"You have to be careful with these things!" the old master Tiān Gōng Guǐ Jiàng hit Shāng Bù Huàn on the back of the head. "I swear, hand a swordmaster a brush, and he finds a way to break it!" He snatched the brush from Shāng's hand before shoving him out the door.

They had hidden the old master away far in the nearby mountains. It was too cold for cicadas and a bit too difficult for the imperials to scale the peaks to reach them. Not that they would think to look up there anyway. It wasn't as tall a mountain as Làng Wū Yáo had once lived but it certainly had its height. The trek upward had been a bit more challenging with the injuries, but with some qi healing and carrying Mù Tiān Mìng partway up the mountainside, they had scaled to the cabin in the peaks without being tracked.

Làng closed his eyes, listening to the peaceful sounds of the forest and mountains around them. No signs of cicadas, no destructive swords, no imperial armies. It almost made him forget about that obsessive assassin after his own voice. Almost.

"Good job breaking it, man!" Líng Yá criticized as Làng settled down on the hillside.

Shāng rubbed the back of his head. "Man, what a pain."

"He is right though," Mù chided him, rubbing at her ankle. While it had mostly healed, the hike up the mountain had irritated it a bit. "That brush is an important tool. It needs to be protected, unless you want to try to carry all those swords around like we used to."

"I'd rather not." He frowned as he rubbed his head some more. He did let his guard down for a moment and the brush took the damage. Now they had no means of sealing the swords until it was fixed. Then the challenge came of getting those swords back from Yīn Xiàtiān. "I'm not sure how I missed that one so easily."

Làng plucked at the strings on his pipa. "The cicadas do not seem to give off much else other than sound. No qi, no signs of movement, nothing more than sound. It allows them to hide in plain sight."

"So that's their secret," Shāng frowned. It would've been much easier if they had some sort of qi, but nothing was ever easy with these assassins. He idly wondered if that was how Xiē Yīngluò hid her scorpions in plain sight. Enough of that thought though. He didn't want to think about how he nearly ate a plate of scorpions.

"With the summer months setting in, that sound will be difficult to pick apart from normal cicadas," Mù frowned. "It would be quite troublesome if she could recruit them too."

The red bard hummed quietly. Yīn's cicadas were annoying enough to deal with already. A single one could sound like an entire swarm, and it threw him off entirely. He was still trying to figure out the best way to fight these cicadas and not put himself or his companions at risk. Perhaps some fire spells, but even then, she could simply summon more. She seemed to have an endless supply of them.

"If only we could hear as well as you do," Shāng frowned.

Làng frowned, standing up and slinging Líng Yá on his back. "It is more trouble than it's worth." His mind was still stirring with recent events, trying to figure out how to handle this sort of battle. Fighting these assassins was much different than training with his mother or fighting off hordes of imperials at the palace. Perhaps he needed a moment to think, to hone his skills a bit more.

Shāng frowned some more. "I didn't mean it as an insult. I mean after all, that voice of yours did bring us all together in a way. Had you not sang with Tiān Mìng, I never would've heard about you. We wouldn't have taken you with us after our little bout. And you would've just been another face that we didn't notice."

"And we certainly wouldn't have sung such beautiful duets together," Mù added.

Làng stared down the hillside. While he had a lot on his mind, it drifted back to how much time he'd spent with Mù. He had to admit he enjoyed those times he left the tavern to sing with her. He felt alive when they sang together, something he didn't particularly understand at the time. But understanding his feelings was something difficult, not that he was any better now that he was his own person.

"It did bring us together," Làng agreed quietly.

"Why don't we sing like we did before, Wū Yáo?" Mù suggested before he managed to slink off and hum in the forest alone. "We are far enough away that only we would hear the song. The old master is adept in ancient magics. You won't affect him either."

Làng turned back to his companions. He couldn't deny the idea was enticing. He hadn't truly sung a duet with her since the palace battle. Their last duet in the now destroyed town denied him the chance to sing. It was such a risk to open his mouth with his supernatural voice, and even riskier to sing. And with Yīn Xiàtiān now after his voice, singing had a greater risk.

He turned back to the forest. Not another soul on the mountain either. No one else would hear his voice. They hadn't passed any towns or even encampments on the way up. They didn't even have a pathway to guide their travels.

With a song, he could clear his mind, perhaps even express some of what he was feeling. Singing was much easier than talking.

"Perhaps Bù Huàn might tune his ears to the music while we play too," Mù teased. "He could learn to hear illusions and not eat a plate full of scorpions."

"H-hey!" Shāng protested. "That was once!" She wasn't wrong though. His ears weren't as finely tuned as either of his companions, but his mastery of qi far surpassed them. "Besides I haven't heard you both sing together. Last time we were a little busy. I'd like to hear this duet."

"That we were," Mù mused. "What do you say, Wū Yáo? Just a duet."

Làng turned back to his companions, pulling Líng Yá into his arms. He peered at Shāng for a moment. He was able to not be affected by his supernatural voice, so a duet wouldn't hurt. "I would like that a lot." He pulled at the strings, plucking each note as Mù joined him. "You recall my mother's song, yes?"

"I do," Mù smiled. "It's such a lovely song, and this time, we won't be interrupted."

Even though he was doing exactly the opposite of what his mother had desired of him, Làng still favored the song. It was one he'd sung over and over again, memorizing the intricacies of each note and feeling each individual note as he sang them. It was hearing Mù sing that song that had drawn him to the pagoda that first time, and in a strange way, it felt like it drew him towards people that were important to him.

