A Proposal

Somewhere in the deep emerald belly of the Tibetan forest, under the watchful eye of mist-shrouded peaks and the judgmental chirping of cicadas, Lin Yu was fishing.

With a rock.

There was no bait. No rod. No technique. Just him, a smooth river, and a suspiciously polished river stone that he’d personally named “Fishslayer.”

He balanced on one foot atop a slippery log, eyebrows furrowed in monk-like concentration.

“Fish… are like secrets,” he muttered to no one in particular. “You don’t catch them by chasing. You wait. You listen. You—”

SPLASH!

“—throw a big damn rock and hope for the best!”

The rock soared, skipped once, then cratered the surface of the river with all the subtlety of a celestial punishment. Fish fled. Frogs screamed. Somewhere upstream, a duck fainted.

Lin Yu crouched, grinning.

Then a voice came.

“Are you Lin Yu?”

He blinked.

Standing above him on the riverbank was a woman. No, a silhouette of impossible elegance — like moonlight had stitched her into existence. Her robe shimmered with gold filigree, her long hair drifted weightlessly even in the still air, and her jade eyes sparkled with barely restrained chaos.

“Oh no,” Lin Yu muttered. “She’s hot. This is going to be a problem.”

She descended — floated — down from the trees like the world itself was afraid to disobey her trajectory.

“Are you the boy called Monkey?” she asked, arms crossed beneath sleeves that probably cost more than a village harvest.

“That depends,” Lin Yu said, cautiously standing up. “Are you here to scold me or stab me?”

“I am Luo Caiyi,” she said. “Daughter of the Jade Emperor.”

He froze. His grip on Fishslayer loosened.

“Wait… seriously?”

“You are younger than I imagined,” she noted, circling him. “But your Qi… it’s loud. Chaotic. Alive.”

Lin Yu scratched the back of his head. “That’s just the temple diet. I’ve got a lot of repressed energy.”

She stopped. Looked at him. And, in a moment that would haunt the forest’s gossiping birds forever, she blushed.

“I’ve decided,” she declared.

He immediately braced for violence.

“I will marry you.”

Silence.

A distant squirrel fell out of a tree from pure shock.

Lin Yu turned and stared directly at you, the reader.

“Okay, no offense, but is this what puberty’s supposed to be like? Because I’m pretty sure most boys don’t get proposed to by divine royalty while holding a river rock.”

Back to her: “You… want to marry me?”

“If I win in a duel to first blood,” she said, conjuring a blade of translucent Qi from the air itself, “you become my husband.”

Lin Yu blinked. “Aren’t you at least ten years older than me?”

“Eleven,” she said proudly.

“…That doesn’t help.”

He sighed and dropped Fishslayer. Then pulled the carved staff from his back — long, aged wood with patterns he’d chiseled during boring temple lectures. Qi flared faintly from the grain, wild and unfocused.

“I’d say ‘ladies first,’ but you’re clearly not here to be polite.”

They clashed.

Her sword moved like poetry. His staff like chaos.

She spun, generating crystalline flowers from Qi — each exploding mid-air into darts of shimmering matter. Lin Yu ducked, rolled, used a tree to vault himself into the air, then swung his staff like a broom possessed.

CRACK!

He struck her blade — not the woman. Their weapons flared with colliding energy, shaking leaves from the trees. Her eyes widened.

“You’ve… refined your Qi without formality. Without a master.”

“I watched squirrels,” Lin Yu said, panting. “They’re fantastic at kung fu.”

She slashed, fast as lightning. Lin Yu twisted, let his staff bend unnaturally with a pulse of Qi, and jabbed under her guard.

Tap.

A splinter of wood pressed gently against her cheek. A single drop of blood appeared.

Silence again.

She stared.

Then smiled.

Lin Yu dropped to one knee, gasping. “Okay… ow. Ow. That was a terrible idea. I’m gonna feel that in my soul.”

“You won,” she said softly.