"I think the monks forgot the rest of the bed. There isn’t even a pillow. Just a... a block of wood covered in silk. Am I expected to sleep like a statue?"

The Twins, Kai and Kun, however, were thrilled. They had already discovered that the wooden floors made excellent sliding tracks if they ran fast enough in their socks.

They were currently trying to see if they could slide all the way into the courtyard without hitting the "Gong of Silence."

Chi Song was the only one who seemed to fit in. He sat by the window, watching the young monks, boys their age and slightly older, performing their afternoon drills in the courtyard below.

He watched their disciplined movements, the way they moved in perfect unison, their breath synchronized with the wind.

"They’re strong," Song remarked, his eyes reflecting the cold mountain light. "They don’t look like they’re playing. They look like they’re becoming part of the mountain."

Huaijin sat on her straw mat, her pigtails drooping slightly from the long climb. She observed the monks, too, but her adult soul was itching for something more than just "sightseeing."

She could feel Luo Ming’s presence just outside the paper-thin door, a silent sentinel who was undoubtedly making sure the room was the exact right temperature for her "Little Miss" comfort.

’I love Luo Ming, and I love my cousins,’ Huaijin thought, ’but if I spend another hour being ’watched over,’ I’m going to lose my executive mind. I need to explore. I need to see the parts of this temple that aren’t on the ’Rich Kid Tour.’

Escaping a professional butler and two overprotective cousins required the kind of tactical planning usually reserved for hostile takeovers.

Huaijin waited until the "Golden Hour," when the sun dipped low and cast long, confusing shadows across the temple grounds.

Yuanying was busy trying to figure out how to do her hair without a plug-in curling iron, and the twins had finally managed to annoy Butler Lin enough that she was chasing them toward the kitchens.

"I’m going to go... uh... meditate on a bug!" Huaijin announced, standing up and dusting off her knees.

Song looked up from his book. "On a bug?"

"Yes! A very spiritual mountain bug! It’s in the corner of the courtyard. I need to be alone with my thoughts, Brother Song. Very deep, eight-year-old thoughts."

Song, who had learned that Huaijin was best left to her own devices when she got "The Look" in her eyes, simply nodded. "Don’t go near the cliffs. And if the bug talks back, come get me."

Huaijin scurried out. Avoiding Luo Ming was the real challenge.

She knew he was probably watching the main exit, so she did the only logical thing: she climbed through the back window of the washroom, dropped into a pile of soft pine needles, and crawled behind a row of ancient stone lanterns.

She found herself in a part of the temple that felt forgotten by time. The buildings here were older, the wood silvered by centuries of snow.

There were no tourists here, no shouting twins. Only the sound of the wind whistling through the prayer flags and the distant, rhythmic thwack-thwack of a monk chopping wood.

In the very corner of the temple grounds, right where the stone wall met the edge of a breathtaking precipice, stood an ancient, gnarled pine tree. Its branches twisted toward the sky like the fingers of an old wizard, and its bark was thick and rugged.

If I can get up there, Huaijin thought, looking at a particularly sturdy-looking branch, I can see over the wall. I can see the whole valley. I can be ’Huaijin the Explorer,’ not ’Huaijin the Protected.’

She checked her surroundings. Clear.

She took off her heavy, puffy "Marshmallow Jacket", which was great for warmth but terrible for aerodynamics, and tucked it into a hollow at the base of the tree. Wearing only her thick wool sweater and her sturdy climbing leggings, she grabbed the first branch.

Climbing a tree as an adult is a matter of strength. But climbing a tree as an eight-year-old is a matter of geometry.

Huaijin grunted as she hauled herself up. Her pigtails kept getting caught in the pine needles, and her boots struggled to find purchase on the frozen bark.

She was halfway to the first major branch when she realized she had made a tactical error.

She had reached for a higher branch, but her legs weren’t quite long enough to push her up, and her arms weren’t quite strong enough to pull her higher.

She was currently hanging in a sort of mid-air horizontal stretch, her stomach pressed against a knot in the wood, her left leg dangling uselessly, and her right pigtail firmly snagged on a twig.

"Oh, for the love of... " she muttered, her face turning a bright, frustrated red. "I am a former titan of industry. I have closed multi-million dollar deals in three different time zones. I cannot be defeated by a pine tree."

She tried to wiggle. The tree wiggled back. She tried to kick. Her boot slipped, making a pathetic scritch sound against the bark.

She was stuck. She was a tiny, pigtail-snagged ladybug pinned to a giant green corkboard.

"If Luo Ming sees me like this, I will never hear the end of it," she whispered to the tree. "I will be forced to wear a safety harness for the rest of my life. I’ll have to go to high school in a bubble-wrap suit."

"You know," a voice drifted up from the base of the tree, a voice that was deeper than she remembered, but carried a familiar, playful edge. "The Abbot usually says that the mountain tests your spirit, but I think this tree is just testing your grip."

Huaijin froze. Her heart did a frantic little dance in her chest. She slowly, painfully twisted her neck to look down.

Standing at the foot of the tree was a boy. He was taller now, his frame lean and athletic, dressed in the simple grey and white training robes of a temple disciple.

His hair was cropped shorter than it had been at the amusement park, but those sharp, obsidian eyes were unmistakable.

It was Yun Jue. The "Little Brother" she made with candies as a bribe from two years ago.

He was leaning against the trunk with his arms crossed, watching her with an expression of pure, unadulterated amusement.

"Little Brother?" Huaijin gasped, which was a mistake, because the gasp made her slip another inch down the trunk. "What are you doing here? And stop looking! Turn around! This is a... a private meditation session!" 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Yun Jue couldn’t help it. A chuckle, a low, melodic sound that seemed to harmonize with the wind, escaped his lips.

"A private meditation session?" he repeated, his eyes sparkling. "Is that what they call it in the city when you try to become one with the bark? Because from down here, it looks more like you’re trying to hug the tree and the tree is being very stubborn about it."

"I am exploring!" Huaijin shouted, her pigtails shaking. "I am scaling the heights of wisdom!"

"Well, ’Wisdom’ is about six feet higher, and your right pigtail is currently being held hostage by that twig," Yun Jue noted.

He pushed off from the trunk and, with a grace that made Huaijin’s climb look like a turtle trying to run a marathon, he leaped up.

He caught a branch, swung his body upward, and in three smooth motions, he was perched on a branch just below her.

He reached up, his fingers deft and quick, and gently unhooked her pigtail from the snag.

"There," he said, his face now level with hers. "You’re no longer a permanent part of the foliage."

Huaijin huffed, her cheeks still burning with embarrassment. Now that he was close, she could see the changes the last two years had made.

The boy who had been a "Little Brother" was becoming a young man. His shoulders were broader, his gaze more settled. There was a quiet strength in him that seemed to match the mountain itself.

"Two years," he said softly, his amusement softening into something warmer. "I wondered if you’d ever show up here. Grandpa Chi mentioned he might send the kids this winter, but I didn’t think you’d be the first thing I found in the ’Quiet Zone.’"

"Wait," Huaijin said, finally finding a stable place to sit on a thick branch, though she still felt like a ruffled bird. "You live here? You’re a disciple?"