Deep in the body of the mountain, past hall after looming hall of nascent pearls, glowing cores lighting Luanshi’s sacred tunnels with the light of past lives, Hua Jin was slack-jawed.

Awe struck the poor inlayer hard, lit his wonder with the ambience of a thousand artifacts. Each one was encased in a glassy iridescent bubble, old code glinting across their surfaces intermittently, and they floated in hand dug alcoves in the granite, safe and sound until it was time for them to be called down. Some glinted violet and blue, some gold; others flashed red like a warning. Some bore plaques reading the names of legendary owner’s, clans and notable protectors, but most were unmarked. Jiling, after all, knew these halls by heart and, if she ever did manage to lose an artifact, all the tiny woman had to do was ask.

“These are all of Luanshi’s artifacts: the ones we win in arena, the ones that are entrusted to us when their owners’ body moves on,” the priestess told the pair of boys following her through that beautiful catacomb, that crypt lit by the gleaming specter of death. “We will see who sings for you, who sings for your Princes.”

“It is a choice the artifacts themselves make, Lady Jiling?” Li queried, early morning sleepiness buried deep beneath his dutiful exterior. The boy was proper in every task he handled for the Crown Prince of Fanxing: he stood prim and perfectly postured, immaculately arranged the prince’s extra clothes on his noble form like he was truly fit to wear them. As they walked, the eldest Ren glanced aside to the inlayer. The grin that spread across his lips fit naturally onto his pleasant exterior. The inlayer was charming even now, among that trove of precious memories.

Even as Jin veered too close in his examination of a ruby gem glowing soft white from a waist height alcove, Jiling observed without interfering, a small smile crossing her all-knowing lips.

“Is there one that draws you in, Ren Li?” Jiling turned away to inspect a row of artifacts under a modest placard made of old ironwood, swirling script of ashes and gold reading:

槍 林 箭 雨

“Artifacts speak in different ways,” she informed the pair. “Perhaps yours requires you to step further out of line.”

Li hummed thoughtfully, dressed worry over further disobedience in a quickly passing expression. He shook his head.

“Nothing that I can tell so far,” the noble replied. “What’s that section with the plaque?”

“These?” Jiling stood to address the noble, folding her hands at her waist as she reflected on the shining four character idiom. “This is the plaque of the forest tribes led by the Gui and Ying clans who fell right before Zao Beiguan was overthrown. These artifacts belong to their people, many were pulled straight from their totems on the battlefield.”

“The tribes that were decimated for betraying the Tians in the war?” Li’s sight trailed over the collection. “That’s interesting. Do you suppose there’s any merit in the way they used artifacts compared to the way we do? For the collective versus for the self?”

“Artifacts are a tool. Whether an artifact is a tool of one man or many is not my place to judge. It is simply my place to keep.” Jiling tilted her head as she turned back to the glowing alcoves, beckoning forth the artifact Jin was so intent on examining before he had a chance to shake it from its ledge. “Scholarly child, studious and wise: you more than most should be aware of the nuances of the past. Who writes our history? Who pens the legends we pass down across years?”

“I know—the one who lives long enough to hold the pen.” Li ducked his head in polite deference, then turned to observe further down the wall. His footsteps were soft. “I wasn’t passing judgment. I was just wondering if there was a better way.”

“I only mean to remind you: not all thieves look like thieves.” Satisfied with her quip, she attended to her line of floating artifacts suspended on strings of lights. Thin beams connected them to their granite housings, little vibrations running from bauble to base, as she arranged the gems in a loosely gathered line. “Go on, Ren Li, Hua Jin. Explore the halls: find the song that is sung for you.”

Gently, Jin placed his hand on Li’s elbow. He smirked before turning away, walking down the vast hall with his chin in the air, surveying what seemed like miles of riches suspended in stone.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Jin said. “Have you ever been in here? I’ve never seen so many artifacts—fuck, to even get to walk around in these caverns, nevermind getting to install something from here… how’d I stumble into this kind of fortune?”

“I’ve been here once previously. The king and queen and my parents brought the princes, princess, my brother, and myself here to show us where our pieces will be placed when we die, to show us the remnants of our ancestors. That was a while ago.” When the pair moved out of Jiling’s sight, Li pulled Jin’s hand off of his elbow and braided their fingers together. He looked up to Jin, chin sweetly canted with regard. “I’m glad you’re able to find fortune through all this trouble.”

Suddenly conscious of his bully-bred tone, Jin ducked his head, softening with his fingers betwixt Li’s. “I’m sorry—I know you’ve got a lot at stake. I should be more serious.”

“No. No, you’re fine.” Li shook his head. “I’m genuinely glad to see how excited you are to be here. Your eyes were so wide—aah, you’re really adorable when you’re not trying to be smooth or sly. I’m happy to be here with you, despite everything.”

