A few minutes later, I met Prince Baiyu at the gate, and we set off to find the Mysterious Glade. I really should’ve tried to unlock it earlier. Just like in Adventure Online, the place wasn’t shown on the System map, but I remembered it was north of the Horned Rabbits’ Valley.

“I can probably find it by myself,” I said. “But it would be easier if you flew us up over the forest canopy.”

“Especially since it’s nighttime,” said Prince Baiyu. “Surely it’s too dangerous for a human to go exploring when it’s this dark outside?”

“I have Mr. Bear!” I said. “He has glowing laser eyes, and he can grow big enough for me to ride.”

“He can?” Prince Baiyu gave the small puppet that was hanging on my belt a dubious look.

“… He’ll be able to once I upgrade him,” I said.

“So he can’t,” said Prince Baiyu.

“Yeah,” I said.

“What is the ‘lay-sir’ that you mentioned?”

I must’ve used the English acronym. This was my chance! I couldn’t believe I had finally found an opportunity to show off my knowledge of trivia.

“Laser means light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation,” I said.

Prince Baiyu couldn’t tell if I was joking or not. He bent his head down and peered into my face, his eyebrows knitted into a frown. “What is that?”

“Just a coherent beam of light,” I said, batting my eyelashes up at him. “Also, may I just say that you look especially dashing today?”

Today he looked even more resplendent than normal in a gorgeous set of lavender and plum robes, with this long white hair braided and tied in a low ponytail.

“You’re trying to distract me by appealing to my vanity,” he said.

“And it’s working!”

We smiled at each other, and Prince Baiyu even laughed a little.

“Fine, you win,” he said.

“I enjoy winning,” I said.

Prince Baiyu was the flirtatious kind, and the only way I knew how to deal with that was to give as good as I got. After a few more minutes of light banter, I pulled out a map and showed him the approximate location of the place I was looking for, north of the Horned Rabbits Valley.

“Shuye brought me to the place where he said you and he found some strange creatures called Horned Rabbits, but we didn’t see anything out of the ordinary,” said Prince Baiyu. “It should be easy enough for me to fly north of there.”

“Great.” It was only after he had already taken me into his arms and flown away with me that I realized I was now alone in the woods with a man who wasn’t family. I suppose it was a measure of my trust in the Prince that I hadn’t even given it a second thought.

“Are you comfortable?” asked Prince Baiyu.

I nodded. The moon was almost full, and it cast a pale light over the forest below us as we soared through the air. Prince Baiyu’s aura shielded me from most of the cool night air rushing past us. The Prince slowly increased his speed until the forest below us became nothing but a blur. In a few minutes, we were hovering above the Horned Rabbits’ Valley.

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“Wow, that was fast,” I said.

“I can go faster than that if I need to,” said Prince Baiyu. “Shall I fly slowly to the north?”

“Please.”

The Mysterious Glade was directly north of the Valley in the game. However, places that were one or two clicks away in the map in Adventure Online could be an hour away in real life, so it was with some relief that I spied a treefall gap.

“I think that might be the place,” I said to Prince Baiyu as I pointed at an area below us where a large tree had fallen, leaving an opening in the forest canopy.

“I’ll take us down there,” he said.

As usual, descending was much scarier than flying up had been, since it made me feel like I was falling, but Prince Baiyu kept his speed low in order to reduce my discomfort.

“Thank you,” I said when we landed.

I put a hand on my chest and tried to calm my racing heart. This was the second time I’d flown, and the landing was less frightening than the first one, but it would take a lot more for me to get used to it.

“Just give me a moment,” I said.

I squatted down and touched the ground with both my hands to settle down. It took my eyes a while to adjust to the light conditions here. Moonlight streamed through the gap in the trees, making the leaves look like they were glowing.

“You want to walk from here?” asked Prince Baiyu.

“Which way is north?” I asked.

I went in the direction that Prince Baiyu pointed and crouched down to peer at the hedgerow that someone had planted all around the treefall gap. Using my hands, I tried to push the shrubs apart to make an opening for me to crawl through. This was the most annoying part of going to the glade because the entrance was different each time the player visited. I used to post on the forums about how I had to spend a good twenty minutes clicking every single pixel on the screen just to find the right place.

When the Prince saw what I was doing, he started poking around, too. I was about to take a break when he said, “There’s a place here that I can’t touch.”

“Show me,” I said.

He reached into a bush and I saw that something seemed to be stopping his hand, but when I put my hands inside, I was able to push apart the middle part of the hedgerow.

“Yes, I think this is what I was looking for,” I said.

The fact that he was unable to touch it didn’t surprise me at all, since this was a special, secret place in Adventure Incarnate that was made especially for the players. The natives of this world probably weren’t allowed to enter the Mysterious Glade by themselves.

I put both of his hands in mine, and we made an opening for us to crawl through. It was a tight fit, and we had to go down on all fours, with the stems and branches getting caught in our hair and clothing. By the time we had forced our way through, there were leaves in our hair and I had a large tear on my right sleeve.

“Welcome to the Mysterious Glade,” I said.

The System pop-up gave me a refresher on the lore of this place. I read the information out loud to Prince Baiyu.

[The Mysterious Glade:

A hidden place blessed by the forest spirits. Protected by a powerful magic, it has remained undiscovered for countless eons.

It is a place of healing and peace, where problems and worries fade away. Legend states that if you sit quietly in the glade, the answers to your deepest questions will come to you, but do not stay for too long, or you might never emerge from the Mysterious Glade.]

“How did you know about this place?” asked Prince Baiyu.

“It’s a story passed down from person to person. Now I’ve passed it down to you,” I said.

That was the truth because I hadn’t found this place on my own originally. The good people of the Internet back on Earth had revealed this Easter egg to me.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” said Prince Baiyu. Wonder was written on his face as he looked around at the peaceful scenery.

We were in a small clearing. It was nighttime, so the grass was a dark green, but I suspected it was emerald green during the day. A scholar tree dominated the center of the glade, and a small stream flowed through the western side. The only thing that broke the silence was the birdsong, the sound of the stream, and the soft rustle of the leaves in the gentle breeze. The air was thick with the scent of night-blooming jasmine.

“I need to look around for some wild mushrooms and flowers,” I said.

“The scent of this place is intoxicating…” Prince Baiyu walked beside me, his head slowly turning from left to right like a pendulum as he tried to take in everything at once.

It didn’t take long for me to find what I was looking for.

Beside a patch of wild chives were flowers with bright yellow petals that seemed to glow with an otherworldly light.

[Dusk Dandelion:

A rare flower that can cure infertility. Place the blossom in a silver vase and leave it in a room where moonlight can shine down on it. After three nights, the flower will wilt and the petals will fall off. The man or woman who wishes to sire or conceive offspring must then eat those petals.

The other parts of the plant are not edible.]

There were exactly five flowers.

[Curing Infertility:

Help the God Beast Clans with their fertility problem. Find five Dusk Dandelions.]

What should I do?