Ye Hua
He snorted. So abrupt, fast and sharp, it hurt his nostril. Undoubtedly not a dignified sound for the future Celestial Emperor, but Bai Qian had that effect on him — like a sudden gale tearing through his intricately arranged mental scrolls, like the unruly tendrils of wavy hair at his temples that rebelliously refused to be tamed no matter how many times his attendants smoothed them with jade combs and celestial pomade, like the treacherous eye tic that threatened to bring chaos to his composure anytime his grandfather brought up marrying some princess.
She was chaos.
The image of the flowing skirt of her goddess gown transformed into ballooned pants that made her legs look like sausages and her red cheeks — those round, inflated cheeks puffed with the full fury of a Nine-Tailed Fox who had run out of patience and was approximately three seconds from deploying all nine — Nine Heavens, she’d looked like an angry pomegranate with lachang legs. It was something he wouldn’t forget, possibly even after he faded into the realm of nothingness. The memory might remain like one of the pillars supporting the Nine Heavens — immovable, foundational, and entirely without his consent.
Ye Hua’s single snort morphed into a chuckle that snowballed into another, then another, until — horror of horrors — he was actually laughing. Truly laughing! The kind of never-seen-before-laughter that would make his royal advisors check for possession by mischief demons, make his stoic father’s already deep-set eyes retreat four inches deeper into his face, and even cause the Master of Mount Kunlun Mo Yuan’s fine mustache to twitch in disbelief. A single tear escaped, and his immortal hand snatched it midair with the reflexes of Third Uncle catching a handkerchief dropped by the newest immortal maiden to attend court.
“Ye Hua, Ye Hua,” he firmly scolded himself, examining the diamond-shaped tear.
“Must you be this perfect and sensitive on top of it? The celestial masses can barely contain themselves now as it is — like starving spirit children eyeing the last mooncake at the Mid-Autumn Festival banquet, every one of them fully prepared to trample their venerable grandmother for a single crumb — completely unfair to everyone.”
The memory surfaced again — her furious little face, those makeshift ballooned pants flapping like battle flags in a war she was absolutely winning — and something warm expanded in his chest like sunlight pressing against a window it had never been allowed through before. He was not a laugher, nor did he chuckle, and he hadn’t laughed like that in fifty thousand years because nothing had ever amused him before her.
He blamed her entirely. Oh yes, he did! Her ridiculousness was cramping his celestial style like a pair of ceremonial dragon-scale boots three sizes too small during the ten-thousand-step Heavenly Procession — pinching at his immortal dignity with every divine stride.
She had no idea what she did, wandering through his carefully constructed existence like she owned it, rearranging his qi and feng shui without permission… or did she? He had heard of fox spirits whose sole purpose was to cause mischief and disorder in the cultivation world, but she had nothing to gain by vexing him… or did she? Before Bai Qian, his days had the precision of a calligraphy master’s finest work — each stroke deliberate, each pause calculated, not a single drop of immortal ink wasted. Now his days had her in them, and she was less like calligraphy and more like a mischievous spirit who had gotten into the Nine Heavens’ sacred inkstone and pressed both hands joyfully against heavenly grandfather’s personal imperial parchment.
She was messy, yet somehow the result was not entirely unpleasant. Like a perfectly imperfect painting that would fetch ten thousand spirit gems at any immortal auction.
He would never tell her that. Not even if the Heavenly Grandfather himself commanded it.
His treacherous mind drifted without permission — which it had been doing with alarming frequency of late, another thing he blamed entirely on her. It was impossible to say when she had become a splinter under his immortal skin. Perhaps it began the morning of what he now privately termed “The Congee Incident.”
The way she had swept into the kitchen like they had spent every morning together, eyes wide with theatrical enthusiasm over mushroom rice as though he had produced the Peaches of Immortality themselves. And then the way she had actually eaten it. Three bowls. Without stopping, without talking, but making small whimper sounds of appreciation that she probably didn’t realize she was making, her dark lashes lowered, completely absorbed in the simple pleasure of a good meal in morning light, oblivious to the grain of rice stuck to her chin that his fingers had itched to brush away.
He had made those sounds happen.
He cleared his throat and straightened slightly at the thought, pride arranging itself naturally across his shoulders like a second celestial robe. Yes. He had done that. Crown Prince Ye Hua, future Emperor of the Nine Heavens, ancient lineage — had rendered Bai Qian momentarily speechless by his congee.
His congee.
He examined this fact with the solemn satisfaction of a Celestial Scholar confirming a hypothesis after ten thousand years of meditation. It was, objectively, a remarkable achievement. Mo Yuan had over a dozen disciples and three hundred thousand years of calligraphy mastery that could summon divine beasts from ink alone, and not one person had ever made those sounds over his brushwork. Ye Hua had produced mushroom and chicken stock and reduced a Fox Princess to three bowls and involuntary noises of joy.
Clearly, he was the more talented twin. As if there was ever any doubt — and there wasn’t.
He nodded to himself, the matter settled, and then immediately remembered the jade pool incident, which unraveled everything again. “Uncle Lian Song!” he growled, shaking his celestial fist at the heavens for gullibly falling for his uncle’s terrible advice — though the old fool had been correct about foxes not wearing undergarments. She had called him a pervert while not wearing undergarments…
“Aya…” came out in a low hiss-fizzle, like a divine talisman failing to ignite.
