The older boy took Laike’s hand for a brief moment to pull him along through the crowd, sudden change of direction causing a disturbance in the up-down flow of lollygagging lookie-loos. He drug them beneath the covered pathway of a short side street and out the other side, tugging the boy from the mountain into a panel door left ajar, mosaic glass of every color casting bulbs of color around the room and into the dusty street. Yu let Laike go to claim a pair of seats near the front of the shop, open to the welcome fresh air.

“Get whatever, okay?” Yuhui handed over the sheet of paper listing the day’s offerings written by hand.

Briskly, one of the little shop’s attendants approached the boys and Laike ordered two bowls of the shop’s specialty, braised beef noodle soup with pickled mustard greens, as well as a few cold side dishes: jellyfish in vinegar, spicy pickled cucumbers, garlic stems, shredded pigs ear, spiced sliced beef. Another attendant, anxious upon seeing the Tian prince, nearly stumbled over himself setting tea on their small table as Laike sat in the chair next to his new friend instead of across.

“Thank you,” the more humble boy said, confused when the shopkeeper scuttled away without a word. He glanced to his side and shrugged the display away, opting to pour tea for the both of them instead. “Does everyone treat you this way? Does it make you lonely?”

“Yeah. It does and it doesn’t.” Yu sat back in his chair, angling himself toward his companion. Open posture, open mind; friendly and forthcoming. “When I’m in a good mood and confident that nothing is going to go awry around me, because of me, then it’s easier for me to ignore how others act in my immediate space. This is the worst you’ll see it, around here in the market. All these merchants have so much to lose and when I think about it like that, then I don’t really blame them for being wary. I wouldn’t want someone coming around and causing senseless catastrophe for me if I was out there just trying to make a living.” The prince shrugged again.

“I guess it helps knowing that people aren’t ever going to treat me normal anyway—even if I wasn’t haunted. Our name makes it difficult for all of us Tians to form good, lasting relationships of our own. They’re mostly just arranged for us. I have one really good friend and, don’t get me wrong, I love him, he’s wonderful, but our companionship is a product of family relations.” The older boy turned his chin down, huffing a laugh. “Truthfully, I feel bad for my brother a lot. Since he’s first in line people ALWAYS want to talk to and impress him. I used to really hate my circumstance but I’ve come to be okay with it.”

To Laike, being so visible sounded like hell.

“Do they let you challenge artifacts?” the younger boy asked as dishes started coming to the table. The attendant was careful to set the cold plates down gently, as though he was on guard since nothing strange had happened yet, like he was terrified of the eventual cumulative fury of the prince’s tricky ghosts. Immediately, Laike had his chopsticks in hand, picking at the selections. “Master Xueyu said that since I’ve turned eighteen, I’ll get to challenge for the mountain soon.”

“Yeah, I’m allowed to challenge. That’s why my parents asked Master Xueyu to train us on the side. I’ll take you by the arena when you’re ready to get back out there so you can see it.” Yuhui watched his new friend eat with an unobtrusive interest, unsure if the younger boy’s slender frame could even fit that much food inside, excited to see him try. “Are you looking forward to it? The challenges. I bet you’re really good—you had that blade in my face so fast.” He shook his head, smiling.

“I’ve been looking forward to it my whole life.” Laike was aglow. His entire existence had been training for two purposes: to protect the empty mountain and to fight in Fanxing’s battleground. Two bowls of noodles were soon set in front of the boys but, somehow, Laike was too distracted to take immediate interest, leaning on an elbow with his fingers to his cheek. “When I was growing up, Xueyu would come back to the mountain after battle and the older disciples would tell stories of the fights and all of us would gather round. Master Xue would show us his wounds; Mistress Jiling would let us look at the artifacts he won for us, sometimes she’d let us hold them—and then she would place it away until it sang for a body.”

“Oh, wow,” the older boy responded simply. “So you want to follow in his footsteps, then? Become a master of swords and train your own disciples eventually?”

“I don’t know about that,” Laike remarked playfully, taken aback at the idea of being stuck on the mountain forever. “I don’t think I’ll be a good teacher. I want to travel—to see new places. Find a family, choose my own clan someday. I don’t know.” Shifting, the boy in black dug into his noodles. “I’m being wishful: I’ll probably be just like him. We’re all doomed to be our fathers, aren’t we?”

Yuhui shook his head, brows gently creasing. “I don’t think so. I’ll never be like my father. That’s my brother’s job, and his children, and then their children. I’m not even like him personality-wise, I’m much more like my mother.” Oftentimes, the prince saw his life spread before him, an expanse of grids and goals over which he had negligible control. He loved his parents, though, even if he was a pawn in the world’s game of lineage.

“Are there many more like you at Yunji Mountain?” Yu picked up his chopsticks, idly fiddling with them. “Xiao and I were surprised to see someone in our age group.”

“I think I’m the eldest of Xueyu’s disciples.” That shadowstalker had already begun to tuck into the savory bowl of noodles and broth before him but slowed when he noted that the Prince’s behavior was not the same. Coming to a halt, he swiped at his mouth, self conscious in the quiet of the moment. “Mm, anyone older than me was trained first by Xueyu’s master, Fazhen.”

