Sometime after Jin’s confession to being the Emperor, Mei Hua was sitting in a pavilion drinking tea in one of the many gardens within the Palace. It was raining, a light pleasant rain that gently rustled the leaves on the trees.

Mei Hua loved this kind of weather. For some years now, whenever it rained like this, she’d go outside and enjoy a hot drink by herself. Everyone left her alone so it was a time of peaceful contemplation. But today she had a visitor.

“So did you want to tell me, or did you enjoy keeping it a secret?” Mei Hua asked while pouring herself some tea.

“Of course I wanted to tell you! I did try at the very beginning, but he wouldn’t let me!”

“Hm… I feel like you could have tried harder to at least hint at it.”

“Hint at——! Didn’t meeting the Emperor Deer and the fairies and having a giant Palace built for you hint at it enough!?”

“He kept insisting he was doing it for the Emperor!”

“AND YOU BELIEVED HIM. Don’t put that wrong on me!”

They were silent for a long moment, staring at each other intensely. After a moment, she looked away and sighed in defeat.

“Ye…”

“Yeah?”

“I think I might be a gullible simpleton.”

Ye gave her a “You don’t say?” kind of expression, causing her to chuckle in self-depreciation.

“Sorry Ye, I didn’t ask you to join me just to fight with you.”

“Hm…!” He squinted his eyes skeptically.

“Really, I didn’t. I’m more upset at myself than anything. I’m nearing forty and I’ve been married to Jin for so long but I just… never figured it out. Even though he shouldn’t have lied about something so important, at the same time… the fact that I was so blissfully unaware… what kind of life have I been living? I never thought I was so thick headed but apparently I am…” She shook her head slightly in shame. “Anyway, I took it out on you, I’m sorry.”

“Ah, all is forgiven! All is forgiven!” Ye bounced over and patted her hand affectionately. “And don’t be too hard on yourself. Didn’t I raise you? If you’re a gullible simpleton, I’m partially to blame.”

She raised an eyebrow, lips quirked slightly. “So I CAN blame you for everything then…”

“Hey now—!”

Mei Hua laughed heartily.

“You—” He then tsked and rolled his eyes. “Anyway, you trust the people you love. There’s nothing wrong with that. If anything fairies are…” Ye rubbed his nose sheepishly. “…not entirely trustworthy. No matter how much we love someone, we can’t help being troublemakers.”

“Hah! Now that is the truth! It amazing I turned out to be such an honest person, considering you raised me and I married that rascal.”

“You jest but it really is amazing.” Ye tilted his head. “I certainly didn’t raise you to be an honest person, I gave you plenty of room to lie. But you never did. If anything, the fact that you could lie drove you to be even more truthful. Whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know. But since I love you, I’ll watch out for you if it turns out to be a flaw.”

She sipped her tea, a solitary eyebrow up. “Watching out for me… that’s all you did, watch the Emperor eat me without any remorse.”

“Yes well… he may be an idiot, but he does love you sincerely.” Ye sighed. “And for all his flaws, he IS the Fairy Emperor. Only an Emperor is good enough for my MeiMei. And since you married him, I’m now your Brother-in-Law and Uncle to your children. I like that immensely.”

Mei Hua blinked and then gave a low chuckle. “Ye you are such a schemer. Is it possible for you to live without scheming something?”

“I can live several days without scheming! In a row even!”

This was too much and she started giggling. Using her thumb, she rubbed the top of his head. Eventually she settled down and a soft smile flickered across her face.

“I really must be the most gullible human on the face of the earth. Even if I know you’re a schemer, I’ve never been able to hold it against you. I know you scheme out of love and not malice.”

“You aren’t gullible for thinking that. It’s true. I’ll always be a schemer but I’ll always love you too.” He then gave a smirk. “And I loved you first. I can rub it in Jin’s face for the rest of his life that I’ve loved you longer.”

