To the Sky Kingdom

by Tang Qi

  What if when the time came, I had gathered together a few other women, and when the beautiful woman showed up, I arranged for them to all to sit with her in the little pleasure boat on the Suyu River? They would be jumping off left, right, and center, and Yuan Zhen would be unable to save the beautiful woman from the pages of the destiny notebook. Oh, but what if Yuan Zhen rescued another woman, but the destiny in the notebook transferred the other woman’s fate to this new woman? This too was no good.

  I brooded over the matter day and night. I caught my reflection in the mirror and saw that all my fretting had started to make me look old and haggard. I still had no idea what I should do.

  Already it was Lunar May.

  That evening I was sitting under my lantern, fretting as usual. I pondered this matter until late in the evening, when I decided it was time to get some sleep. I opened my eyes to extinguish the candle, but as I did I saw Ye Hua, who should have been in Qingqiu, strolling over with a cup of tea in his hand and a serious expression on his face.

  I hesitated awhile, convinced I must have fallen asleep and started dreaming. He took a sip of tea and gave me a suggestive smile. “I haven’t seen you for a long time, Qian Qian, and I’ve been missing you terribly. Have you been missing me too?”

  I gave a jolt and leaped from my chair. He supported his chin in his hand and looked at me with bewilderment. “Have you become crazed with joy? Don’t go to bed just yet,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve got something important to tell you. Can you guess which immortal has been reborn as Yuan Zhen’s mortal world father?”

  I was feeling very tired. “Which immortal has been reborn as his father? Well, it’s not your grandfather the old Sky Emperor, that much I know for sure,” I said flippantly.

  He turned and sat down on the edge of my bed to stop me from lying down. He gave the space next to him a casual pat. I hesitated before sitting down.

  He picked up a cup of tea from the table. “Wake yourself up a bit,” he said, passing it to me. “No, it’s not my grandfather, but you’re not far off. It’s someone I’m sure you’re familiar with.”

  He had my full attention now.

  “It’s Emperor Dong Hua,” he said slowly.

  I snorted the tea out through my nose.

  Could Yuan Zhen’s mortal life father actually be Emperor Dong Hua? That was a familiar one to me.

  My niece Phoenix Nine had held unrequited love for Emperor Dong Hua for over two thousand years. Whenever she was drunk she would whisper on and on to me about Dong Hua this, Dong Hua that. Even now I could bring to mind everything she had told me about him as if it had happened to me personally.

  During the age of primal chaos, Emperor Dong Hua had been overlord of the sky and earth. Now he was the head of the immortal audience, and although his position in the Sky Clan was beneath that of the Sky Emperor, the Sky Emperor had to consult with him before making his decisions. I had heard that Emperor Dong Hua had gone to the Thirteenth Sky Taichen Palace recently, where he was keeping a low profile, looking after the immortal book of records. All the alluring she-goblins and mortals who had cultivated enough spiritual energy to turn into immortals needed to notify him, and all immortals needed to praise him before they could ascend to the rank of god or goddess.

  Emperor Dong Hua was always very calm and detached. He sought and desired nothing and remained blank-faced and indifferent toward others. Father rarely praised anyone, but once I heard him say, “There are so many immortals in the Four Seas and Eight Deserts, but no one has an immortal bearing like Emperor Dong Hua.”

  When Phoenix Nine was still a little fox cub, she used to be extremely plucky, even before she had fully developed her immortal powers, and she would often run out of Second Brother’s cave and scamper around stirring up trouble. Once when she was doing this, a tiger spirit tried to kill her. Just as the spirit was about to pounce, Emperor Dong Hua turned up and he saved her life.

  As Phoenix Nine grew older, she developed a deep affection for Dong Hua, which led her to demean herself. For a few hundred years, the poor thing dropped well below her rank and acted as Dong Hua’s immortal servant in his Taichen Palace. Dong Hua treated her with indifference, which she found extremely upsetting. It was only a few decades ago that she finally managed to relinquish her affection for him.

  I was astonished that Emperor Dong Hua, such a powerful, unyielding, upright man who was unswayed by riches or lust and free from any kind of scandal, had somehow committed such a terrible offense that he had been cast down into the mortal world as a punishment.

  Ye Hua leaned back against the bed rail. “Emperor Dong Hua wasn’t sent down to the mortal world as a punishment from the Sky Emperor. He went of his own accord!” he said with a laugh. “He wanted to have a proper experience of mortal life. Firsthand understanding of old age, illness, death, sorrow, the bitterness of living with those you hate, the pain of separation from those you love, seeking but not getting, the confusion that comes from greed and desire and all the other ills of humanity. That’s why I’ve come to warn you that while you’re changing Yuan Zhen’s destiny, you must be careful not to do anything that might change Dong Hua’s destiny too.”