“I see.” The older boy tilted his head toward the street, briefly watching a glint of sunlight sneak along the curved edge of a spear bouncing along in transit. “Please keep eating. You don’t have to wait for me, I’m slow.”

When he turned back to Laike, the prince found himself still more interested in him than noodles. “Do you have many friends among the other disciples? Oh! Earlier, when you said my spirits were taunting you… were they actually speaking to you? Can you communicate with them?”

Laike looked down at his food and steeled himself for where a question like his might lead, where the conversation might go. Who was he? A nobody, born of no one, just barely a man with no idea why he’d spoken poetry instead of raw truth.

“I can’t,” the quiet fighter said as he absently tapped his chopsticks along the edge of his bowl before he set them down across the top, finding his way back into the shy shell he’d developed when he first found his way into Yuhui’s atmosphere. “I just lost my words when I said that and I didn’t know why. I’m sorry I misled you.”

“Ah, alright. It doesn’t matter. I was just kind of hoping for names so I could address them.” Disappointment registered as a downward stare upon the middle child’s features, though it didn’t linger overlong. Yuhui dipped back into his earnest curiosity after a few quiet bites of food allowed him the silence of contemplation, eyes of night full of a boundless expectation as they focused on his companion again. “So, is it good? Do you like it?”

“It’s really, really good—so good. Nothing tastes like meat does. Jiling is going to make me meditate in solitary for a week cause I know she’ll smell it on me,” he said as he grinned impishly, picking up his chopsticks once more. “I think she wishes I would practice the dao and cultivate with her, but what Xueyu teaches and what she cultivates are opposite paths; he is man’s day and she is heaven’s night. They do not meet and when they do, it is only because of disaster.”

After he dropped a few pieces of the cold sides into his bowl to warm them in the spicy broth, he glanced over once more.

“I should tell you though: they’re wrong. They’re not ghosts. At least not willful ones. Not that I can see.”

Yu was briefly caught, unmoving, unsure if he was given a gift or a fatal diagnosis. “Is that good or bad?”

“I’m not sure it’s either. It just is.” After another mouth full of noodles and beef, that hazel eyed boy looked up. “I guess I just hope it brings you some comfort knowing that the supernatural isn’t trying to harm you.”

“Hm.” Dour uncertainty tugged at the corners of the older boy’s lips, but he offered no rebuttal or further questions on the matter.

“You didn’t answer my question about your friends,” Yuhui said into his meal. “Do you like the other disciples? Do you get along with them?”

“Some of them. It’s very competitive, but I try my best to be a good brother.” In reality, Lai’s only friends amongst Xueyu’s disciples were the two girls who came down the mountain with him; the rest of the training pack considered him a rival, a threat, an obstacle. Not to be trusted, only tried: endlessly attempted in the training yard. “I’m friendly with some of Jiling’s disciples; some of the fighters who have gone on to wander the world. Chongwei and Jiewei are like sisters to me, though. I think they have taken a liking to Miyan.”

“They look friendly. Mizi is a jackal who corrupts all goodness instilled within and feasts on the hearts of the weak. She will remake the world in her image and, someday, we will all be doomed.” Still cross from his sister taking advantage of his generosity, the boy managed a grin only slightly tainted with sardonicism. “I apologize in advance for whatever terrible influence she is upon them.”

Laike looked briefly alarmed as he slowly chewed on a piece of beef. “We should keep them apart then—for the safety of the mortal world,” he said, deathly serious with nary a hint of a joke in his voice. “The Weis are grifter demons who believe that havoc is the only path to enlightenment; they are sated only by sweet rolls and the suffering of man.”

Yuhui nodded his understanding slowly, gravely. “Great. So now that we’ve facilitated a trifecta of annihilation, we can go about living our lives to the fullest today without fear for the repercussions of tomorrow, since tomorrow will never exist now that they are together.” He settled into a grin again, falling back into the easiness of their earlier conversation. “If today were your last day alive, what would you spend it doing?”

“If everyone else dies too, I would probably be rushing to bring sweets back to the youngest orphans on the mountain, to be there with them so they’re not scared when the sky goes dark.” After a thoughtful moment, the shadowscape boy looked at the river of chaos at his side and smiled, coy and shy and exhilarated with the bold words finding their footing in his mouth. “But if it’s just me who dies, I would be content to remain in my Prince’s company until the light leaves my eyes and the world falls away.”

“You’re sweet—" Yuhui’s eyes softened, charmed as he was, turning his chest to look at his new friend from a more direct angle. “—But if you mean that, then say it with my name rather than my title so I can live as myself at your side.”

Enchanted by that direct escalation of candor, the future assassin, pride of Luanshi clan, sat a little taller. He wrapped his voice around his augmented words with a little more confidence, hand resting on the table next to Yuhui’s own.

“I would be content to remain in Tian Yuhui’s company until the light leaves my eyes and the world falls away,” he repeated.