(1) Joy Unbounded

The two strokes of the God-Smiting Whip had, in truth, been no great matter for Ziyuan; his cultivation ran deep enough that after taking the Soul-Nourishing Pill and resting a while to recover his breath, he was soon back to himself. Yet what was barely a moment in the Celestial realm had already stretched into more than a year in the mortal world, and by the time Ziyuan returned once more to the Mist Forest, the season had turned to heavy snow. When he had come the year before to bid Anu farewell, autumn had still lingered in the mortal world; now the Mist Forest lay wrapped in silver, the very stream frozen over, and he felt a pang of guilt — he had kept Anu confined here, made her wait more than a year with nothing to do.

　　Neither the Celestial Clan nor the Asura Clan felt heat or cold, and the passing of the mortal seasons meant little to them in any real sense; besides, with Ziyuan's cultivation so refined, not even a sky full of driving snow could dampen his robes. As he made his way forward, a single figure in violet stood out sharply against the snow's pure white. Yet before the little blue bird had even called out, he heard the sound of Anu running out from the cottage.

　　"Ziyuan's here! Ziyuan's here!" There was a rich, welling joy in Anu's voice, mixed with the sight of her hitching up the hem of her purple-red skirt as she ran, and Ziyuan could not help but stand there a moment, caught off guard.

　　"Slow down! The snow is slick." Even knowing that Anu, should she slip, would come to no real harm, Ziyuan still called out the warning.

　　"The little blue bird didn't call — how did you know I was here?" Unconsciously, the corners of his mouth lifted; he hurried forward himself, so that Anu would have fewer steps to run.

　　"It's cold out, that's all — the little blue bird's gone lazy and won't come out of its nest!" Anu said, pointing up at the bird's nest in the tree.

　　"Poor thing, really — its cultivation isn't up to much, and on a freezing day like this all it can do is shirk its duty."

　　As she ran, Anu drew from her waist the jade pendant Ziyuan had given her. "The pendant suddenly went warm just now, and I knew right away it was you."

　　By the time she finished speaking, she had already reached him, and held the pendant up before his face, shaking it playfully.

　　Ziyuan smiled, gently wrapping her hand within his own, and teased, "So you're not entirely a fool, after all!"

　　He reached out again, fondly, to ruffle her hair.

　　"I just said you weren't foolish, and here you are being foolish again — why didn't you use a spell to keep the rain and snow off? Look at you, your hair and clothes are both soaked through." As he spoke, Ziyuan made to cast a spell to dry her off.

　　"No need..." Seeing his intent, Anu stopped him at once.

　　"I'm not a mortal — I won't catch a chill from it. You have no idea how refreshing it feels to walk through rain and snow!" No sooner had she said this than she tipped her face to the sky and spun in a circle, letting the snowflakes fall against her cheeks.

　　Watching Anu indulge this peculiar little pleasure of hers, Ziyuan could barely hold back his laughter. She always brought him some unexpected joy he never saw coming; in her company he no longer felt like the Crown Prince of the Celestial Clan bearing the weight of the world, but simply an ordinary person, enjoying the simple happiness that ordinary people enjoy.

　　"Hm?" After only two turns, Anu seemed to remember something and stopped, looking at Ziyuan in puzzlement.

　　"Did you just call me foolish?"

　　Watching her half-a-beat-slow reaction, who could possibly say she wasn't foolish?

　　Ziyuan grumbled to himself inwardly, but did not dare say so too plainly aloud, for fear of provoking the little thing.

　　"Just... just a bit foolish now and then..."

　　To think that he, Ziyuan, who could plan a strategy from a thousand miles away and never once faltered or hesitated, now found himself stammering excuses before a mere slip of a girl — thinking of it, he felt rather pathetic himself. But then, whose fault was it that he cared so much for this particular girl?

　　"I suppose so." Anu seemed to have worked something out in her own mind; she shook her head, flinging off a good deal of melted snow, and added, "Who wouldn't act foolish in front of Ziyuan?" Then she shot him a glare and went on, "You even lied to me, telling me you couldn't be distracted with the two armies facing off, and that I should just stay put in the Mist Forest and not wander... and I actually believed you. Turns out you'd already made up your mind to take someone else's punishment for them, needing time to heal, with no strength left to spare protecting me..."

