Chapter 3The Temple that Breathes Mists

The morning begins, as all sacred family traditions do, in absolute chaos.

Dad is already pacing the living room like an angry captain surveying a battlefield strewn with snack wrappers and unmatched socks. “It’s seven-thirty! SEVEN-THIRTY! We were supposed to leave fifteen minutes ago!”

From the other room, a sleepy groan emerges. My little brother, still buried under his blanket, is hugging his flickering Breadface Hero nightlight like it’s a life raft. One of its LED cheeks blinks red. The other stays suspiciously dark.

“Get up, son!” Dad yells again, voice climbing in pitch. “We’ll hit holiday traffic! Move! Move! Move!”

“Mmph,” comes the reply from the blanket. Possibly in defence of Breadface.

Meanwhile, Mum is standing in front of the hallway mirror, holding two earrings at her ears and tilting her head critically. “Do you think the red or the jade matches the temple architecture better?”

“No one cares what matches!” Dad shouts.

“I do,” Mum replies serenely, now applying red lipstick like she’s getting ready for a goddess photoshoot. She’s wearing a flowing linen scarf and boots that are—objectively—too fabulous for hiking temple stairs.

As for me? I’m on the couch, still in my piggy-print pyjamas, legs curled under me, watching anime reruns, and sipping warm soy milk like a cat in the sun.

“Are you READY?” Dad barks at me.

I check the clock.

“Emotionally, never.”

I take another slow sip.

“I got up an hour before you did. I missed the latest episode of Robo-Nyan so I had to catch the rerun.”

“You’re still in your pyjamas! You can’t dress like this for a day like this.”

“Alright, alright, chill daddio. I’ll go put on something spiritual.”

Then finally, after another hour of Dad packing way too many things for an excursion (do you really need a backup first-aid kit?) I put on my finest attire for special occasions — my ‘Just Go For It’ hoodie with a pink pig printed in the middle, and my ‘Conversation’ sneakers laced with dead knots so I never have to tie my shoelaces again.

I go to the bathroom and check myself in the mirror. My eyes look more tired than the mole next to my right eye. I quickly splash water on my face to wake myself up. Lastly, I tie my signature double messy buns, easy.

We’re all standing at the front door. Dad has finally loosened up and announces proudly.

“Alright, Team Tao is ready to… Pffthweep…”

And then stops. His eyes widen slightly.

He looks away.

Then, with complete seriousness, he mutters, “I need to poop.”

“Nooo,” we cover our noses in horror.

Dad sneakily grabs the newspaper like it’s contraband and disappears into the bathroom with the urgency of a firefighter.

A door slams.

There’s silence.

Then… the sound.

The betrayal.

I flop sideways off the couch and dramatically cover my face with a pillow.

“We will definitely die in traffic.”

Mum adjusts her scarf and says, “His stomach always acts weird when he gets nervous. Temple days, job interviews, our wedding…”

By the time we finally leave the house, the sun is already climbing and so is Dad’s blood pressure.

We walk to our local train and catch a late morning train. Mum has insisted on getting two bags of black sugar mochi “in case of divine hunger,” and my brother has a new plastic yo-yo from the convenience store, which he has already accidentally bonked himself in the eye with. Twice.

I snag a window seat and watch Taipei roll by in fast-forward: tiled rooftops, rain-damp alleys, bamboo scaffolding, kids on bikes, red lanterns tangled in wires. Looking afar, I can faintly see the skyscrapers standing still, and beyond them the ranges covered by rolling mist.

Inside the train, the AC is weak, but the smell of railway bento is already permeating through the carriages. It fills me with both glee and sadness, because we’ll be getting off before they start serving lunch. Curse those lucky long-distance passengers!

“Spirituality begins with strong nasal endurance,” I mutter.

My Mum gives me a mint. “Chew quietly. We’re entering sacred airspace.”

The real quiet doesn’t begin until we transfer onto the bus that winds up the mountain—away from the noise, into mist and tea fields and birdsong so clear it makes the city feel like a dream.

The bus groans with every curve, and I clutch the seat rail with one hand and the handle with the other.

“Motion sickness?” my brother asks, smug behind his Game Boy.

“No,” I say, paler than tofu. “It’s the smell. I can’t handle the smell of diesel and these plastic seats.”

He looks back down, accidentally drops the yo-yo on his lap, and screams like it has betrayed him.