“Ah, no, please, mercy! You both already argue over ridiculous things as it is! If I have to listen to that on top of everything else… I might really die from exasperation.”

“Oh,” Ye changed the subject. “I’ve always wanted to ask…”

“Mm?”

“What do you think of the Emperor now that you’ve been married to him for a few years?”

“Just a few?!”

“From my perspective.” Indeed, for Ye a paltry twenty or so years was nothing but a drop in the bucket of time.

“Hm… well, now that I know that I’m married to the Emperor…” She rubbed her chin. “He’s surprisingly a bit of a cry baby, isn’t he?”

“Yep.”

“And so clingy...”

“Very.”

“But he’s disciplined and smart, when he focuses properly. And very devoted.”

“True.”

She twirled her tea cup in her hands. “I always thought the Emperor was… cold… distant… but who knew he’d be the type to love so deeply and so passionately?”

“You’d be one of two people who know.”

Mei Hua blinked for a moment and then nodded. “Yes… the first person… ah… now that I think about it, perhaps he’s always been zealous in love… he just hadn’t loved many people. And I never thought I’d be one of them, besides.”

“En. This is the second time, and it seems he’d doing it… well, right might be too strong a praise. Better. He’s at least doing it better.”

“Really?”

“En.”

“I’m relieved.” She pushed back a strand of hair behind her ear. “I always thought that was a part of the Emperor I could never… do anything about. His affection seemed so overbearing and harsh. It made me afraid of him. Now that I’m married to him… I mean, I’ve been married to him all this time but… now that I’m aware of it, it’s nice to know I’ve had a good influence on him. I’d hate to think his love for me made him… regress. Back to that jealous and cruel King.”

“As long as you are here, he’ll be fine.” Ye tugged his hair thoughtfully. “Maybe… with time… he’ll be strong enough that even if you aren’t here, he’ll be fine too. Since he’s the last spirit of the mountain, I sincerely hope he gets to that point. You are mortal after all.”

“Am I?”

Ye tilted his head. “Aren’t you?”

“I know you never paid close attention but… I haven’t aged.”

“Ah.” Ye blinked in surprise and suddenly stared at her face really intently. ”Being immortal, I tend to lose track of that sort of thing. Now that you mention it though…”

“My peers have been saying I look amazing for my age, but it never occurred to me I haven’t been aging at all. I just thought I was aging slowly. I use herbs and minerals from the mountains for all my beauty care and, don’t laugh too hard at me for thinking this, I thought that was why I didn’t age as everyone else.”

“But that’s not why?”

“I don’t think it is… when I talked to Jin about me dying, he got very upset. He insisted I wouldn’t die, that he wouldn’t let me.”

“What?! Does he mean to make you immortal?”

“Well… I don’t know… can he even do that? I know he’s the Emperor but…” She rubbed her forehead with her fingertips slightly, perplexed.

“Oh.. I don’t know… there are Emperor Deer here who’ve lived so long even I’m not sure their age. But sometimes the very elderly ones will just… vanish. The Emperor use to look for them but never find them. I’ve always thought they left the mountain to die.”

“Really? I had no idea.”

“En… He, the Emperor, got upset but what could he do? If he couldn’t find them, he couldn’t find them. So… as to immortality in humans… I don’t know. The… person who made the Traveler’s Cave… said that even if it could be done, it probably shouldn’t be done. It was against the will of the world. I think humans call that Dao or something. Anyway, it’s not natural for humans to live that long in the mortal world. Even if he can do it, I don’t know if he should.”

Mei Hua drank the rest of her tea and poured herself another cup.

“How funny, she came to the same conclusion as I did.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just like the deer aren’t meant to live forever, I’m not sure I am either. And maybe she’s right that humans in general aren’t meant for it.” She got a thoughtful look on her face. “There’s nothing special about me, you know. I’m not a great martial artists, I’m not a stunning beauty, and now I’m convinced I’m not even clever. If anything, all I’ve got is luck going for me. I’m a lucky mountain monkey who married a god—”

“Aw, don’t talk about yourself like that! Beauty doesn’t need to be stunning and strength doesn’t need to come from how hard you can punch. You’re talented too! You can sing and play the lute and—”

“Oh stop it, you!” Mei Hua poked his head. “I wasn’t trying to get compliments!”

