Chapter 23

Lantern Festival

"Father! Jie! Quickly! We have to find a good spot to view the parade and the fireworks!" Meiyin rushes her father and sister as she lead the way through the crowded street.

"Meiyin, slow down or we'll get separated!" Weimin call out loudly to his daughter, hoping she can hear him over all the noise on the street.

Meiyin skips back to where her father is and took hold of his hand. She excitedly drags him along through the crowds. Yueyin and Xiaolan tries to keep up but due to the pushing crowd she lost sight of them. Yueyin turns around to reach for Xiaolan but didn't see her anywhere. She tried looking for them but couldn't fight against the flow of the crowd so she eventually gave up and decide to just enjoy by herself for the moment. Every year their family would always attend the lantern festival. They would fight through the crowds to look for a good spot to watch the fireworks and spend the fun night by each other's side. The only year that they skipped was the year their mother passed away.

Yueyin escaped the crowded main street to one of the bridges that connects the two main street in the city. She isn't worry about being separated from her father and sister since it wasn't the first time that it happened. One of them will come look for her when they've found a good spot. Yueyin slowly makes her way to the center of the bridge, reading the poems that was written on a strip of paper hanging loosely under each lanterns. This bridge was decked out with lanterns lining both sides of its railings just like every other streets and corners of the city on this night. The only difference between the bridges and the streets are the hanging poetries underneath the lanterns. There are stalls that makes money by selling poetries and riddles, people can buy one and if they can solve the riddles they will be gifted a lantern. Those stalls are often a big attraction for students and the educated young misters of rich families to show off. The poetries on the bridges are simple poetries written by young students to celebrate the coming spring.

---

Yixing and Luhan was following the flow of the crowd towards where the fireworks will be at when Yixing spotted a store that sells high quality lanterns. Yixing motion for Luhan and the two of them break from the crowd. Yixing wanted to buy some lanterns for Liufei to cheer her up. Earlier, when he went to look for her to sneak her out to join him and Luhan but her maid told him that Liufei had locked herself in her room and refuses to see anybody. Yixing asked what happened and the maid told him that it seems Liufei got in another argument with the empress and is in a very bad mood. Yixing had nodded in understanding and instructed the maid to take good care of Liufei before leaving to join Luhan.

As Yixing was picking out some lanterns for Liufei, Luhan caught sight of the lanterns with poetries that lined the bridge right outside of the store. Luhan handed Yixing the lantern that he picked out for Liufei and left the store. He makes his way over to the bridge and slowly read through the poetries.

Luhan was lost in the world of poetries as he continues up the bridge. He blocks out the noises of the crowds, the sound of water running underneath the bridge and the presence of people crossing the bridge. He really enjoys this feeling of being just another person among the crowd. He smiles at the poems as they makes him feel the joy and festive mood of the citizens as they welcome a new spring after a dreadful winter.

Lost in thoughts, Luhan didn't realized that he had already made it to the center of the bridge. As he reaches out for the poem hanging from the lantern at the center of the bridge, another hand also reaches out for it at the same time. Since he wasn't aware of his surroundings, he didn't noticed the stranger that was heading towards the center of the bridge just like him but from the other side. The stranger's hand grabbed onto the piece of paper first and his hand landed on the stranger's.

Surprised, they both quickly withdrew their hands and look up at each other. Luhan unexpectedly stares into the eyes of a young lady that had her face veiled. Instead of immediately apologizing like he normally would have done, he couldn't help but blurted out a poem to compliment her beautiful eyes.

"Sparkling like a star in the night sky

Reflecting the light of the lanterns

A simple glance will illuminate many souls

A gentleman’s only wish would be

To become like the light of the lanterns

Reflecting in your eyes."

The young lady laugh lightly at his boldness and said, "I don't think that's what was written on the lantern's paper."

Luhan smiles, eyes still glued to the young lady, "I must have read it wrong then."

The young lady then replied to his poem with one of her own about a nice chance meeting with the right people.

"Under the brightly lit moon

Amongst the crowded street

The search for an opportunity

To cross path with the right stars."

This time it was Luhan's turn to laugh in amusement. He commented, "I also don't think that's what was written on the lantern's paper."

After apologizing for his rudeness earlier, to which she quickly forgave him as it was an accident, the two of them proceeded to idle chatting. They chatted about the crowds, the music, the lights and the festival. Luhan had never felt this enjoyable chatting with a girl before. He wonder if it's because she doesn’t know who he is so there was no fakeness or strict formalities between them, or if it's simply because of this festive mood he's in that's making this a wonderful experience he never had before.

"People gets more creative every year," the young lady commented about the different lanterns and decorations.

Luhan turns to her and asks, "Do you attend the festival every year?"

But before the young lady could answer, someone calls out for her, "Young miss!"

The two of them turn to look towards the sound and Luhan can see another young lady was running towards them. "Eldest young miss, I've been searching for you. Let's go, master and the second young miss has found a good viewing spot and are waiting for us."   

The young lady nodded at her maid then turn back to Luhan and bow politely to him before leaving with the maid. As the young lady and her maid disappear amongst the crowd, Yixing came over with several lanterns in hand.

"Er ge?" Yixing questions his spaced out brother, "Something wrong?"

Luhan shook his head, "I met someone nice." He finally turn to look at Yixing and saw the amount of lanterns in his brother's hands, "Why did you buy so many?"

"Well, I'm not sure which one Feifei would like. What do you think Er ge?" Yixing raises all the lanterns that he bought up for Luhan to pick, but Luhan turn back towards the railing of the bridge.

He reaches up for the lantern in the center of the bridge, "I like this one."

"Ge, I don't think that one is for sale."