Outside the window, I watch the tea farms rise like staircases of green clouds. Here, the air smells different—cooler, wetter, fresher. More… ancestral. Like the wind remembers.

For a moment, I forget about the book in my bag. Forget the blank pages. Forget my report.

I just watch the mist curl through the trees and think: “Every year, the same temple. Every year, the same prayers. But maybe that’s why it matters.”

The bus groans one last time and releases us like steamed buns from a bamboo basket.

We step into the sunlight—and the scent of incense wraps around us like an old robe: comforting, cloying, laced with smoke and age and prayers too quiet to hear.

The path to the temple grounds is a narrow stone walkway lined with carved guardian lions, their faces weathered but proud. Peach blossoms swirl down from the trees, even though it isn’t really the season. The air here is always doing things it shouldn’t.

Beyond the gate, the temple’s red walls rise like the edge of a scroll, painted with faded dragons and blessings in gold brushstrokes. The old roof tiles glint under the sky like they’re smiling in the sun.

And there—by the incense urn, folding his hands politely to a statue of the Earth God—stands Grandpa.

He’s wearing his usual windbreaker, sunhat, and expression of eternal, mildly disappointed patience. When he sees us, his eyebrows lift just a little.

“You’re late,” he says.

“We had to make a few… sanitary detours,” I offer.

Dad sighs and starts to apologise, and Grandpa waves him off. “Young people nowadays. Back in my day, we upheld our virtue diligently. Truthfulness is integrity, and being punctual is being truthful.”

I squint at him. The hat is tilted slightly off-centre—which means he’s been in a rush. His windbreaker is unzipped just halfway, like he’s gotten hot and flustered but doesn’t want to admit it. And—ah, yes—he’s holding yesterday’s newspaper.

I raise an eyebrow. “You were late too because you had to poop for a long time, didn’t you?”

Grandpa doesn’t say anything. Just scratches the side of his nose and says, “So, Peach! Look at how tall you’ve grown!”

Mum smiles. She walks to Grandpa and hands him a box of joss paper and a bag of star fruit—Grandma’s favourite. He nods and holds it with both his hands like it’s sacred—because to him, it probably is.

We enter the temple together. My brother tries to count every incense coil hanging from the ceiling. He loses track around fifty-seven and nearly trips over a prayer mat.

I step carefully; the cool stone under my feet feels as if memories whisper deep beneath. It always feels different here. Like the air weighs more. Like time slows down to listen.

I remember one year I stood in this exact spot, watching my grandmother place three sticks of incense in the urn. The memory feels like it’s happening now. I see the way her hands tremble—but not with weakness. With care.

We take our shoes off before stepping up onto the polished marble floors of the temple’s inner hall. The air inside is warm and full of smoke, but not choking. It’s the kind of incense that hugs your clothes, clings to your hair, and whispers to your skin.

Grandpa hands us each three incense sticks from the tray, nodding in that ceremonial way of his—half instruction, half memory. Even my little brother, Jun Hao, stands up straight this time, holding his sticks like they might crumble if he breathes wrong.

We step before the main altar. The Earth God and City Gods stand carved in wood and gold, their faces gentle, solemn. Peach blossoms have been arranged in a ceramic bowl—too perfect to be real, too real to be fake.

We bow three times. Then again, to the side shrine—where her name is.

My grandmother’s spirit tablet sits nestled among others, her name painted in gold calligraphy, the red behind it now faded a little from time. A small bowl of rice and tea sits before it. A tiny paper crane.

Mum gently lights the tips of my incense sticks for me. I bow, then place them in the burner. The scent curls upward in ribbons.

I close my eyes.

And for a moment, I see her hands.

Not her face, not her voice. Just her hands—wrinkled, warm, folding dumplings at the kitchen table, or brushing my bangs aside when I’m sick, or tying thread around my wrist for luck during the lunar new year.

She never says much. She doesn’t have to.

“Hi, Grandma,” I whisper. “I’m okay. Jun Hao’s annoying. Dad’s dramatic. Mom’s pretty. Grandpa’s well. Nothing’s changed.”

“Except… maybe something is.”

I don’t know why I say that. Maybe because the book in my bag makes it heavier.

We all stand for a moment after the last incense is planted. No one speaks. Not even Jun Hao. Even the wind outside has paused.

