In one of the many realms beyond the mortal plane, there lived a fairy named Ruomei.

Like all fairies, Ruomei loved the cool refuge of the forests, enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her skin, and delighted in the rain, no matter whether it was warm or cold. Though life might not always be perfect, Ruomei tried her best to find the small joys in each day. And as a plum blossom fairy, her spirit, like that of the plum tree, was hardy in the face of opposition, and she was determined to achieve her goals, no matter how difficult.

In the first three-thousand years of her youth, her goals had been similar to that of other fairies – she wanted to learn the flute like the lotus fairy, or paint with the same level of skill as the dragonfly fairy, or even swim as fast as the sturgeon fairy. Each of these accomplishments she achieved in time, with patience and determination. But it was not until her village received a visitor from the Heavenly Realm that Ruomei set her most ambitious goal yet – to practice cultivation and become an Immortal.

Her friends thought her silly.

"It's such a waste of time," Xiaodan, the dragonfly fairy, had complained when Ruomei had first told her of her new goal. "Others have tried and almost all of them have failed. You'll just end up wasting precious time being miserable when you could have been spending it having fun and enjoying life to its fullest!"

"Still," Ruomei had replied, quiet but persistent, "I want to give it a try." She remembered how dignified and resplendent the Immortal had been in his golden robes, with long black hair and a beautiful fan with a phoenix painted on it. He had visited for their end-of-winter festival, a small but joyous occasion at their village, and while Ruomei hadn't spoken with him directly, his eyes had held a kindness and wisdom that she hoped one day to know for herself. What else existed beyond the borders of her little village? Suddenly her world seemed too small, and Ruomei had a thirst to learn as much as she could and explore what all the realms had to offer.

"Aren't you even the least bit curious what's out there?" Ruomei asked. It was another day, and she was outlining the banks of the lake where she had taken her swimming lessons on the parchment before her.

Xiaodan shrugged, swiping upward with her own brush as she worked on her own painting. "I'm safe here, and satisfied with my hobbies. There are those less fortunate in the world who would kill for my level of comfort. I have food, friends, and a home, and for all of these I am grateful. Why should I want for more?"

Ruomei bit her lip, dipping into the blue ink to cover up a smudge she had left with the green. "It's not that I'm ungrateful," she began, "but that I want to live up to my full potential. How can I learn all that I'm capable of if I don't test myself? I won't fully know who I am otherwise, and later I would find myself wondering how things would be different if I had only tried. If I have the opportunity to better myself, shouldn't I?"

Xiaodan shrugged. "I suppose that makes sense."

"Well, we all must find our own way in life," said Lianhua, the lotus fairy, as she polished her flute, "and if it makes you happy and it isn't a harm to others, I suppose you should give it a try."

Mingyu, the sturgeon fairy, lounged beside them, plucking at the grass while her feet kicked up in the air. "If you think of your life in terms of a river, it's just a matter of finding the right current...and then trying to not get knocked off-course by a bigger fish. And sometimes you have to swim upstream for a while to get to where you want to go."

"Everything's fish to you," Xiaodan said, rolling her eyes.

Ruomei hid a smile. "That sounds about right, Mingyu."

Mingyu grinned, a playful gleam in her eyes. "Promise you won't forget us when you're a high-and-mighty Immortal," she said.

"I'll visit every year," Ruomei assured her.

~*~

She departed the next day for the Heavenly Realm, and after several days of travel at last reached the gates. The journey had been long, tiring, and at times even confusing as far as clear directions went, and Ruomei was relieved at the sight of the gates, thinking the worst was behind her – only to be met with resistance before even stepping foot inside the realm.

"Halt! What purpose do you have here, fairy?" one of the guards said, blocking her way.

"Please – I want to speak to the Immortals, and ask them to help me cultivate so that I can become one of them and reach my full potential," Ruomei replied.

"The Immortals don't bother with little fairies like you," another guard said, leaning on his spear. "You can try to cultivate on your own, but I doubt it'll bring you much good."

"Yeah, fairies don't have what it takes to become an Immortal," the first guard said. He scratched his chin and then examined his fingernails, as though bored with the conversation.

Ruomei crossed her arms, uneasy but unwilling to give up after having come so far. "Well, some fairies have become Immortals," she said. "And if it's possible, why can't I try too?"

"You're wasting your time," the second guard said, his amusement turning to annoyance at Ruomei's persistence. "Get lost."

"I want to try!" Ruomei protested. "You can't tell if I'll succeed until I do! Who are you to say I can't cultivate?"

"In all the time I've been guarding the gates of the Heavenly Realm, I've never seen a fairy successfully cultivate," the first guard said, turning to his companion. "How about you?"

The second one shook his head.

