the coral silk of my gown slid upward like retreating tide, baring my knees and calves to the honey-gold sunlight spilling through the latticed window.
He rose abruptly, the lacquered chair creaking in protest. His movement cut through the air sharper than any sound. Before I could even blink, a pair of long, elegant fingers—cool as marble despite the afternoon heat—tugged firmly at my skirt, pulling the fabric back down over my legs with the precision of a general arranging battle flags. His porcelain skin flushed from the hollow of his throat upward, the faint Celestial pallor gone, replaced with a heat that stained him crimson. Not at my legs—no, he deliberately avoided looking there, his gaze fixed somewhere above my shoulder before snapping to the pages splayed open in my hand.
And there it was.
Frozen in lurid ink strokes dark as midnight, Madam Wang and the stable hand captured mid-tryst, bare limbs tangled like wild vines, hair loose as storm-tossed waves, mouths open in ecstasy beneath a painted moon.
For a moment, silence reigned, heavy as temple incense.
Then his whole face turned the color of ripened persimmons left too long in autumn sun. His ears, pale moments before, flushed scarlet as though they had been scalded in boiling water, the tips nearly translucent against the afternoon light. His posture became rigid, like a courtier after committing a royal offense, shoulders stiffened, jaw locked, struggling with rage and terror.
He opened his mouth — closed it. Opened it again. Nothing came out. Only the sound of his sharp inhale, brittle as breaking ice. “Let’s go outside in the open for air,” he abruptly suggested. ” I need air.” Just like when we came in, he strode out first, leaving me to trail behind him.
He proposed a swim in the Jade Pools to cool down. Polite as always, he turned so I could enter first. I dove into the pool, swimming halfway across before breaking the surface, water streaming from my hair.
“Come on! The water feels incredible!” I called out.
He lingered at the edge, uncertain. It was strange… dragons should love water, shouldn’t they? Finally, he started to take his clothes off.
First went the outer robe, black silk embroidered with silver cloud patterns that caught the light as he moved. He shrugged it off with stiff precision, each movement deliberate as a temple ritual, folding it with three exact creases before setting it aside. Already his form struck me — tall, sinewy, broad-shouldered, with a warrior’s posture that seemed to command the very air around him.
Next, he loosened the jade-tipped ties of his inner tunic. The cream-colored fabric slid from his shoulders like water over stone, baring bronze skin that gleamed in the afternoon sun, smooth and hairless as polished amber, droplets of perspiration clinging to him like morning dew on lotus petals. His chest was lean, firm — each muscle defined but not ostentatious.
When his final gossamer undershirt followed, I nearly forgot to breathe. His abdomen was a living scroll of discipline: six perfect ridges tight as drum skin, sharp as if carved by an artisan’s finest chisel from living marble. And there — the faint trail of dark hair beginning at his navel, arrowing downward beneath his waistband like a shadowy path to forbidden treasures that I found myself gawking at without a single blink.
My lips parted involuntarily, memory colliding violently with sight. Madam Wang and the Stablehand from my scandalous novel — the illustration of tangled limbs and arched backs, bare skin pressed to feverish skin — suddenly lived in vibrant color before me. Except now the “stablehand” was a dragon prince with obsidian eyes, and the face I superimposed over his magnificent body belonged, shamefully and deliciously, to his twin, High God Mo Yuan himself. Heat flared up my throat, and I ducked lower into the cool water until only my widened eyes showed above the rippling surface.
Then, mercifully, he leapt in with a splash that sent droplets arcing through the sunlight like scattered pearls. That was my cue to flee. I scrambled out, my peachy-coral gown plastered scandalously to my skin, clinging like a desperate lover, grabbing for my outer robe of embroidered silk. The soaked fabric molded itself to every dip and rise of my form, outlining curves that would make even the most liberal courtesans of the mortal realm blush behind their painted fans. That was when I felt it—his gaze, heavy as summer heat. A startled, unguarded flicker as he surfaced—dark eyes darting down the length of me before snapping back to my face with the speed of a startled sparrow.
Or did they?
The look vanished so quickly. Perhaps I imagined it, my own mischievous fox-heart twisting his stiff propriety into secret peeks. Perhaps it was only wishful thinking, born from my ridiculous fantasies that bloomed like midnight flowers in the garden of my mind. Yet the thought lingered, hot and traitorous making my heart stumble like a drunken dancer.
His ears flushed crimson as sunrise against snow as he stammered, water streaming from his midnight hair, “My..my third Uncle said..I thought—it was Qingqiu custom to swim nude! I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head quickly, droplets flying from my own damp tresses. “Don’t be sorry. There are always silly rumors about every clan. I’d heard Celestials were so uptight, I never thought you’d be the one to go skinny-dipping.”
I turned to leave, my wet footprints marking the stone like a trail of tiny moons, but mischief tugged me back with invisible silk threads. My lips curved into a sly smile that would have made my fox ancestors proud. “It must be very uncomfortable for you to sit with your legs crossed… because of your mighty sword.”
For a heartbeat, silence hung between us like a suspended crystal. Color spread across his face, down his neck, even across his broad chest still glistening with water. His whole body tensed, mortification etched into every line of his statuesque form as if a sculptor had chiseled “embarrassment” into living marble.
Then, finally, he sputtered, his voice cracking on the high notes, Adam’s apple bobbing frantically beneath the wet column of his throat. Droplets clung to his lower lip as he gasped out the words, eyes darting everywhere but at me, fingers clutching the water’s surface as if it might somehow shield him. “Indecent! One doesn’t speak of swords unless one is going to battle!”
I should keep my mouth shut, but my Fox-spirit has other ideas.”They say love is a battlefield,” I quip, batting my lashes with mock innocence while my smile curls wicked. “And since we’re already playing pretend-lovers, what’s the harm in a little… weapons inspection?”
I punctuate this with a theatrical wink — the kind of exaggerated flutter that would make even Zhe Yan proud.
The poor Crown Prince Ye Hua nearly choked on the water he wasn’t even drinking.