Three youngsters made their way through the riverside, hopping around the rocks and the debris the inhabitants of the slums recycled from the palace-dweller's trash. Broken bamboo, fetid half-eaten fishes, old woman's clothes, all washed down and carried by the inexorable passing of the river.

"The Guangzhou" called it the slumpeople. The orphans, like Jin, called it Mother, and Home. Most people just called it the Cloudbreak River, as it was the only one, extending itself up to the mountain range it was born, to feed finally a distant lake that would surely itself feed some sea.

To distract himself from thinking about the crazyness they would soon do, Bai Yang spoke:

"Brother Jin. Remember when we met here?"

Yun at his side alternated to look both Jin and Yang. She was slurping a long reed she had found near. It was a  sweet little type of reed popular with the orphans and the slumpeople's kids near the river.

Jin was hopping from stone to stone with his arms open wide, training. His focused eyes looked at the surface of the rocks as if they were the slender faces of flying swords.

He didn't talk, but he hazily remembered. Yu Yun and Bai Yang, on the other side, remembered that day clearly. The day of the red moon and the red river.

* * *

The moon, moreso than the sun, was the most beautiful heavenly body in the valley of Tang. The Milky Way was the river it traversed in the infinite skies. It's yellowish, silvery fulgor like white gold illuminated the nights; blessed the scribes with clarity, the poets with inspiration, and the peons with tranquility, as it blessed the nobles with wisdom.

But sometimes it tinted itself red, and a profound tremor shook the lands.

The young Masters, cowardly and coddled, just stayed inside their manors to wait. The soldiers in their camps. Even most of the slumpeople's kids entered inside their shacks or their dilapidated buildings.

It were just the orphans or the most adventurous of the slumpeople's kids, and maybe the hunters in the plains and the mountains, or the everchanging tribes that roamed the region, that left their houses, their tents, and walked in the open.

Yu Yun and Bai Yang were two of them. The first because she loved the red tint that made the plains seem otherwordly, and painted the river a lively pink that remembered her of the color of sweet flowers. The second begrudgingly, because his stepfather, that old man, had kicked him out of the house "to know world", to have himself fun in his home.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

 "Hello Yun" had grunted Yang, still fuming, but after seeing the sad looking eyes of her friend, asked. "Did your... family let you go outside?"

Yun nodded, looking at the valley with some nostalgia. She herself was an orphan, adopted many years ago by a family of seamstresses. Like many orphans, she had been found by the riverside, crying.

As they went along, the moon reddened, and the tremor started. The lands shook and the water in the river grew fiercer. The moon, usually gentle and luminous, drew closer and bigger, looking like a savage goddess.

In awe, both Yun and Yang opened their eyes, feeling like the Heavens themselves were looming and about to crash over the earth. Soon, they both lowered their gazes, and Yang spoke:

"Some say it was a night like this the Immortal trascended the Heavens, and the Heavens, in remembrance, shake in fury. Funny, eh?"

Yun just looked at him and nodded. They dared not to draw closer to the river, now tumultuous and enraged.

Suddenly, they saw a boy advancing, confused, with his clothes torn, by the riverside. He probably was no older than six years old, a bit younger than them. Looking around him as if looking for the road, weary of an infinite travel, he walked with the rest of unformed tears in the corner of his eyes. He looked like those old men of the roads, weathered by countless storms.

After a few steps, he collapsed, tumbling on his knees. Unyielding, he tried to stand up again, but his body failed him, and only his extended arms kept him from kissing the ground in defeat. Alarmed, Yun and Yang hurriedly ran to help him.

"I follow the trail of the moon..." the boy had said to them when they got besides him. When they helped him on his feet and carried him with his arms on their shoulders, he fainted.

They took him to the mansard that would become his home ever after, atop an old, demolished building, and laid him on the bloated wooden floor. They didn't dare take him into any of their houses, as things happening in the nights of the red moon and the red river were ill fated omens. Only them, orphans, were natural to these nights, linked to them by fate, by origin, by guilt.

The kid, unconscious, was cold, and was becoming colder. As they couldn't go back inside their houses, there was no way to give him some warmness. Yu, biting her nail, decided.

She laid herself on his side, and hugged him. Then, she gazed sadly at her friend, that worriedly and unwillingly looked at them both. Alas, their young hearts were pure, and couldn't resist. Yang too laid at the other side of the kid, and awkwardly extended his hands, covering him.

In that position, they were confronted with the infinite Heavens, that were clearly visible across the broken ceiling. And both Yang and Yu looked at the other in the eyes, the Heavens reflected in them. The lands shook and had always been shaking, but now laid against the floor they could feel it in their whole body and their insides.

"I follow the trail of the moon..." repeated each one to oneself. In some way, a profound sentiment answered the meaning of those words. They felt, without knowing why, as travelers, travelers of an infinite road. Of the vast worlds that populate the skies. They would need many years for them to understand why they felt that way, but that moment they shivered with fear and marvel. And with fear and marvel, as the tremor receded, they fell asleep.