Tsaam Lam, the pine forest of the Kingdom of Dzu, forms a broad, protective shield around the kingdom. The forest has a kind of hushed tranquillity, dappled light falling through the pine needles to a carpet of flowers below. Even in winter, I am told, flowers bloom here.
I grew up on Mount Faa, the mountain of flowers, where plum blossoms rain from the sky in spring, azaleas froth in summer, chrysanthemum burst forth in autumn, and wintersweet perfumes the air in winter.
I have never seen such flowers as those that grow in Dzu. I'll remember them for a long time.
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“What are you writing, Cheng Si-mui?” Gou Dzing asked, peering at the page.
“I thought it would be good to write down my travel experiences,” Cheng Baak-hap explained. “I was going to start when we were at Yuk-hoi, but things go so... busy. I'll have to write things down quickly before I forget them. It'll be good to read back over it when we get back home.”
“That's a great idea.” Chan Bik chewed her finger contemplatively. “Maybe I should do that too...”
“Do you think you could keep it up?” Cheng Baak-hap teased. “Give it a day and you'll already be bored.”
Chan Bik made a face. “Don't make fun of me. I do try to stick with things, it's just so hard...”
“Okay, okay. Have a read of this, Bik Mui, see what else I should add.”
“Write about me!” Tsaam Lei demanded, his light brown eyes big and pleading. He fluffed out his tails until Cheng Baak-hap and Chan Bik squirmed with delight.
“Don't be fooled,” Gong Lau Yan laughed, back in human form. “This guy is over a thousand years old. He's an old man!”
“I am not,” Tsaam Lei huffed. “See this?”
There was a puff of smoke and a little girl stood where the fox had been, abundant red-brown hair framing a heart-shaped face. The contrast between her light brown eyes and tanned skin was striking. She held out small hands to Cheng Baak-hap.
“Dze-dze, pick me up!”
Before anyone could move, Gong Lau Yan grabbed the fox spirit by the back of his neck and shook him lightly. “Change into your usual humanoid form.”
“Why? Do you like it so much?”
“Yes, you're very handsome.”
The little girl blushed at this unexpected compliment. “Well, I guess I'll have to, for my beloved Yan Yan...”
The girl's body grew taller, lost its feminine shape and took on a distinctly masculine one. Within moments, a tall man stood beside Gong Lau Yan, a broad-shouldered, suavely-dressed character with his long red-brown hair tied like the tail of a fox. His light-brown eyes lazily drifted over his audience. “Good?”
“Not bad,” Gou Dzing said appraisingly. “His face could give Se Sue some competition.”
“So is this your type?” Cheng Baak-hap teased, as if she were a fox spirit herself.
“Yuk Ying is my type,” Gou Dzing said loyally. “What do you think, Yuk- Yuk Ying?”
Gaam Yuk Ying was staring at Tsaam Lei's human form in a similar manner to how he had watched Se Sue when they had first met. It was Gou Dzing's turn to be anxious. Did Yuk Ying like pretty men? Gou Dzing prodded his own face. He'd been told he was quite handsome, but what if it wasn't enough?
“Can I learn how to do that?” Gaam Yuk Ying asked. Everyone choked.
“What? Why?”
“Yuk Ying, you're pret- handsome enough, you don't need to learn these things!”
“Oh no, we've teased him too much. I'm sorry, Gaam Si-hing!”
Tsaam Lei ran a hand through the loose strands of hair that framed his face. “I don't think so. This is a wu lei dzing trait. Fox spirits inherently know how to transform. It's a kind of defence mechanism we've evolved, since we're not that strong, relatively speaking.” He examined Gaam Yuk Ying's disappointed face. “You've got quite a bit of potential. You know, you could probably gain a transformation skill once you Ascend.”
He cocked a head at the stunned faces before him. “What? He could Ascend in a couple of decades, at most. Sooner if something happens. Ascended ones have all kinds of powers. Of course, they can't interact with normal mortals anymore, but that's the nature of the world.”
“I never really thought about it,” Chan Bik muttered. “We're all striving to Ascend, at the end of our cultivation paths. But then we can't interact with the mortal realm again, can we? What if we Ascend at different times? What if some of us never Ascend?”
“Well, that's just the nature of the world, as Lord Tsaam Lei said.” Cheng Baak-hap's voice was soft.
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Chan Bik's pupils dilated. “Cheng Si-dze... You've already thought about this, haven't you?”
“Oops, things have suddenly gotten serious!” Tsaam Lei vanished in a puff of smoke and re-emerged as a little boy, just as cute as his little girl form had been. “Let's not talk about those things right now, okay?”
“No! I'm not going to pretend this didn't happen!”
“It's not like we would never see each other again,” Cheng Baak-hap soothed. “I've heard rumours that Ascended can bring people with them after some time. And there are times of the year when Immortals can interact with mortal realm without consequence-”
“But I want to be able to see you whenever I want!” Chan Bik cried. “Otherwise, I don't want to work towards Ascension! I won't try to be the direct disciple of the Vermilion Bird!”
“There's no guarantee you could do it anyway,” Gaam Yuk Ying muttered.
“WHAT DID YOU SAY?” Chan Bik screamed.
Gaam Yuk Ying glared. “Why are you caring when you don't even want to be a direct disciple and instead just want to sit around pretending you could have been some great person because you were too much of a coward to try-”
“I'LL DO IT! I'LL SHOW YOU I CAN!”
“Good.”
The argument ground to a halt. With that one word and a nod, Gaam Yuk Ying sat down on a nearby rock with the air of a job well done.