Pulling the nobleman to him, Jin halted their forward progress with a face to face assessment of that stated happiness. He held that reworked boy close, already missing the feeling of closer—inappropriate or not in these holy halls.

“I shouldn’t want you here,” Jin confessed. His impish addendum: “…but I do.”

“Tryna show me your serious face so I forget how cute you were, huh?” Li left his waist unguarded for Jin’s acquisition. Instead, he looped an arm around the artist’s neck while his other hand tapped the tip of his nose with an index finger. “Can’t fool me, Hua Jin.”

“I’m never gonna live it down,” Jin murmured flatly, masking his plaintive air with a solemn kiss. “You’re seeing right through every one of my schemes, what’m I gonna do.”

“I won’t tell. Promise.” Li smiled in a kiss returned, lingering in his adoration, slow and tender with tooth and tongue before he abruptly pulled away. He grabbed Jin by the hand and tugged him forward, coy glances beckoning amid his siren persuasion. “Come on, we can make time for each other later. Don’t waste your opportunity to be here with all these artifacts.”

“Artifacts are forever; people are finite.” Jin bemoaned his observation as he was drug down the hall. “It’s not a wasted opportunity if I get to collect more moments with you.”

Regardless, the inlayer complied. He followed Li faithfully through the incandescent catacombs winding through Yunji’s stone stronghold. As they ventured deeper, the walls grew damp. The air was clean, mineral-toned with the memory of winter fresh on every breath. The only warmth afforded the boys came from the innumerable protective gemstone alcoves and the comfort of their interlocked hands.

Some ten minutes into their exploration, just after they passed a looming intersection, Jin stopped abruptly.

“Did you hear something?” he asked Li after a careful pause, growing less playful and more protective.

“I—” was all Li managed to respond before his words were drowned out by the sound of laughter, shrill and insidious as it rang down the many halls of that sanctuary.

“HA HA HA, yeah, that fuckwad still owes me a thousand yuan from when I went ham on him in BubbleBobble.” Ahead sat the squat form of a black cat, idly batting at a small piece of plastic as she yammered at seemingly no one. “Piece of shit said he’d get me a fifty piece chicken nugget too, but THAT never fucking happened. I’m gonna beat his ass when I see him again. I don’t know shit about math but the interest has gotta be at least worth three cans of wet and a hip flask of whiskey.”

Li stared, quiet but enthralled.

“Yeah, I fuckin’ know!” She continued. “I told him! Like damn, too bad you suck too much to get your dick touched now where’s my fuckin’ c-nuggz??? But then he went and got kidnapped or what the fuck ever and I had to eat actual trash for three weeks.”

“What… what is this weird ancient drunk cat talk?” Jin whispered to the boy at his side as he observed the apparent conversation the animal was having with some evidently sentient gemstone. “Am I going crazy? It’s saying words right?”

“Yeah,” Li nodded. “… Yeah, it is.”

“Do we just… keep going? Do you think we should go down that way?” Jin was no longer threatened by the scene before them. He wasn’t scared of a cat even if it was talking.

Quiet for only a moment, the sound that followed that brief reprieve rang too loud in that mountain’s hallowed heart, its arteries clogged with the digital iterations of a time before this.

“WHAAAAAAAAAAAT!” Yingxi shrieked, cat mouth wide and filled with glistening teeth. “IT’S WORTH FIFTY CANS OF WET??????????? ARE YOU FUCKING FOR REEEEEEEEAL?????” She stretched out on the floor, simulating misery the best her little body knew how. The beast writhed on her back, legs battling the air angrily, tail flicking in erratic non-patterns. “… Man, fuck you. My ass isn’t fat, it’s just how my body’s shaped.”

The artifact glowed in taunting patterns, timing making it seem like it was responding to the writhing cat and its fat-shaming protest.

“Whatever. You don’t know fucking shit. Man, you’ve been in a rock so long you forgot how to spell words good or at all—even I know thick doesn’t have five c’s. There’s two or three tops.” Rolling to a rest, the feline stretched out on her side. It was in that moment that she became startled by the presence of Jin and Li, jumping up, tail puffed as she backed up into the darkness. “MAN WHAT THE HELL!!! Can’t have any fucking privacy in this place anymore! GOD, where did all these fucking nerds come from?!”

“Sorry!” Li called out, taking one step forward. “We didn’t mean to interrupt you! We’ll walk down another aisle.”

“Shut up, idiot,” she hissed in response before looking back to the inset artifact she’d been addressing. “I’ll see you later bro. I oughta go find the boy before he chops up that old guy into hunk chunx anyway.”