He rubbed his head. “It’s true, even if you weren’t trying.”

“Anyway, the point I was trying to make, is there nothing about me that indicates I’ll take immortality well. Nothing at all. I’m worried that if I live too long, I might forget myself. The person I am now, can I be that same person fifty years from now? A hundred? A thousand? I’m not sure at all that I can be. And I’m worried that I’ll change into something… unpleasant. And that will in turn influence Jin. Unlike me, he’s a real immortal. The decisions he makes, he’ll have to deal with forever. I don’t want him to wake up one day and regret loving me.”

“I mean… I doubt that’s going to happen…”

“But it could. It’s not like you’ve known any immortal humans.”

Ye’s brow crinkled slightly at this.

“Listen, MeiMei,” He finally said, taking a different tactic. “If you ever get to a point where you start to lose yourself and become something… that’s not truly you… I promise that I will take you away from here. Jin thinks he knows everything, but I have my own methods and I can absolutely find an escape route for you. And once you’re off the mountains, just like those Emperor Deer, you’ll be free to do whatever you wish, even die.”

Mei Hua gazed softly at him.

“Are you sure you want to promise something like that?”

“Unlike Jin, I never had a problem accepting death. I’m not saying I don’t get sad and I don’t weep. I do. But goodbyes are the results of hellos. Would I sacrifice my time with you just so that I wouldn’t suffer the pain of saying farewell later on? No. There is always a cost for joy, it’s never free. And to love a human, it means I must pay that cost with sorrow. So I will, and I will do so without regrets. For me to promise you the closure you want, to say goodbye the way you want, that’s the least I can do for the joy you’ve given me till now and the joy you’ll give me in the future.”

“Oh!” Mei Hua placed a trembling hand on her mouth, tears welling up in her eyes. “T-thank you Ye. Thank you.”

“What’s with that? Aren’t we family? You don’t need to thank me like a stranger!”

She sniffled slightly and wiped the tears at the corners of her eyes.

“R-right, right… It’s not like this is an immediate problem anyway.”

“Exactly, so no need to worry about it.”

“Ye…”

“Hm?”

“You… you must have said a lot of goodbyes.”

“Sure, but in exchange I said a lot of hellos.”

“I’m ashamed. Even though you raised me and I know you had friends in the past, I never thought deeply about how hard it was when they left or died. I knew about her, of course, but everyone else I…”

“What child thinks about their parent’s past? They don’t care unless the parent or someone else makes a point to bring it up.” Ye waved his hand. “I treasure all those memories. I don’t need your sympathy, so no need to feel ashamed.”

“Sorry.” Mei Hua rubbed her neck and laughed awkwardly. “As a parent myself I should know better. I wouldn’t want my children apologizing for something like that.”

Ye gave a sing-song “right?” in response.

“This not aging thing though… how am I to explain this to people?” Mei Hua grabbed the side of her head, as though she had a headache. “They’re going to notice eventually, and I can’t keep saying it’s my lotions. I’m already to the point that they’re getting skeptical. Ah, I just thought of Pei Pei! I’ve been sending her my home-made cosmetics for years now saying that was why I looked young. What will she say when she finds out?!”

“..you could just not tell her.”

Mei Hua gave a glare. ”Like I’ll be able to lie to Pei Pei! She’ll figure it out even if I don’t tell her. She’s always been the smart one of the two of us. What if… what if… it creeps her out? What if she doesn’t want to be my friend because she’ll age and I won’t?”

“Hm, well, if you’re honest with her and she rejects you, that’s on her then isn’t it? And remember, no matter how many “friends” reject you, your family won’t. You will always have us.”

