Chapter 35: The Concept of Privacy

As Bai Yue grabbed his arm and began pulling him toward a vine-bridge that led deeper into the canopy, a young female monkey suddenly appeared, shoving a woven basket into her hands.

“Here!” the monkey chirped. “Breakfast! Mangoes, starfruit, and honey-nuts! Don’t let the dragon eat it all!”

“Thank you!” Bai Yue clutched the basket gratefully, then resumed dragging the fuming Dragon Prince away from the scene of his humiliation.

They walked in tense silence, Cāng Jì’s wet, ruined robes making uncomfortable squelching sounds with every step. Bai Yue could feel the waves of pure rage rolling off him, and she wisely kept her mouth shut until they reached the waterfall pools.

The pools were beautiful, she had to admit. Natural basins carved into the rock by centuries of flowing water, each one filled with crystal-clear water that sparkled in the sunlight. The mist from the waterfall created tiny rainbows in the air, and the sound of rushing water was actually kind of peaceful.

Cāng Jì stood at the edge of the largest pool, staring at the water with an expression of profound suffering.

“I am a Prince of the First Generation,” he muttered to himself, his voice hollow. “I have lived for three thousand years. I have witnessed the birth of stars. And yet, somehow, this—” He gestured at his soiled robes. “—this is my lowest point.”

Bai Yue set the basket down on a smooth rock and tried very hard not to laugh. “Um. Do you want to……wash off? The water looks clean.”

Cāng Jì turned his blazing glare on her, and she immediately regretted speaking.

“This is ALL YOUR FAULT!” he snarled, taking a step toward her. His voice echoed off the rocks, scattering a flock of birds from a nearby tree. “If you hadn’t stolen my stone! If you hadn’t been so GREEDY and STUPID and—and SHINY-OBSESSED! I would be in my palace right now! Bathing in mineral springs! Having my scales polished by trained servants who know NOT TO URINATE ON ME!”

Bai Yue took a step back, her heart pounding. She had never seen him this angry before. Even when he had first arrived in the village, even when the monkeys had swarmed him, he had maintained some level of haughty composure.

But now? Now he looked like he was two seconds away from either crying or exploding.

“I know,” she said quietly, lowering her gaze. “I know this is my fault. I am sorry, Cāng Jì. I’m so, so sorry. The old me was terrible, and selfish, and—” Her voice cracked slightly. “If I could go back and stop her from taking your stone, I would. I swear I would.”

When she dared to look up again, Cāng Jì’s expression had shifted from furious to…..something else. Confusion, maybe. Or exhaustion.

He let out a long, shuddering breath, his shoulders slumping. “You are strange, star-thief. From my knowledge of who you are, the Bai Yue who stole my stone would have laughed at my suffering. She would have called me weak for caring about something as trivial as dignity.”

“Well, the new me thinks dignity is important,” Bai Yue said firmly. “And I think you deserve to have yours back. So please, go wash off. I promise I won’t look.”

She turned her back to him, facing the forest.

Behind her, she heard the rustle of fabric, followed by a splash as Cāng Jì entered the water. There was a long moment of silence, broken only by the sound of the waterfall and gentle splashing.

Then, surprisingly, he spoke.

“It is beautiful there,” he said, his voice softer than she had ever heard it. “In the Dragon Peaks, I mean. The palace is carved from a single mountain of white jade. The halls are so vast that clouds form inside them. At sunrise, the light refracts through the crystal pillars and paints the walls in every color imaginable.”

Bai Yue kept her eyes firmly on the trees, but she smiled. “That sounds amazing.”

“The springs are fed by underground volcanic vents,” he continued, and she could hear the hint of longing in his voice. “The water is always the perfect temperature, infused with minerals that make the scales shine. And the servants, well, they’re trained from birth in the art of scale-polishing. They use brushes made from phoenix down and polish made from crushed pearls.”

“No monkeys?” Bai Yue asked, unable to help herself.

There was a pause, and then, surprisingly, a sound that might have been a laugh. “No monkeys. We banned them from the peaks two hundred years ago after the Great Banyan Incident.”

“The one where you burned their sacred tree?”

“They deserved it,” he grumbled, but there was less venom in his voice. “Three months of mating screams, Bai Yue. Three. Months. Do you know what that does to me?”

“I am guessing nothing good?”

“I developed a twitch,” he said darkly. “In my left eye. It took fifty years to go away.”

Bai Yue giggled, and this time, she definitely heard him laugh in response.

After a few more minutes of splashing, Cāng Jì’s voice turned slightly awkward. “You can…..turn around now. I am decent.”

Bai Yue turned to find him sitting on the edge of the pool, his robes draped over a rock to dry in the sun. He had found a spare piece of dark cloth somewhere, probably tucked away in his magic dragon pockets or whatever, and had wrapped it around his waist. His hair was wet, slicked back from his face, and without all his usual finery, he looked…..younger. More approachable.

She grabbed the basket and sat down on a rock a respectful distance away, pulling out a large, golden mango. “Here. You need to eat something.”

