The river was a wide, muddy ribbon, sluggish and patient under the grey silk of the sky. The air hummed with the calls of unseen insects and carried the rich, wet scent of earth and decay. Luo Feng stood awkwardly, feeling the chill of his damp robes seep into his skin. He was a prince of the empire, heir to the Dragon Throne, and he had never felt more out of place.
The girl—Lusi—merely pointed to a weathered wooden plank driven into the bank. "See? The boat stop."
Feng nodded, a gesture lost on her as she was already scanning the river's bend with a practiced eye. Her confidence was a stark contrast to his own disorientation. In the world he came from, directions were given with bows and precise, obsequious detail. Here, they were given with a casual point and an assumption of understanding.
"Our wait is over," she announced, a note of satisfaction in her voice. "See? The boat has arrived."
A flat-bottomed river barge, poled by a single figure, emerged from the slight mist hanging over the water. It moved with a quiet grace, cutting a silent V through the brown water. Lusi waved an arm, a broad, friendly gesture. The boatman altered his course without a word, steering towards them with gentle pushes of his long pole.
The barge nudged against the bank with a soft thud. The boatman, a middle-aged man with a face leathered by sun and wind, grinned at Lusi, his eyes crinkling. "So Lusi! You came at just this time?"
"No, not this time, Uncle," she replied, hopping nimbly onto the deck. Feng followed less gracefully. "My father told me to deliver some medicine to his friend."
The boatman's brow furrowed in thought. "But isn't your father's friend's house at the end of Qiling Mountain?"
"It is!" Lusi said, impressed. "You still remember. You have a great memory for your age."
The man puffed out his chest in mock offense. "I am not that old!"
Feng watched the exchange, a silent spectator to a familiarity he had never known. This wasn't a subject addressing a nobleman's daughter. This was an uncle teasing a niece. He felt a strange pang of something—not jealousy, but a deep, hollow curiosity.
Lusi turned back to him, her eyes bright. "Well, why are you going to the capital? Is your home there?"
Feng looked away, at the passing water. The question was so simple, yet the answer was a tangled knot of duty, expectation, and cold ambition. "I do live there," he said, his voice quieter than he intended. "But it never feels like home."
He expected pity, or perhaps confusion. Instead, he saw a flash of understanding in her eyes. "Oh," she said, as if he'd just explained everything. "You might live on rent. Don't worry, keep it up!" She reached out and gave him a firm, reassuring pat on the shoulder.
The contact was so sudden, so utterly devoid of the calculated deference he was used to, that it stole the breath from his lungs. She dapped my shoulder. A prince's shoulder. No one touches me. The thought wasn't angry, just stunned. She thinks I'm poor.
"Will we reach the capital after crossing the river?" he asked, desperate to steer the conversation onto safer, more logistical ground.
Lusi laughed, a sound as clear and unexpected as a bell in the wilderness. "No! After reaching Zhejiang, we have to cross two more cities. It will take twenty days at most."
"Twenty days?!" The number was staggering. In his mind, distances were measured in days on horseback or in a palanquin, not on foot.
"I saved your time," she said cheerfully. "If you took the land path, it would take forty days to reach the capital." She looked at him, her head tilted. "Shé? Isn't it normal?"
"Why don't you take a cart or a horse?" he asked, genuinely perplexed. "It would be faster."
Her expression softened into something more thoughtful. She gazed out at the riverbanks sliding past, at the dense, green life crowding the water's edge. "When we fasten the things," she said, her voice taking on a philosophical tone that seemed too old for her young face, "we miss many things. So when I walk all the way, I could enjoy the path. Even this water path… see?" She pointed towards a sheltered inlet where a cluster of pink and white lotuses floated serenely on broad green pads. "You won't be able to see them from the land path. So rather than focusing on the goal, one should enjoy the journey."
Luo Feng followed her gaze to the flowers. He had seen lotuses before, of course. They were carved into palace pillars, embroidered on silken robes, painted on exquisite scrolls. But he realized, with a jolt, he had never truly looked at a real one. He had never noticed how the petals seemed to hold the very light itself.
He looked from the lotuses to the girl who saw them, and then down at his own hands, which had only ever been trained to hold a sword or a seal of office. He had spent his life focusing on the goal—the ultimate goal of the throne. He had never once considered the journey.
He stayed silent after that. He had no answer for her. Her simple words had dismantled his entire worldview, and he didn't know how to build it back. For the first time in his life, Luo Feng, the Second Prince, was not just lost on a path. He was lost in his own mind. And the guide was this impossible girl who knew the way to the capital but didn't know who he was.
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