“That’s true and I do appreciate what you’re saying… but she was the first friend to really accept me for who I was…”

“Then why are you worried she’ll reject you now?”

“…I was weird before but at least I still… mortal.”

“This is only my opinion, but I don’t think she’ll stop being friends with you just because you don’t age. It may make things awkward for her, yes, but that doesn’t mean she’ll reject you. Her and that husband of hers, Wu TengFei, are good people. Even their children have grown up into respectable adults. Jin would agree with me too, and you know how he is with anyone outside the family.”

“Hm… Jin is surprisingly tolerant of the Wu Family now isn’t he?”

“That’s right, and he use to be so jealous of Wu TengFei.”

Mei Hua snorted when she tried to repress her laughter. “I’d almost forgotten about that!”

“Well I haven’t! It’s a relief to me that he eventually figured out Wu TengFei really WASN’T a threat. Now if only he’d apply that to every other man who gets near you, things would be great.”

“At least he hides his jealousy better now.” She leaned back in her seat. “I hope you’re right about Pei Zhi. I want to believe you are…”

“I think I am, but it’s tricky with humans. You never know how they’ll respond.”

“Even though I’m human I really can’t deny that…”

The next day, Mei Hua sat down and wrote out a letter to Pei Zhi. It was a terribly awkward subject to write about, telling your friend you’ll outlive her. After some thought, she decided to include that Jin was actually the Fairy Emperor as well. She could have gotten around the subject but… she’d known Pei Zhi for so many years. If she was to be rejected, she’d rather it be for the complete and total truth and not just some of it. She couldn’t even hand the letter off personally to the Merchant Caravan like she would have usually done because she was anxious, and asked Jin to do it for her.

Jin, for his part, did not care much one way or the other who found out that he was the Emperor. It only mattered to him so far as it upset his wife, and beyond that, not at all. Despite being married to a human, his general view of them was still fairly low. The Wu Family was only given a dispensation for the good they’d done for Mei and their “appropriately” respective attitude towards him.

Mei Hua thought Pei Zhi would take some time to respond, so she was surprised to get a letter a week later.

When she opened it, she read:

“I knew there must be something! All this time I’ve been using that lotion and it never worked as well on me as it did on you! Not that I’m complaining, since it does work to a degree. I do look a lot younger than other ladies my age. But you look almost exactly like you did when I met you. I’ve tried bringing it up before but you just looked confused and blamed the lotions. My friend, though I do love you sincerely, you’re surprisingly slow about some things, aren’t you? I’m glad you figured out the real source after all this time.

So you are the wife of the Fairy Emperor, are you? That makes you a Fairy Empress right? Ha, I’m friends with an Empress! And here I thought being friends with a Lady was something, now I’ve really got something to boast about.

No, I’ll boast in my heart only. It’s an honor for you to trust me so much with a secret like that, but it’s not my place to tell anyone else. I won’t even tell Wu TengFei and I’ve burned the letter you sent me to make doubly sure no one will find out through me. When you’ve decided to tell everyone, then I can boast freely.

As you may recall, a few years ago my dear Grandfather passed away. Even to this day, I get choked up thinking about it. Being the one to die is obviously horrible, but being the one left behind is it’s own kind of terror too. I’m happy that you’ll live, I’m sad that I’ll grow old and die, but even more… I’m worried about leaving you behind.

I know the sorrow of saying goodbye to a precious person. Perhaps I’m thinking to highly of myself but… I do believe I am precious to you (as you are to me). When the time comes and we must say our farewells forever, I hope someday you can look back on our friendship and smile. I don’t want you to grieve for me the rest of your very long life.

And who knows? Perhaps the gods will have mercy on me. They may reincarnate me as someone or something that can be close to you again in the next life. I would like that. One life time is simply not enough to enjoy being with you.”

Mei Hua wept when she got to the last line. Pei Zhi truly was the greatest of friends.