　　Even as she spoke, a mist rose in Anu's eyes, and though her face was already wet with melted snow, Ziyuan could still make out the glint of tears in them.

　　"You know about it?" Ziyuan's heart filled with guilt; he had never imagined his well-meant lie would be uncovered, and that it would bring tears to Anu's eyes on top of it.

　　"Is your body properly healed now?"

　　Anu took hold of Ziyuan's hand and examined it carefully, up and down, left and right.

　　"Fourth Brother came to stay with me for a while not long ago. He's always been one to talk too much, and whatever should or shouldn't be said, he's more or less said all of it by now, so that's how I found out you took a whipping meant for someone else. And so I truly listened to what you told me, and haven't set foot outside the Mist Forest once in all this past year."

　　Hearing these words of concern from Anu, Ziyuan felt as though he'd swallowed a handful of Soul-Nourishing Pills — all at once his spirits lifted and every ache in him melted away. So the girl wasn't angry with him after all — she had been worried.

　　"I'm entirely healed now — two strokes of the whip were nothing to me." Ziyuan tried to comfort Anu, pulling her close and reaching up to wipe her tears, but found that the tears only mixed with the melted snow and left her face wetter the more he wiped; flustered, he simply cast a spell instead, drying Anu from head to toe and shielding her at the same time from the falling rain and snow.

　　"You gave me a thousand years of your cultivation and then took a beating on top of it — are you sure it's really nothing? Don't you dare lie to me."

　　"Mm. I'm not lying, don't worry." Ziyuan saw there were still tears on Anu's face, and conjured a handkerchief in his hand to gently dab them away. With the rain and snow no longer interfering, wiping away her tears proved considerably easier this time.

　　Compared to the last time he had offered her a handkerchief and been refused, Anu now was plainly a good deal more at ease with him.

　　Perhaps, somewhere in her heart, he had found a place for himself after all.

　　Ziyuan suddenly felt a quiet comfort settle over him.

　　"I truly am fine. Don't cry, Anu."

　　Ziyuan gently drew Anu into his arms, patting her back softly to soothe her. Some time passed before he heard her call out to him.

　　"Ziyuan, you're really good, you know that?" Her voice still carried a thick, congested note.

　　Hearing these words from Anu, Ziyuan froze for a moment. Though pleased in his heart, he could not quite make sense of them.

　　"I never used to understand what the Celestial Clan was like — my father and mother, and my brother too, always told me to stay far away from Celestial folk. But you really are good — not just to me, you're good to everyone, and so clever besides. However difficult a thing might be, once it reaches your hands it seems to sort itself out with such ease. My brother used to sing your praises and I'd let it all go in one ear and out the other; only now that I actually know you do I truly understand just how good you are."

　　"I really was a hopeless fool, though! I even lectured you so earnestly, going on about how even demons have their good and bad — never realizing that your heart already holds the whole world, the beings of all Three Realms, that you treat everyone the same without exception. I must have looked like such a fool, and here you were laughing at me in your heart the whole time!"

　　As she spoke, Anu's tears turned to laughter, and she lifted her face to look up at Ziyuan, her violet eyes reflecting the pure white of heaven and earth, all the clearer and brighter for it.

　　"I wasn't laughing at you." Ziyuan touched her head again, and said with a soft laugh, "You're foolish, yes, foolish as can be — but utterly endearing with it. I can barely love you enough as it is — how could I ever laugh at you?"

　　"You... you love me?" Hearing this confession slip so suddenly from Ziyuan's mouth, Anu was startled, though not entirely surprised. He had cared for her so tenderly all along, that overflowing affection plain to see; it was only hearing him say the words outright that left her, for a moment, at a loss.

　　This time it was Rong Heng's fearless devotion to love that had struck Ziyuan so deeply — that no matter the outcome, Rong Heng had declared himself unto death, unwilling to leave anything unspoken and become a lasting regret. Young as he was, his conduct had left Ziyuan looking at him with new respect. And as for himself and Anu — bound as they were by the ancient enmity between their two clans, the road ahead dark and uncertain — he had never dared lightly bare his true heart; but inspired now by Rong Heng, he resolved to take a brave step forward himself, whatever the outcome might be.