Jin was a far more careful explorer after watching the cat vanish in a wisp of shadow and smoke, wet stones and ozone touching her exit. Were there more creatures down here? What sort of strange magic wandered these nascent pearl halls?

The inlayer was a simple man; a poor kid with aspirations and no means. He hadn’t inherited a destiny, wasn’t raised with a duty beyond taking care of his grandmother when she was no longer capable of independence. He was not born to cultivate himself into a hero of legend. He was not prepared to deal with talking cats and sorcery, sword spirits, artifacts that chose for themselves. Embarrassed by how overwhelmed he felt, Jin moved forward down the center of the wide hall that seemed open—until he hit the wall. A sudden dead end halted his progress.

“What is this place even doing?” Jin grumbled, turning back to Li as he leaned against the wall. He rubbed at his forehead, red from impact. “Gods, are we supposed to turn back? There’s nothing here, just…”

Two alcoves, set in the center of the obstruction.

Li frowned but in a sweet sorta way, a way that made his affection apparent, a way that wordlessly promised he would have stopped Jin’s small calamity if he knew that these halls were so tricky. Letting the inlayer recuperate, the nobleman stepped forward to examine the alcoves. Something felt completely right in one of them, something expressed itself as soothing and harmonious, an ultimate perfection in the harried oscillations of the world.

“Do you hear something?” Li asked, soothed by the aural music of everything correct, in its right place for an infinitesimal moment of passing time.

“No, the cat’s gone,” Jin replied, sour tone softening when he caught the other man’s gaze. He felt foolish for being so clumsy, so impatient with mysticism, for being a skeptic of this exercise in being chosen. He straightened, turning toward the alcoves as well. “Do you like that one?”

Jin paused. Should he have said that the other way around?

“Yeah,” Li answered gently, turning to the alcove to retrieve artifact residing there. At first glance it looked plain, completely flat; small and shaped like a shard of glass except for the concave line of an upper edge and its material: lightweight, durable. However, as the nobleman settled back and moved it around in his cupped palms, the piece revealed its true beauty in a ripple of rainbow lines. The meager light of the oppressive hall drew magnificence from its prismatic surface, the artifact’s colors shone in a stunning spread. “I’m going to take this one. It feels right.”

Jin peered into the next alcove. Instead of a flashy, glamorous gem, there was a plain dark blue-grey stone, oblong and relatively flat. With a shrug, the inlayer gently picked it up, bringing it closer to his face to examine it. The artifact responded to his touch, pinpoints like stars and marbled striations glowing the color of magma in time with his heartbeat.

Jin looked up to Li, a smirk overtaking his face. “Yeah. I think this feels right too.”

Smirk met smile and Li nodded. “Alright. Let’s go find Lady Jiling again.”

Li’s footsteps were light in reverse, treading back down what he thought were the same paths taken to get where they stopped but the trail was odd, altered; the landmarks were off, present but shifted. Jin had some mind for navigation, at the very least capable of finding his way home after he’d traveled in one direction. Even in those halls of endless stone where crossroads and halls blended like a maze, Jin knew when something moved—even if the error was minute.

Eventually, the pair caught the sound of Jiling’s voice, a small wordless song floating in the vast cavern. The inlayer followed the path her music dictated lit by the electric glow of artifacts and torches too high to be lit by hand.

When they arrived, Jiling didn’t look up. She was deciding between two gems in alcoves set right before her; four more danced at her fingertips, wisps moving at the behest of her swarm touch.

“Did they find you?” she asked, selecting a deep green, earthy stone, polished and striated.

“Yes,” Li replied, politely forgoing further observation of his little charm in favor of the mountain’s priestess. “We passed by an… intoxicated cat talking strangely to the wall on the way there. Is that normal?”

“She is Laike’s,” Jiling answered succinctly, looking up at the young noble. “She comes to visit her friends.”

Jin was next, curious brow quirked, voice unguarded. “What’s a c-nuggz?”

Jiling held her amusement behind her guarded expression, endlessly placid in the boys’ quest for knowledge. “It is, arguably, a food.”

“Oh.” Li glanced at Jin and shrugged. Back to the priestess, then: “Have you collected some artifacts too, Lady Jiling?”

The tiny woman, mistress of the swarm and head of Luanshi sect, simply smiled. She sent a piece of sea glass on the back of an invisible envoy, circling Li as though it was a moon to his celestial body. “For your Prince,” she missed, then sent a glinting violet stone to follow. “For your other Prince.”

The priestess still had two artifacts at the tips of her fingers but didn’t expand on their targets. Two alcoves beneath the old ironwood placard were conspicuously empty. She turned away from the boys.

“You may return to the Pai’ou tracer pavilion. Young Master Xiaoxu will be along shortly. I expect Second Young Master Yuhui will be available some time in the evening.”