Luhan laugh and took the lantern anyway. "These are really good poems Xing, you should pick one too," Luhan said as he makes his way off the bridge.

"Ge, they're not for sale," Yixing repeated as he follow after Luhan.

---

Jongin happily chases after a few girls that he was flirting with earlier through the crowd. After escaping from Baekhuyn and Chanyeol, Jongin had been wandering the streets with an apple in one hand and a wine jar in another. He had flirted with many girls as the streets became busier as the night came. Lanterns were lit and people start pouring out into the streets. Jongin was so fascinated with all the strange food and games they have. He went from one stall to another to check out all the things he haven't seen in Korea.

Some time passes when he start noticing people were all going towards one direction. He joins in and let the crowd pushes him along. On the way, he was walking next to four young ladies and he started flirting with them. They seems to have become embarrassed so they quicken their steps and tried to get away from him. Jongin wonder if this was a challenge. Chasing. He was good at that.

In his hurry to go after those girls, Jongin accidentally bump into someone hard, knocking the person into the other person beside her. Jongin quickly reaches out for her arm to help staple her but his eyes still looks ahead, trying to keep track of the four girls. He mutter a quick apology then took off.

---

Minseok let out a sigh as Jongdae continues to and talk his ears off. He wondered why this man is always bothered by Kyungsoo's favoritism towards Junmyeon. To be honest, he couldn't careless to know why. He just wishes that whenever it happened, Jongdae would stop making him a target to vent out his annoyance towards Junmyeon.

Minseok lifts the wine jar he's holding and down another gulp. He tries to block out Jongdae's voice and focuses on the busy street below. That's when his eyes caught sight of the girl that helped him and Jun the other day. It seems someone bumped into her, knocking her over and her face veiled slipped off. He also recognized the maid by her side that is trying to help her pick up the veil off the ground.

He glance over at Jongdae, hoping he hadn't noticed his surprised reaction when he saw her. Minseok had honestly thought that he would never see her again because even just a slight chance like this could have caused him his life. He also took a quick glance into the room, hoping no one noticed anything. When he made sure that everything is alright, he set his eyesight back towards the street where the girl and her maid was. His eyes follow after them as they mingle back into the crowd and headed towards the fireworks site.

Minseok let out another sigh, this time out of relief. He can't even imagine what Junmyeon or Kyungsoo will do to him if they ever found out that Minseok left such a huge loose end on a mission. Even if they won't kill him, they might send him to finish her off. He made a deal to let her live, he doesn't want to go back on his own words.

He hope that they'll never meet again in this life time. For both his and her own good.

---

"What do you think of this one?" Liufei asks.

"Sure," Sehun replied. He reach out and handed the stall owner payment for the two lanterns that Liufei picked out. She happily hands him one and the two of them continue on to the next stall.

Sehun doesn't know what he's doing anymore. He was growing bored of the imperial palace and was on his way out to return to the embassy when he saw her trying to sneak out of the palace. He laughed internally at the flashback of this frail girl trying to climb the tree that branches out to the outside of the palace wall. Even if she had succeed in climbing it, how would she get down from the high tree branch on the other side of the wall? This lively girl is one of the few attractions that is keeping Sehun from immediately returning to Korea and leaving the other three behind.

When he saw her, she just slipped and fell from the tree. He went over to help her up and as soon as she looks up and saw his face she let out a loud frustrated grunt. She got up off the ground and dust herself off. "Why is it always you that catches me in these kind of situations?"

Sehun just shrugged, he's even surprised himself at the amount of times he ran into her. Their relationship seems to have improved quite a bit after all of those chance meetings. They even met up a couple times to chat, well…he was flirting but seems she's the oblivious type. Either that or his flirting skills isn't as great as he had thought they were.

He asked her what she was trying to do and she told him about the lantern festival happening outside of the palace. He offered to help sneak her out but she'll have to disguise herself as one of the Korean guards. He also said that in exchange for helping her sneak out, she'll have to repay him. Liufei had bite her lips in hesitation but the thought of the fun-filled festival outside totally outweighs whatever crazy request he might want to have her full filled.

That's how they ended up here, blending in among the crowds. They followed the flow of the people and arrived at a good spot for parade and fireworks viewing. People were pushing around so Liufei reaches out and held onto Sehun's hand. He looks up at her questioningly and she blushed, mumbling something about afraid of being separated. Sehun smirked and let her held on.

---

The fireworks started, lighting up the night sky. Everyone cheered loudly and turned to hug their love ones.

Yixing and Luhan turn and gave each other a brotherly slap on the shoulder with big smiles.

Yueyin and Meiyin tackle their father in a group hug that Weimin couldn't help but to wrap his arms around them lovingly.

Minseok, Junmyeon, Jongdae, Kyungsoo and Jun all gather on the balcony of the restaurant to watch the fireworks together.

Jongin stares up at the fireworks in awe as the four girls he was chasing earlier each tip toed up to give him a peck on his cheeks.

Sehun and Liufei were still holding hands as they watch the fireworks together. Liufei turn to sneak a glance at Sehun and smile to herself. He was so focus on the fireworks that he didn't noticed. When he turn to look her way, her attention was already back on the colorful fireworks.

They were all in separate areas of the crowd, enjoying the festive and lively atmosphere this day bring. 

Author's Notes:

Welcome new subscribers! And as always, thank you for everyone's continuous support.

Ok, I'll admit it. I am definitely not good at making poetry. Please excuse my zero-talent of poetry and pretend that they are good poetries XD

I wanted to get this chapter out yesterday so I can say Happy Lunar New Year to everyone but that didn't happened haha..well it's still new year today so I wish everyone a new year full of happiness, success, prosperity and good health.