　　Hearing this, Anu's whole face flushed red; she lowered her head, staring fixedly at the toes of her own shoes, not daring to look up for the longest time. This was the first time any man had ever confessed his love to her outright, and such an exceptional man besides — her heart pounded wildly, all composure scattered to the winds. Xiaoyi, too, had always cared for her with a heart full of devotion, but he had never once put his feelings into words; she had simply, unknowingly, accepted his care, and had never before felt anything like this awkward, bashful confusion.

　　Watching the girl who was normally so full of fire and spirit suddenly turn shy, head bowed and silent, Ziyuan bent down out of curiosity to peer at her face, looking this way and that until she had nowhere left to hide, her face only growing redder by the moment.

　　"Oh! Go away, you..." Flustered under his gaze, Anu reached out and shoved at Ziyuan, meaning to push him away, only to find herself pulled instead straight into his embrace.

　　Judging by Anu's reaction, even without a word from her, her manner had already said everything there was to say.

　　So it seemed that, without her even realizing when, she too had come to hold a place in her heart for him.

　　Ziyuan could not help recalling how, once before, Anu had inexplicably followed him all the way to the army camp — perhaps even then the seed of affection had already been planted in her, only at the time his mind had been entirely occupied with the matter of Yinglan and Rong Heng, and he had failed to notice the workings of a young girl's heart.

　　Now certain that Anu held him in her heart as well, Ziyuan felt something within him crack open like the first thunder of the spring equinox — all at once, spring stirred, all things awakened, life bloomed anew. Feeling the warmth rising in the face pressed against his chest, Ziyuan felt a comfort and contentment beyond words.

　　"Yes. Ziyuan's heart is given to Anu." Holding Anu steady in his arms, Ziyuan's voice was gentle, but resolute.

　　"You..." Anu seemed about to say something; she summoned her strength and lifted her head to look at him, only to be caught off guard by a light kiss Ziyuan pressed to her forehead. This kiss, in passing, also lifted the seal Anu herself had placed on the flower blooming between her brows.

　　Startled by the sudden kiss, Anu's eyes went wide, and in her embarrassment she swallowed back whatever words she had been about to say, unable to get out a single one.

　　"A beautiful thing should not be hidden away." Ziyuan said gently, his fingers lightly tracing the delicate purple flower.

　　"You... you shameless flirt..." Anu's eyes darted this way and that, following the movement of Ziyuan's hand, and at last, swallowing hard, she scolded him, half in embarrassment and half in timid protest.

　　Watching Anu look so cross and yet so bashfully sweet all at once, Ziyuan could not help but find it delightful.

　　"In all this world, only Anu would ever call me a shameless flirt."

　　"You..." Anu shot him a resentful glare, and added, "So this is what Ziyuan is really like underneath it all — such a smooth-tongued scoundrel!"

　　"Get away from me, you shameless flirt..." She shoved him hard.

　　"You... just stand right there." Anu pointed at the spot where Ziyuan now stood and gave a little huff, pouting.

　　"All right. Wherever Anu tells me to stand, there I'll stand." In Ziyuan's eyes, every one of Anu's little huffs and pouts was nothing but the charming petulance of a young girl, against which he had not the slightest defense — quite unlike the cool, composed manner he showed when handling the chaos of state affairs; before her, he could only yield unconditionally to whatever she wished.

　　Seeing Ziyuan obediently stay put, Anu reached up and touched her own forehead, uncertain whether it was Ziyuan's kiss or the flower between her brows that had left it feeling this way — perhaps both, in truth. For her, this was the very first kiss from any man besides her own father in all her life; Xiaoyi had only ever kissed her while she slept, without her ever knowing, so this kiss, however light and fleeting as a dragonfly skimming water, had left her thoroughly flustered and undone. And to Ziyuan's eyes, watching this reaction of hers, it was simply, indescribably endearing, and he could not help a soft laugh escaping him.