“... You tricked me.”
Tsaam Lei laughed uproariously. “Hey, kid, do you have wu lei dzing heritage or something?”
“No.”
Chan Bik looked deflated. Cheng Baak-hap took her hand. “Bik Si-mui, we don't know what the future holds. All we can do is work hard. Don't be afraid.”
“Will you write about us all, Cheng Si-dze?”
“Yes, everything.”
“Are you going to write about the Demon Realm, when we get there? About Mount Faa? How we all met?”
“Yes, yes, I'll write about everything. Even about how your freckles look like the stars of the River of Heaven.”
Chan Bik turned as red as her robes. “Cheng Dze! Who- What- Don't tease me! You're the one whose beauty spots look like stars!”
Cheng Baak-hap's cheeks flushed too. “Since when?”
“Because you have one just above your right eyebrow, one between your left eye and temple, one under your right eye, one above your upper lip, and a larger one below your lips on the left side. Doesn't it look just like the Celestial Weaving Maiden?”
Both were blushing furiously now.
Gaam Yuk Ying coughed, pointedly.
"What are you coughing for?" Chan Bik shouted, rounding on him. "As if you have to cough!"
She relieved her feelings by battling Gaam Yuk Ying across the forest floor, pelting him with bright shards of light. He narrowly dodged them all.
"When are you going to tell her your feelings?” Tsaam Lei asked Cheng Baak-hap with a little smirk.
“Not while everyone's... Later.”
“Good luck!”
“Is it the right thing to do? She's already so worried about what might happen in the future.”
“We all are,” Gou Dzing assured her. “Do you need any help?”
"No, I wasn't preparing any grand gestures or anything.” Cheng Baak-hap grinned with sudden wickedness. “I was going to visit her one night in her room, and push her down."
"I... I see."
"What's with that reaction? Haven't you done that to Gaam Si-hing...? Oh." She smirked, eyes as narrow as a fox. "Someone's being cold-shouldered!"
“Says the person who hasn't even confessed!"
Cheng Baak-hap punched him.
“Ack! That was my face! Yuk Ying, I'm being bullied!”
“Good.”
“I turn my back for one moment, and this happens.” Wong Tang emerged amongst the trees, Maan Dzi King just behind her. “What are you all doing?”
“Divine Grandmother!” Tsaam Lei flung himself happily into her arms. “I missed you!”
“I've only been gone for a si, you little brat. Don't try and sweet talk an old lady like me.”
“But you like it.”
“Enough playing around. We're going to the palace, so tidy yourselves up. Siu Lei, Maan Dzi King, you will stay here and watch the portal.”
Tsaam Lei made a face but said nothing, simply reverting back to his adult male form. Maan Dzi King bowed with similar silence.
“Let's go.”
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From above, the defining characteristic of Dzu is its mists. Thin clouds, like a delicate veil across a beautiful face, hang between the trees, all the way down to where the land slips into the sea in the south. The climate is warm, the pines in the country's north sliding into humid meadows of ferns, so many different types of ferns. A line of low granite hills, Hau Dzek, the Queen's Spine, runs along the northern boundary of the capital, Ming Yuet. Several rivers run from the northern reaches to the capital, the greatest being the Ming Dzu, the next being the Lau Yan. Two small tributaries run into these, the Se and the Wai.
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“These are my nieces.”
The Mount Faa disciples looked at the two snakes in Gong Lau Yan's arms. The snakes looked back.
“This one is Gong Dzing Se,” she gushed, nuzzling the snake on the right, whose tail curled affectionately around her arm and had striking dark splotches like a cat all over its body. “And this is Gong Dzing Wai.” The snake on the left received a kiss on its brilliant green head. “They can't transform into human form yet. They're still a little too young. Give them another century.”
“They're... very cute,” Gou Dzing said, and gave the little snakes a smile. The snakes immediately dived for him, curling affectionately around his arms.
“They really are.” Chan Bik clasped her hands together, eyes shining at the pretty snakes.
“I forgot you were born in the Year of the Snake,” Cheng Baak-hap laughed nervously. Gong Dzing Se and Gong Dzing Wai flickered their tongues at her curiously. “So these are your older sister's children?”
“Dze-dze's twin girls, yes.”
“And their father?”
Gong Lau Yan looked confused. “What father?”
“... um... is that not how loong... well... do you not need a father to produce children?”
“I suppose we could,” Gong Lau Yan said thoughtfully, absently scratching the backs of her two nieces. “It's not necessary though.”
“... I'm learning so much today.”
“We're almost at the palace,” Wong Tang interrupted. She stroked her great-grandchildren. “We'll see you later, little ones. We have to meet your mother and the human regent. Go on now.”
The snakes retreated amongst the ferns, and the remaining group looked out across Ming Yuet from where they stood on Hau Dzek.
It was greenery and gentle mist all the way down to the soft grey ocean. Buildings of granite and wood seemed to grow organically out of the vegetation, and huge statues – human, loong, and creatures the disciples could not identify, dotted the landscape, all the way out to where a myriad of islands disappeared out to sea.
“It's beautiful,” Cheng Baak-hap said softly.
“Isn't it?” Gong Lau Yan grinned, unable to hide her pride.
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Dzu is a place of water. Since before human memory, loong, the spirits of water, of rivers, of mist, of the ocean, have made their home here. The place trembles with spiritual power that I have never felt so strongly anywhere else in the Five Kingdoms. I hope this beautiful place stands forever.