“Why did you drag us away from her?” Tai Taeyang, questions in confusion.

Moon patches, fortune telling, fight-night. Moon patches, fortune telling, fight night. Lan, whispering aloud to himself, unconsciously. Hearing Lan’s unconscious rants of words, Tai Taeyang asks, “What is he talking about?” all these rants of random words, meant, Guang Mizuki has already taken over Lan’s mind. Freaking him out. Those untold past stories, those tales, only written in words on books and records are actually true with a hinge of bitterness. It is, indeed it is difficult for him to handle such truth. Having his mind, freaked out like anything, he can neither stop walking nor can he keep walking. With much staggering, he walks past Tai Taeyang and Tai Tai.

“Moon patches, right. Moon patches. That old woman also had moon patches on her neck area. They were glowing, sometimes dimly.” Tai Tai.

“What? Did you see right? Tai Taeyang asks again to make sure he heard right.

“Yes. maybe, she was also attacked by this. But why her?” Tai Tai continues, “I wonder what that woman did to Lan, he has been acting and ranting words since he met her.”

Tai Taeyang decides, “Let’s take her with us then. We can examine her patches.”

Hearing this, Tai Tai softly screams, “Why? Are you mad? What if she is dangerous?” “But…” Tai Taeyang hesitates. Both of them takes a glance at Lan, and decided to take her for interrogation.

Morning.

Chirp chirp, birds singing.

Sunlight peeking from the creaks of windows.

A whispering voice. ‘Lan, come with me to Yue city. After all you are my only relative left in this vast world.’  The voice cracks a bit. ‘I…I miss… I miss everyone. The king, the whole city. I feel so dark here.’

Lan tossing and turning on his bed, eyes kept tightly shut yet squinting.

The cracked voice now crying. ‘Don’t ignore me, Lan. It is so dark here. So dark here.’

Lan, don’t ignore me.

Lan, wake up, don’t ignore me.

Lan, don’t ignore me.

Lan

Lan

Lan, wake up.

Lan, wake up.

It’s already morning.

Wake up.

Lan.

“WHO?”

Screaming on top of his voice, Lan wakes up jerking, from the paralyzing sleep. Startling, already woke up Tai Tai, who has come to wake him up. Although, he has been startled by a dreaming Lan. He is still smiling as usual. A sweet smile that can ease every kind of difficulties and sadness. Any kind of depression. Any kind of hurting. A bright smile, seeing which Lan also felt like he has already forgot the dark dream he was having.

“What are you so worked up for, so early in the morning?” Tai Tai says with a sweet smile.

“J-just a nightmare.” “Sorry for starling you.” Lan apologizes.

While talking with Tai Tai, Tai Taeyang enters the room, with busy-ness visible in his steps and body language. He sees lazy, bedridden Lan and says, “Hurry and wake up. We need to set off.”

“Set off…?” Lan asks. “Where are you setting off to?

Tai Tai looks at Tai Taeyang for permission. As Tai Taeyang nods in agreement he starts, “We are setting off to find the books.”

“Books? What books?” Lan asks again.

Tai Taeyang blurts out, ‘Volumes of The Three Elements.”

Hearing the name, Lan’s eyes widen. “Why didn’t you tell me first? I know a place, a great place where you can find it.”

“You know?” Tai Taeyang.

Lan smiles and replies “Yes.”

The three of them sets off. Passing through woods, a city, and few markets.

The whole time Tai Tai and Lan are walking together, catching up, sharing stories and having fun, while Tai Taeyang is walking ahead and making faces at Lan being so friendly with Tai Tai. He was kind of jealous to be honest. Afterall, Tai Tai is his one and only partner. Having someone else hitting on his partner, made his head hot, but he kept it all to himself for the sake of his childhood friend’s return.

“How do you know such place where we can find the books we are searching for?” Tai Tai asks, being curious. To answer it, Lan says, “The place where I lived all these years.” He smiles. An absolute happiness can be seen in that smile, an honest one at that. “Where did you live?” Tai Tai asks.

“You will see.” Lan smirks.

“Earlier, you mentioned, you catch snakes, do they catch snakes too?” Tai Tai. Curious.

“Haha no no.” Lan bursts into laughing, almost falling on the ground. On the other hand, Seeing Lan laughing like crazy, Tai Taeyang felt at ease. Lan continues, “Unfortunately no..” he chokes of laughter. “People there are afraid of snakes. So afraid, that even an old man could cry after seeing a snake passing by. Even gods there are afraid of snakes.” Lan, “I used to help them, catching snakes and kill those poisonous ones.” “Our master, makes medicines out of the poisons of snakes, so he taught us how to catch snakes, unfortunately, none of them can dare to approach. So, I had to do all the catching.” Laughing to the stories of Lan, Tai Tai seemed to enjoy the trip.

“How far is this place?” Tai Taeyang interrupts out of nowhere. This sudden interruption of Tai Taeyang made Tai Tai and Lan laugh more loudly. It was like Tai Taeyang was never on this journey. It was so sudden!

“Not so far from here.” Lan replied through tears of laughter. Tai Taeyang, “Do you even have the track of time? We have been walking for at least half the day.” Lan gasps, “WHAT?! Half the day! Seriously I thought it’s only been 10-20 minutes or maybe one hour.”

Tai Tai laughs. Tai Taeyang sighs.

“Let’s go inside that inn and take some rest”, noticing an inn, Tai Taeyang suggests.

“Boss, three teas please.” Lan orders one of the waiters. The waiter okays and went off with a gentle smile on his facing, tossing a piece of rugged cloth on his shoulder. Suddenly Lan shouts and orders for some peanuts. The boss again okays without looking back.

He inn looks busy, bustling with customers ranking from every kind, from Kingsman to farmers. Only thing that can distinguish them are their clothes. Though these Kingsman are of the very lower rank, they still have royal clothing on. The farmers are the ones with very rugged clothes, torn here and there, stitched with different cloth of different color to hide the torn parts. And the market place bosses of other stalls, are here too to have some refreshments. Or maybe just came here to hang out and take some break. Lots of talks. Lots of stories, can be heard from each and every table. Some gossiping about some rude customers who argued over the lowest price and bargained till the owner has no profit left. Some are talking about those group of women who comes to market looking like a princess. Some are talking about current news. So many topics from each table.