Ruomei bit her lip, brow furrowing as she tried to think of something that would allow her inside. "Please, can't I just talk to someone, and see if they would be willing to at least give me some advice? I've come so far – I can't have come all this way for nothing."

"There are worse disappointments in life," said the second guard, waving his hand dismissively. "Get lost before we lose our patience with you."

"But – "

"Leave!"

Ruomei opened her mouth to protest, but found that she had no other counterargument to make. She let out a disappointed huff of breath and bowed her head, slowly turning away. The guards, satisfied with her look of defeat, turned their attention elsewhere and began to move away from each other.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ruomei spotted a figure emerging from one of the buildings nearest the gates, at the end of the white-stone path leading from the entrance. In the blink of an eye, she turned back, leaping past the guards. It was her only chance.

"Hey!" the first guard protested, lunging forward but snatching only air.

The second guard turned back, alerted by the shout but too far to do anything except yell. "Come back here!"

She ignored them both, her breath coming in gasps as she ran towards the figure at the end of the pathway. "Wait!" she cried out to the person. "Hey, you! Wait!"

The figure was there one moment, and in the next, they had vanished in a blur of movement, passing Ruomei in a motion too fast for her eyes to follow and leaving behind only a breeze. She turned back towards the gates to follow the person, only to come face-to-face with the pointy end of a guard's spear, stopped just in time by a familiar Immortal's grip on the wood a mere few inches beyond the blade.

She gasped, her eyes going from the spear, to the Immortal, and then back to the spear.

The Immortal raised an eyebrow at her. "'Hey, you'?" he repeated, skepticism in his tone.

Ruomei didn't have a chance to apologize for her informal address before the two guards finally caught up, panting after their run. The Immortal turned to them slowly, lowering the spear as he did so.

"I don't think the appropriate action against trespassers is to kill them, Zhong," he said calmly to the first guard, returning the spear. "It's hardly that serious of a crime."

"I wasn't trying to kill her," Zhong muttered, accepting the weapon. "Just trying to...slow her down a bit. My aim was off a little. And anyways, you can never be too careful. She could've been carrying a dangerous amulet or something."

"A bit of advice – those with dangerous amulets tend to prefer brute force over trying to reason with guards to let them in."

Zhong and the other guard shifted their gazes to Ruomei for a moment.

"Er, noted. Thank you, Master Lisong."

The Immortal, Lisong, nodded. "Dismissed."

The guards bowed and walked away to return to their posts, while Ruomei continued to stand, half-behind Lisong as she watched them leave. The guards hadn't yet made it back to the gates before Lisong stepped out from in front of Ruomei and turned to study her more closely.

"You've come a long way from home, Miss...?"

"Ruomei," she answered. "And I'm sorry I shouted at you earlier. I just – I needed to talk to someone, and they weren't letting me in!"

He nodded. "I know."

She frowned. "You were watching?"

Rather than answer, he clasped his hands behind his back and turned to look back down the path. She pressed forward, taking his silence as confirmation. "Why didn't you say anything?"

He shrugged. "I wanted to see how much you really wanted to get in, and what you would do when faced with confrontation. You can learn a lot from people just by watching them when they don't know they're being watched – even more, sometimes, than by talking to them directly."

She frowned, but nodded. "I suppose that's true. Sometimes, I was able to learn painting techniques just by watching Xiaodan – that's my friend – rather than asking her to explain it to me. She'd get too caught up in the details and confuse herself, but I could see what she meant when I followed her brushstrokes."

Lisong turned his head to look at her again, but said nothing, so she continued.

"So, what did you learn about me?"

"You want to become an Immortal."

She frowned. "Well, I could've told you that. It would've spared me all the aggravation of trying to get in – "

"You are constantly striving to better yourself, and have a thirst for knowledge," he continued, his voice low and steady. "You do your best to stand up for what you believe in, and won't back down from a little opposition."

"And," he continued when Ruomei opened her mouth to speak. "You aren't opposed to a little deception when desperate. But I'll warn you – there can be no trickery when it comes to cultivation."

"Do you think I have what it takes to become an Immortal, then?" Ruomei asked, trying not to sound too hopeful. Her heart fluttered optimistically, and she tried to ignore it, not wanting to feel the terrible crush of disappointment if the Immortal's answer turned out to be in the negative.

"No one can say for certain whether one will succeed, but there is no reason why you cannot try," Lisong answered. "The tenacity you showed today in just trying to get in is a promising start, though."

Ruomei took a hopeful step forward. "Really? Oh, yes, I'd love to try! I'll do my very best – I've always been able to succeed at something when I put my mind to it. But how do I start? How can I cultivate?"

Lisong paused, looking her over from the mud-stained hem of her blue skirt to the loose braid in her hair that was starting to unravel from all the day's excitement.

"Follow me," he said at last, and turned to lead them deeper into the Heavenly Realm.