He eyed the fruit suspiciously. “With my unclean hands?”

“Unless you want to eat it with your feet, yes.”

He scowled but took the mango, biting into it with obvious reluctance. After the first bite, though, his expression shifted to surprise.

“This is…..actually quite good,” he admitted, taking another bite.

“Right? The monkeys might be chaos incarnate, but they know their fruit.”

They ate in silence for a while, the tension between them gradually dissipating like the mist from the waterfall. Bai Yue shifted slightly, and even at a distance, she could feel the heat radiating from him like a furnace. It was a dry, golden warmth that seemed to bake the air around them.

“Do you always run this hot?” she asked, fanning herself with a large leaf.

Cāng Jì paused, a slice of mango halfway to his mouth. He shot her a look that was meant to be regal, but mostly just looked tired. “My core is fueled by the celestial sun. We do not ’run hot’, we embody the hearth of the world.”

“Right, sorry. My bad,” Bai Yue muttered, hiding a smirk. “I forgot I was dining with the actual sun”.

“You are very insolent for a thief,” he huffed, though he didn’t pull away. He looked out at the waterfall, his shoulders dropping just an inch. “In the Dragon Palace, the air is kept at a perfect, crisp temperature by frost-stones. No mud. No humidity. No…monkeys. No rodents.”

Bai Yue said nothing in response.

Cāng Jì finished the fruit and wiped his hands on the dark cloth. He looked at her then, his gaze heavy and judgmental. “I still find it hard to believe,” he said, his voice dropping to a haughty register. “They say you are a female who abandoned her own flesh and blood, husband and cub alike, to chase after a Bear King who didn’t even want you. They say you are the cruelest heart in the Beast Realm.”

Bai Yue flinched, the mango suddenly tasting like ash. “They aren’t……wrong about what happened,” she whispered, looking at her feet.

“And yet,” Cāng Jì continued, his voice softening in a way that made her look up. “I saw how you handled that little fox-kit earlier. And how the panther triplets look at you as if you hung the moon itself.” He paused, his gaze drifting to the waterfall as if he were arguing with himself. “You are surprisingly good with the small ones,” he muttered, the words barely audible over the rushing water. “It is a strange trait for a female whose heart is supposedly made of stone.”

He was looking at her fondly, not with the cold arrogance of a prince, but with a strange warmth. It was a look of genuine affection that lasted only a heartbeat before he seemed to realize what he was doing and jerked his face away, staring intensely at the waterfall.

Bai Yue’s brain short-circuited. Wait, did a Dragon Prince just look at me like I’m… cute? Me? The ’Cursed Female’?!

He cleared his throat, his posture turning stiff again as he tried to cover his slip-up. He winced suddenly, touching his temple. “My head hurts. From all the screaming.”

“Here,” Bai Yue said, moving closer. She could feel the intensity of his body heat now, it was intoxicating and a little overwhelming. “Let me help.”

Before he could protest, she reached up and gently massaged his temples with her fingers, using small circular motions like she used to do for herself after particularly stressful workdays.

Cāng Jì froze for a moment, clearly not used to being touched so casually. But then his eyes fluttered closed, and he let out a soft sigh.

“That……is actually pleasant,” he admitted grudgingly.

“You have to take care of yourself, even during ridiculous monkey trials,” Bai Yue said softly. “Tension headaches are the worst.”

They stayed like that for some time, the sound of the waterfall creating a peaceful backdrop. Cāng Jì’s breathing had evened out, and when Bai Yue finally pulled her hands away, he looked significantly more relaxed.

He opened his eyes and looked at her, his expression unreadable. “Thank you, star-thief.”

“You are welcome, Cāng Jì.”

He huffed, but the corners of his mouth quirked up. He looked like he was about to say something else when—

“Are you done?”

Both of them jumped, Cāng Jì nearly falling off his rock.

Hóu Xián was hanging upside-down from a branch directly above them, his grin manic. “Were you listening to us?!” Bai Yue shrieked, her face flushing red.

Suddenly, more monkeys appeared from the surrounding trees, dropping down from branches and swinging in on vines. There must have been at least a dozen of them, all chittering with barely-suppressed glee.

“Of course we were listening!” one of them cackled. “That was adorable!”

“The dragon prince getting his head massaged by the cursed female!”

“He didn’t even incinerate her!”

“I told you they were bonding!”

Cāng Jì’s face went through several shades of red and purple. “I—we were NOT—this is NOT—”

“For goodness’ sake,” Bai Yue groaned, covering her face with her hands. “Do you monkeys have ANY concept of privacy?”

“Nope!” Hóu Xián said cheerfully, flipping upright and landing on the ground with a bounce. “Now come on! Relaxation time is over! It is time for maintenance!”

“Maintenance?” Cāng Jì repeated, his voice filled with dread.

“Oh yes!” another monkey chirped. “Very important! We have to repair the vines and woven pods! Safety first!”

“Safety?” Bai Yue asked nervously.

The monkeys’ grins widened in unison, and she knew, with absolute certainty, that she was going to regret asking that question.

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