Priestess of The Moon

Chapter 5

The room was dark and the dim yellow lantern light made me nervous. I tried to find something to talk about.

"Did you train these five days? Maybe with Yang Jun?"

"Do you think Yang Jun is better than me?" Rui asked, his eyes never lifting from the board and rolling around his black pebble in his fingers, thinking about where to place it.

"Is he not?" I thought the scholar would be a chess-master.

"I'm not, actually. I always lose to Rui. I can only win against Zhu Hua," Yang Jun said.

"And that was before I learned the rules," Zhu Hua said, laughing casually. "I most certainly can beat you now."

"Maybe." He sipped his tea without offense.

"Then you didn't train at all?" I asked Rui again.

"Train? Of course I have. My life relies on this game."

I tried to laugh. "That's an exaggeration."

For the first time during the game, he lifted his head and looked at me.

"Li Xiang, it's not. Now I suggest you start paying attention too, or else I'll win."

I stopped talking. The tension in the air was too much. Minute after minute we would pick up a playing piece and put it on the board. Soon the only sound that filled the room was the sound of Go pieces being put down. If it wasn't for that and the flickering of the lights, I wouldn't be able to tell time was passing at all.

Both of us managed to stand our grounds. By the time an hour had passed, though, I was beginning to lose. Rui surrounded more territory than me, and within a few more moves, I was trapped.

"I've lost," I said the moment the game was decided.

I put down the piece I was holding in my hand and looked up to Rui with a smile.

"It was a good game," I said.

To my surprise, he didn't look happy. In fact, he looked worked-out and sickly. His eyes looked sunken in and he had dark circles, not to mention his lips were dry and cracking.

"You don't look well, Rui!" I quickly grabbed a cup and poured some tea. "Drink some tea, you need to have some rest!"

"Oh, he really does look terrible," Zhu Hua said, brows ceasing.

"That's why I was adamant against it." Yang Jun said.

"Against what?"

"He stayed up all night reading Go tutorials by the old masters," Yang Jun said. "I didn't think he'd really only sleep three hours the last few nights-"

"Is that true?" I asked, horrified. "Shouldn't he see a doctor?"

"He wanted us to keep it a secret!" Zhu Hua hissed at Yang Jun. Her face was dark and her voice was surprisingly low and angry.

"Zhu Hua-" I held onto her shoulder to calm her down. "Please don't be mad at him!"

"Whatever, it's fine," Rui said faintly, finally speaking.

"But it's the honor of a man-"

"Honor doesn't matter, she was concerned," Yang Jun responded calmly. "And I am too."

"Thank you, Li Xiang and Yang Jun. and Zhu Hua, too. I'm sorry for worrying you guys," Rui said. Then he turned to me. "And I'm sorry for being rude before. It was hard to concentrate, but now that I won, I feel great." He grinned.

His face was pale and he still looked awful, but the happiness was evident.

He wasn't lying.

"So this time will you go outside with me, Li Xiang?"

I bit my lips.

How in the world did he expect me to refuse him after this?

I had already taken him for granted, both for breaking my promise the first time, and putting him through so much the second.

And I had so much more to apologize for-for saying I wanted to cut off all ties with him, for threatening him at the petty belief he didn't think of me as a friend.

Wasn't it obvious? I was no temporary toy. No one would go this far for a temporary toy. He was a true friend.

"I-I never wanted you to do this," I said softly. "I don't understand why you tried so hard for my sake."

Rui looked at Zhu Hua and Yang Jun, and then laughed, but not unkindly.

"Don't you want to go outside too? Even though you speak so highly of books, is it not because they are your only window to the outside?"

He was right. Why had I never noticed?

I suddenly remembered it, how growing up, I always sat on my veranda, hand reaching out to catch the raindrops, or snowflakes, sometimes watching the birds chirp as they perched there, or the petals as the drifted into my room. I brought a hand to my eye.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"For what?"

"For not giving up on me. And also for winning, because I think I wanted you to win too. That part of me that I hid away-" I began to sob, "you've freed her. You've freed me."