His ears went pink at the tips without his permission — a physiological betrayal he found deeply unreasonable. He was a dragon. A celestial dragon, no less — a sovereign creature of the sacred waters, commander of rain and rivers, master of the deep jade seas whose scales could deflect ten thousand immortal arrows. Dragons of his lineage had shaped the very currents of the celestial ocean with a flick of their whiskers. They did not blush. They did not turn the color of overripe lychee because a fox princess had glimpsed — he cleared his throat loudly enough to scatter a pair of spirit butterflies from the nearby plum blossoms — his jade pillar of heavenly might.
“It was cold,” he snapped to no one. “There was wind. Atmospheric conditions were unfavorable.” his qi crackling visibly around his fingertips like a storm that couldn’t decide whether to commit.
The bamboo outside rustled in reply, its spirit essence seeming to bow mockingly. Even the wind seemed amused, carrying the faint scent of peach blossoms that reminded him of her. He tugged his embroidered collar straight with precise, injured dignity and turned his mind firmly toward more appropriate subjects. His reading, perhaps. There were seventeen ancient scrolls on those sandalwood shelves he had not yet opened, each containing cultivation techniques that had taken immortal sages ten thousand years to perfect. He was a man of discipline and intellectual rigor. He was the Crown Prince of the Nine Heavens, whose mere presence demanded lesser immortals to spontaneously kowtow. He had governed celestial armies and negotiated treaties between warring immortal clans and sat through forty-seven consecutive hours of his grandfather’s lectures on the responsibilities of imperial succession without once falling asleep. He had barely blinked. He could certainly stop thinking about the sound of her laughter.
He lasted approximately four heartbeats.
It came back the way it always did — unbidden, unhelpful, bright as a fox-fire lantern in a dark room.
“Bai Qian.” He grumbled her name in a way that sounded like he was cursing a particularly stubborn demonic cultivation text. He found this new side of him profoundly inconvenient. Almost as inconvenient as the way she had brushed the hair from his face when she thought he was asleep, her nine tails unconsciously fanning behind her like a silver-colored halo. He had been mostly asleep — wine and the exhaustion of a day spent more fully than any in recent memory had pulled him most of the way under — but not entirely.
He remembered the touch. Light as a falling petal from the Sacred Peach Tree itself. Careful, the way she was never careful with anything else — not with her spiritual energy, not with her immortal reputation, not with the way she opened ancient wine jars without reading their seals — all her carefulness apparently reserved for sleeping dragons who didn’t deserve it.
He had pretended not to notice.
He was still pretending not to notice.
And he would continue not to notice until the Three Realms collapsed into primordial chaos.
Ye Hua jerked to his feet as though standing might dislodge whatever had taken root in his chest without filing the proper celestial paperwork. He crossed to the latticed window and peered out into the garden — where the rope swing spun gently on its braided strands, the persimmon trees bowed under bursting orange fruit, and the lagoon’s glassy surface fractured into ribbons of gold by the slanting sun — and inhaled the air of Qingqiu, moist and loamy, redolent of fresh shoots and hidden earth — and, faintly beneath it all, the sweet, lingering scent of peaches.
It smelled just like her.
He gripped the windowsill until his knuckles went white. “Fifty thousand years,” he murmured to himself, “of absolute self-possession. Impeccable composure. Not one goddess, spirit, or celestial maiden has so much as cracked it.”
He paused, nearly black eyes fixed on the lagoon, where every wavering beam of light made the water look like molten gold — exactly the sort of deep, sovereign pool a dragon emperor ought to command, not stand beside while succumbing to an inconvenient case of emotions.
Yet the rope swing turned again, its simple plank swooping forward as though beckoning. Inviting. Enticing. Unfailingly welcoming.
He studied it long enough to look like a man losing an argument with himself. Braided rope. A weathered plank. Nothing that would earn a second glance in the Nine Heavens, where even garden benches were gilded and enchanted to recite verse. And still, something about it tugged at him as insistently as rain drawn to the sea — quietly, inevitably, without permission.
He had never swung as a child. Not once.
There were no rope swings in the Nine Heavens. Only endless cultivation and rigid protocol, the weight of his future title pressing onto shoulders too small to bear it. There had been his brother Mo Yuan’s patient guidance and quiet companionship, his grandfather’s exacting expectations, and the palace’s golden halls so vast and solemn they left no room for something as purposeless and joyous as slicing through cool morning air simply because it was there.
With the solemnity of one making a choice of cosmic import, Crown Prince Ye Hua of the Nine Heavens stepped from the cottage, crossed the dew-speckled lawn in his immaculate robes, sank onto the rope swing, and gave himself a firm push.
The swing arced skyward into shimmering light. His ink-black hair fanned behind him like liquid night, catching the breeze in rippling waves befitting a celestial dragon. His silken robes billowed, the hem skimming over dew-damp grass. Persimmon leaves blurred to amber halos at the edge of his vision. Below, the lagoon winked and glowed.
For one unguarded moment, the future Celestial Emperor sailed through Qingqiu’s filtered sunlight with an expression no royal advisor would recognize in him at all. It was the face of a man, in defiance of every prudent objection, utterly and unreservedly happy.
He would, of course, give Bai Qian absolutely no credit for it. Though it would have been pleasant if she were here. Not because she wore no undergarments — it was absolutely not because of that. Or was it? It was not. Decidedly not. He was nearly certain…