"Even as the snow piles up in the stillness

The sound will ring out no matter how faint

If you can strain your ears and find the source

In that moment, you will hear my playing."

Shāng had heard the song before. Mù sang it in the town when they were playing to earn some funds. It was the tune he'd heard when invading the palace as well. But seeing them sing it together was something different. Làng looked at ease when he sang, his voice ringing out over a normally quiet forest. There was a certain power to the music and the words that Shāng really hadn't felt before. He could understand why Mù had spoken about Làng so much.

But there was more to it. There was emotion buried deep within his notes, speaking more than his words could ever express. Shāng didn't notice it before, but when he last heard Làng sing, he was certain the bard was nothing more than the princess's songbird. The duel they had following that song had told him much more. Làng's understanding that he was serving someone terrible, that forlorn expression he had when the Hunting Fox demanded he return because he was property. Làng didn't need to speak much for Shāng to understand him at that time.

At the moment, Shāng was picking up on Làng's frustrations in his voice. The red bard was still upset about the cicada in his ear, about losing the sword, and how much difficulty the assassin was giving them. He still was trying to figure out his own skills, the limits of his supernatural voice, and what he could actually use it to accomplish. He had a lot to figure out now that he was his own person.

But there was hope still behind those frustrations. Làng was still learning how he could rely on them after being alone for so long, but he felt like he could rely on them.

Shāng listened to the lyrics as they sang. It felt like an appropriate song given their present situation. The sounds that Shāng had attempted to hear were much too faint for his ears to pick up and he felt like he was straining his ears just to listen to these disguised sounds. He relied so much on qi mastery to do his fighting that he found illusions difficult to understand. They made noise, Làng had said, but even Mù's more refined hearing hadn't picked it up.

The lyrics spoke of turning sound into a cutlass and slicing through the darkness to find the light. Truly it was a reflection of both their styles, something very different from Shāng's own mostly brutal style of driving qi sharply through anything he touched.

"Even now it is drawn to me

Hope that exceeds despair

Fated to shout, disrupting the darkness."

Làng and Mù twisted around each other, almost like a melodic battle even though no blows were exchanged. Their movements were timed and well placed, neither tripping over the other or the sticks and leaves strewn about at the edge of the forest and careful of Mù's ankle.

Làng had his eyes closed, listening to the movements and the song, feeling the music down to his very core. The song had spoken to him quite a bit lately, lyrics talking about cutting through the darkness with song and voice, with hope and the desire to live free. It was something that didn't have as much meaning before as a caged songbird. He didn't understand what it was like to be his own person or even to think of himself as anything but a sharpened blade, a tool for others to use him.

It had a different meaning to him now, and he wasn't going to allow some crazy bug assassin to take that freedom away from him and cage him up as her personal songbird. He didn't have an audience anymore, and his songs were rarely heard with concerns about the effects his voice had, but his companions could listen to them instead.

He felt the hope above despair, even with the situation working against them. He wasn't alone anymore, and even with the trouble he had with the cicadas, he knew he could rely on Shāng and Mù to watch his back. It was hard to remind himself of that, but he'd only been with them for a few months. Perhaps in time, it would feel natural

"It felt like ages since we've actually sung together," Mù smiled.

She knew Làng felt the same with the softness of his features hidden behind his long hair. He looked at peace, his emotions pouring out through his words and song. She could feel the frustrations he had bottled up start to wash away, though he held onto that anger that he let a cicada get past his defenses. She couldn't exactly blame him for that one.

Làng settled down with Líng Yá still in his lap. It did feel good to let his emotions pour out into a song. He wondered how much they felt from the words he sang. Mù probably understood what was in his heart. Shāng maybe, but Làng wasn't quite sure if Shāng spoke song.

Làng glanced at Shāng who looked like he was trying to think too hard about something. Perhaps he had felt something. Perhaps they were finally starting to communicate in the best way Làng knew. Líng Yá would still blab Làng's inner thoughts here and there, but perhaps they could speak this way too.

"Your face is going to stick that way, Bù Huàn, if you think too hard," Mù teased.

"Yeah, yeah." Shāng rubbed at his face, frowning. He had certainly felt something with the song, but using the song to refine his hearing a bit more to hear illusions? He doubted that even Làng's supernatural voice could help refine his hearing that much. He'd leave the listening to the experts. "I was thinking about something. Làng, what would you say to a spar?"

Làng peered over at Shāng curiously.

"Well the last time we crossed blades, it was a very different situation," Shāng continued. "I wasn't sure what to make of you when you followed us out of the palace, despite what Tiān Mìng had told me. We fought as enemies back then, if only briefly, but a lot has changed since then, hasn't it? We call each other 'friend' now. So what do you say? Let's spar like friends, to sharpen our skills for the battles ahead. Feels like we could both use it. There's a thicket just down the hill we could use."

It did feel like so long ago since that time, though it had only been a few months. Làng plucked a few more notes before standing up. "Yes, let us test our skills." So much had changed since that bout, so much that he was still trying to understand everything and everyone around him as he took on this new role with his new friends. Làng spoke in song, but Shāng spoke a different language. Perhaps Làng could understand him a bit better with a test of skill. "As friends."

...

Author's musings

I like to think that Làng and Mù actually do have duets together during their travels, and Shāng wants to listen to their songs. Shāng likely hadn't heard much of Làng's singing closely before now, but I'd imagine that since Làng expresses himself through song, Shāng would be able to understand that at least to some extent now that he hears the singing clearly. Somewhat. Shāng is kinda dense.

It's a budding friendship. They'll figure it out eventually. I've recently found in an interview, this story takes place 10 years prior to the main series, so they have plenty of time.