The path from the Tian’s estate to Zhongxin market was tightly coiled with street vendor clogged veins. Observant as he was, Laike found the environment overstimulating—too many sounds, too many sights, too many people. Voices overlapped voices until Laike couldn’t concentrate on a single story; the prince had so many memories to convey it seemed they slowed to a near halt in the tighter sections of the bustling alleys they searched in pursuit of the mountain’s great swordmaster.

Absently, Laike stopped in front of a jewelry store, looking at a pair of matching hairpins that he thought Chongwei and Jiewei might fancy. So often the girls took pairs of things and split them between each other: hairpins, earrings, pins. When they were apart, they were mismatched; when together, they were a perfect set. The boy smiled fondly before the shopkeeper spotted him.

“Young man,” the old woman said. “Look closer, look closer—are you buying for your fiance, young man?”

“Uh,” Laike stated eloquently as he withdrew sharply, chin tucked in shy response. “I was just looking…”

Lost a few feet ahead, Yuhui soon found his way back to Laike’s side, glancing down to the fineries he was eyeing then up to the woman that was peddling them. She bowed her head in a show of respect but her eyes glittered with suspicion before the Tian clan’s middle child. A fair number of vendors, in fact, watched the royal boy with an uncertain mixture of worry and conspiracy in their eyes. They monitored his movements like they were either after his business or making sure he kept moving far away from their daily offerings.

For his part, the young prince seemed to barely notice the way people watched him. Very little mattered right now outside the immediate space he occupied with his new friend, this boy his heart surreptitiously eschewed beats for. Yu urged them along, brushing Laike’s hand and nodding him forward before the old lady could begin the first syllables of the hard sell pitch her slack gums were preparing.

“Sometimes the merchants can get really aggressive.” Yuhui spoke close to avoid raising his voice above the crowd’s din. “Don’t be scared to snap back at them. Tell them to back off or whatever.”

“There’s so much,” Laike commented, demure as he observed the alleyway’s response to his companion. He deduced that the vendors were either hungry for his money, fearful of his family, or wary of the chaos that whipped its scorpion tail in the young man’s wake—

and yet, Lai couldn’t wrap his head around the prince’s behavior toward him.

There was a friendliness there that confounded Laike, an enthusiastic presence, a doting fondness that seemed deeper than gratitude, but what did that simple boy from the mountain know? The people here were different from the people on Yunji; the world here was different from his world. Laike tried to keep a step behind his companion, tried to follow his lead but it was impossible: Yuhui was constantly finding a place directly at his side. “How do you find anything here?”

“I don’t.” The Prince shrugged. “I usually don’t come here looking for particular things. I dunno, it’s weird. Some things are always in the same place, like the chopstick man, the fishmonger and his wife, the grandma with the half dead collection of plants, and the silk merchant when he’s back in town. There are really good pork buns at the end of this street but the stall is not always run by the same guy. I guess if you can get a grasp on the way the streets flow together, all the cut throughs and angles, it’s not really that hard to find your way from place to place, even if the businesses switch around.” Yu watched the crowd around them despite his frequent glancing at his companion. For the time being, the prince was a gregarious boy alight in the task assigned to him, happy to walk the crowded streets with Laike beside him.

“Finding a person will probably be more difficult. If we keep walking, however, I bet our paths will eventually cross.” The Tian boy smiled, confident that at least uncertain circumstance wouldn’t curse them to walk in aimless circles around those dizzying streets criss-crossing each other.

“Sometimes at the temple, I complain that it’s boring, that there’s nothing to do but meditate, train, copy scripture, pray,” the boy in black confessed as he narrowly avoided a pair of women dashing for a threadbare oyster stall announcing their nearly sold out stock. He pressed a little closer to Yuhui’s side, chest to his shoulder for a brief moment before he pulled away, thumb rubbing at his mysteriously blushing ear. “This is an interesting change but it almost makes me miss the quiet.” He looked sidelong at his companion with his head bowed.

For once, the furthest thing from Laike’s mind was finding his master.

“Mm, yeah. There are slower pockets scattered throughout, little alleyways covered by the shadows cast from long awnings, less busy dead ends that the worst vendors set up in. Is it too much?” Yuhui’s black met hazel. “We can go find a spot to sit if you don’t like it, or a quieter place to stand. One of these food stalls, or outside on the street. Whatever you want.”

Ignorant of just how easy he was to read, the mountain’s naïve blade brightened at the mention of food. “Master Xueyu has all the money, but I could eat. What do you like around here?” Laike’s query was quiet as he looked off to evaluate the immediate options, blissfully unaware that his volume begged proximity. “I’d like to watch the crowd—maybe that will make it easier to wade through so many bodies at a later time.”

“I haven’t had anything that I didn’t like in the market.” Yuhui’s focus was fixed, committed to figuring this boy out. “On the next street over there’s a place that does noodles. In the back of that same place there’s a staircase that leads to a second story where a guy does xian bing. You can walk in any direction and find something grilled or on a stick. I guess it all just depends on what you’re hungry for.”

“Take me to noodles,” Laike demanded, very direct in his new grave life-or-death mein, finally willing to meet the other boy’s eyes. By Yuhui’s description, Lai was confident he could score enough food that Xueyu would scold him for gaining weight. “…I mean, if you want.”

“Yeah. Noodles it is.” Yuhui laughed, gentle above the swirling sound of bargaining all around them, dark hair bobbing with his nod of agreement. He was so bright in the midst of his happiness, a delicate warmth in the sun of the afternoon, a pastel twilight befitting his name: an afterglow imploring adoration.