After incense and memory, we drift into our usual temple routines. Mum lights a few more candles—one for luck, one for health, one for “better lighting in her photos.” Dad goes to argue with a donation box about losing his favourite umbrella here three years ago.

Jun Hao runs off toward the fortune box, his yo-yo now fully tangled around one wrist like a cursed accessory. I follow behind, hands in my pockets, still thinking about the incense, about Grandma’s hands, about the book.

Every year, I draw a fortune stick—not because I believe it predicts anything, but because when I’m a kid it’s fun. Now it feels like a tradition that needs a keeper.

The fortune stick box sits near the east pillar—wooden, carved with dragons, slightly uneven on one side like it has a limp. A handful of visitors are still shaking sticks into the air like they’re asking the gods for lottery numbers or relationship advice.

I kneel, pick up the bamboo canister, and give it three deliberate shakes.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

A single stick slides out.

No. 47.

I stand and take the stick to the fortune-teller’s booth, where an old man in blue linen robes takes it without a word. His hair is tied back in a wispy knot, and he has the same kind of eyebrows that look like they’ve seen empires fall.

He disappears behind the curtain and comes back with a folded slip.

He opens it.

Pauses.

Looks at me.

“Is something wrong?” I ask.

Wordlessly, he hands me the slip.

It’s blank.

No poem. No message. No cryptic cosmic allegory. Just clean, quiet white.

I blink. “Did the printer run out of ink?”

The fortune-teller shrugs. “Sometimes, the sky has no answer yet.”

I hold the slip for a second longer. It feels strangely cold.

Blank. Like the book. Like something waiting.

I tuck it into my bag beside the book and give a little bow. “Thanks anyway.”

After the fortune-teller weirdness, I need air. Or snacks. Or something that doesn’t stare back at me in silence.

I find Jun Hao outside the temple courtyard, sitting on a mossy ledge and furiously trying to wind up his yo-yo so he can have another go at an impossible trick he saw on TV.

“You versus the yo-yo again?” I ask, plopping down beside him.

“It’s broken,” he mutters.

“No, you’re just bad at it.”

He glares at me. I put up my hands. He throws the yo-yo.

It spins! For exactly half a second before it goes rogue, veers left, and bounces down the hill with a tragic clunk.

“Oh noooo—Jun Hao, that’s the third yo-yo you lost this week!”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“I’ll get it,” I sigh. “If I’m not back in ten minutes, avenge me.”

The path beyond the temple slopes gently down into the trees. The stone steps are slick with moss, the kind that always smells like rain whether it has rained or not. Mist curls between the trunks like smoke that has lost its way.

Halfway down, I spot the yo-yo resting beside a tree root.

And something next to it.

A small, white animal.

At first I think it’s a rabbit. Soft fur, long ears, tiny nose.

But then it turns.

And I see the horns—gentle and curled, like dragon antlers, rising from its forehead.

We stare at each other.

I blink. “Cool cosplay?”

It blinks back.

Then—still holding the yo-yo in its mouth—it turns and bounds into the mist.

“Oh no you don’t!” I say, already running.

I chase it past the trees, past the steps, past a wooden sign I definitely ignore. I dive into the mist. The air grows colder. The birds go quiet.

I lose the yo-yo, and the drabbit…ragon… never mind. All I can see around me is mist. Still stubborn about getting the yo-yo back, I push further into the mist.

After fumbling forward for a short or long time, the mist gradually subsides—like a curtain pulled aside.

And I find myself standing before a pagoda I’ve never seen before.

It rises out of the fog like a forgotten dream: stone walls, regal blue roof tiles, a moon carved into the lintel above the door, and a gravity-defying height. The building is entirely different from the old temple. The pagoda feels like it’s just built, yet also feels like it has been here for an eternity.

At its base stands an old man in robes that shimmer like the surface of still water. He turns slowly, hands folded behind his back.

His face is kind. Familiar, somehow.

“Ah,” he says with a voice like midnight tea. “You made it.”

I stare.

“Um, hi?” I say. “Are you… in charge of the rabbit?”

He smiles. “By ‘rabbit,’ I think you mean Baize? No. But I knew you’d follow it.”

He bows low, like wind bending a reed.

“I am Grandfather Moon,” he says. “The Moon Primordial, eternal guardian of all the moons in the cosmos. And we’ve been waiting for you.”