It all started with a kiss.
Not the real kind, of course. Jiang Chen was a peaceful man. He'd barely held hands with someone unless he was helping them out of a ditch. Which, to be fair, happened more often than it should.
But apparently, someone had painted a kiss.
A massive mural, at the entrance to the outer sect, where disciples walked every day.
Jiang Chen.Lin Wuyue.And a shining cabbage between them, glowing like it had ascended to a higher tax bracket.
They weren't even looking at each other in the painting. No. They were kissing through the cabbage.
As in, both of them leaned in. Mouths puckered. The cabbage was in the middle. Floating. Transcendent.
Jiang Chen stood there in horror, hand twitching.
"I—who—what—WHY?!" he shouted, gripping his hair.
"Art is subjective," someone whispered reverently behind him.
"I'm not subjective! I'm the person in the painting!!"
"It captures emotion," another muttered.
"It captures LIES," Jiang Chen growled, whirling around.
A crowd had gathered, whispering excitedly.
"Did they finally confess?""It makes sense. Their spiritual energies are always in sync.""He taught her the secret art of cabbage haikus… that's basically a marriage proposal."
Jiang Chen's hands trembled. His lips moved, but no sound emerged except the faint wheeze of a man on the verge.
"Lin. Wuyue," he hissed through gritted teeth.
He turned—
—and almost walked straight into her.
She blinked, startled, then tilted her head. "Senior Brother?"
He stepped back. Then two more. Then pointed a very distressed finger at the mural. "What is that?!"
She turned, followed his gesture, and… paused.
Then very, very slowly… her face flushed pink.
"Ah."
"'Ah'? Just 'ah'?! What does that mean?!"
Lin Wuyue pressed her sleeve against her mouth, trying very hard not to laugh. Her voice, when it came, was suspiciously innocent.
"I might have… mentioned… to the art disciples that you and I had a very spiritual cabbage moment."
"That sentence should be illegal!"
"But they misunderstood! I said 'deep-rooted bond' and 'cabbage enlightenment'—they added the kissing part."
Jiang Chen groaned and leaned against the wall like it might swallow him whole.
She stepped closer, playful glint in her eyes. "Besides… do you hate it that much?"
He opened his mouth to scream YES, but her face was close—too close—and the words evaporated somewhere between his lungs and brain.
"I…" he mumbled.
"You…?"
He blinked.
Wait.
What exactly was happening right now?
Was she teasing him?
Flirting?
Trying to spiritually mug him with her face?!
He panicked.
"I HAVE TO GO FEED A DUCK!" he blurted, then ran.
Lin Wuyue stared after him, the laughter finally bubbling out.
Back at his courtyard, Jiang Chen tried very hard to not think about anything.
Not the mural.
Not the crowd chanting "kiss through cabbage."
Not the soft way Lin Wuyue had said "deep-rooted bond."
And definitely not the image of her looking at him like that.
So naturally, he ended up staring at his reflection in the water bucket, asking life's deepest questions.
"Do I look like someone who would start a romance by vegetable proxy?"
A cabbage rolled past in the wind.
He took that as a no.
And then, the letter arrived.
A golden pigeon with glimmering feathers swooped into his cabbage patch and dropped a scroll tied with imperial ribbon.
"Oh no," he whispered. "What now?"
Inside the scroll:
To the Honorable Cabbage Sage of Northern Hills,
News of your enlightenment and cultivation path has reached the capital. The Ministry of Agriculture, along with the Bureau of Spiritual Art, wishes to commemorate your contributions.
As such, your image (and that of your sacred cabbage) shall be featured on the First Spirit Postal Stamp Series.
Congratulations.
May your leaves remain green.
—Signed, Minister Wen, Department of National Identity and Horticulture.
Jiang Chen let the scroll fall from his hands.
He looked up at the sky.
And screamed into the void.
Later that evening, Jiang Chen sat in the lotus position in his garden, staring into the lantern-lit darkness. He was calm now. Resigned. A man broken by bureaucracy and fan art.
Lin Wuyue arrived, as she always did, like a calm breeze with a smug smile.
"Hi," she said, sitting beside him without waiting for permission.
"Hi," he replied warily.
She didn't speak for a while. Just sat there. Shoulder brushing his. Letting the silence wrap around them.
Then she said softly, "You know… I wasn't joking."
He turned to her, surprised. "About what?"
"The cabbage moment."
Jiang Chen's throat went dry.
"I thought it was funny at first," she continued, fingers fidgeting with a loose thread on her sleeve. "But then I remembered… you were the first one who treated me like a person, not a prodigy. You helped me when I dropped my umbrella. You never looked at me like I was something to use."
He was quiet.
"And then… you gave me a home. Even if it was full of vegetables."
He chuckled weakly. "It wasn't intentional."
"I know. That's what makes it better."
She turned to him. "So… if people think I like you—through cabbages, poems, paintings—maybe I'm okay with that."
"…Oh."
A beat of silence.
Then she leaned her head on his shoulder.
He stiffened like a plank. "…This okay?"
"Shut up," she murmured.
He shut up.
Outside, the moon rose over the cabbage fields. A group of outer sect disciples passed by, heads bowed respectfully toward the shrine.
Far away, an Imperial artist grumbled as he painted a postage stamp under candlelight. "Do they really need this much romantic tension for a vegetable tribute?!"
Author's Note:Jiang Chen might finally be catching on… but he has no idea that imperial attention is now fixed on him. Nor that Wuyue's feelings are getting more real by the moment. And that cabbage postage stamp? It's going to be the hottest item in the capital.