  Ye Hua’s words made me feel both elated and afraid. The elation was due to the fact that so much time had passed and so much had been left to chance, and most things in the universe had changed beyond recognition, but Emperor Dong Hua was still as proud, upright, and outstanding an immortal as ever. The fear was whether it would be possible to successfully protect Yuan Zhen through his calamity involving the beautiful woman without affecting the fate of the other party within this destructive love triangle. It was going to be extremely tricky.

  There seemed to be a great wind outside, blustering so hard that the window frames creaked. Feeling chilly, I got up to close the window and returned to my bed to find that Ye Hua had taken off his cloak and was shaking out the bed quilt.

  I looked at him in shock. He skillfully made the bed before turning to me and asking, “Which side do you normally sleep on, the inside or the outside?”

  I looked first at the bed, then at the floor. “I’ll just sleep on the floor,” I said earnestly.

  “If I had bad intentions toward you, it wouldn’t matter if you were sleeping on the floor or the bed. I would still get my way,” he said airily. “If you had your magic at your fingertips, we could fight it out together and both end up the worse for wear. But oh, I’ve sealed off your magic powers, haven’t I? From the way you’re behaving, Qian Qian, my guess is that you don’t trust yourself . . .”

  I wiped the sweat from my forehead and generously peeled back the cover. “You’ve got me all wrong, Prince Ye Hua,” I said with a laugh. “I was just worried you’d be uncomfortable sleeping in such a small bed. You choose which side you want. I usually sleep on the outside.”

  He looked at me and gave a faint smile. “Can I trouble you to blow out the candles in that case?”

  With Ye Hua on the inside of the bed and me on the outside, we finally drifted off to sleep.

  The courtyard I was staying in was called Purple Bamboo Garden, which contained a thick forest of bamboo, living up to its name. It was cool at this time of year, and this evening particularly so. All we had was one thin quilt between us, which Ye Hua and I were forced to share along with the bed and the pillow. I lay on the edge of the bed with my back to him, my arms and legs outside the cover, getting cold, and without my immortal energy to protect myself, I was soon shivering.

  Ye Hua’s breathing became long and deep, and it sounded as if he was already asleep. His body smelled faintly of peach blossoms, which was driving me slightly crazy. I wondered when this long night would come to an end.

  Ye Hua turned around. I shifted toward the edge of the bed. “Do you want me to sleep with my arms wrapped around you?” Ye Hua asked from behind me. I was too surprised to respond. He turned around without a word, and I reflexively continued to move away from him until I dropped off the edge and landed
on the floor with a thump.

  He gave a chuckle. “I was just thinking to myself that if I didn’t put my arms around you, you might roll off the bed, and sure enough that’s exactly what happened!”

  “This bed is just too small,” I said with frustration.

  He reached out to scoop me up off the floor and pushed me to the inside of the bed. “You’re right. The bed really is too small,” he said sarcastically. “Even though when we’re lying flat on our backs, there is enough room between us to sleep three or four people, it really is too small.”

  I gave a chuckle.

  The inside of the bed provided terrain that was easier to attack from than to defend, and I found it even harder to fall asleep. Ye Hua was lying very close to me, and that peach musk of his wafted over, providing worse torment than the Netherworld’s eighteenth layer of hell.

  Just as I was sighing to myself, Ye Hua leaned over and looked right into my eyes. I looked back at him in astonishment. “I’ve just remembered something I wanted to ask you,” he said calmly. I held my breath. “Qian Qian, do you know the god Si Yin?”

  I gave a start and pulled the quilt farther up. “Oh, Mo Yuan from Mount Kunlun’s Seventeenth Apprentice. I’ve heard of him, yes, but I’ve never met him. After the Demon Clan Revolt seventy thousand years ago, he and Mo Yuan were said to have gone into seclusion together.”

  Ye Hua gave a sigh. “I’d thought you might know a bit more about him.”

  “Are you implying I have some hidden secret?” I asked with a yawn.

  “The Sky Emperor was still heir to the throne during the time of the Demon Clan Revolt. When I was small he often used to tell me I looked just like Mo Yuan.” I nodded to myself in agreement. It wasn’t just his face, but his physique too.

  “There’s nothing about this written in the history books, but according to the Sky Emperor, Mo Yuan was obliterated during the Demon Clan Revolt, turning to dust flying and flames dying,” Ye Hua continued. “That means there was absolutely no way he could have gone into seclusion with Si Yin. The old Sky Emperor sent eighteen high-ranking immortals to Mount Kunlun to arrange Mo Yuan’s funeral, but Si Yin chased them off with his fan. Soon after, Mount Kunlun’s First Apprentice reported the disappearance of both Si Yin’s and Mo Yuan’s immortal bodies.”

  I gave a gasp. “Oh, really?” I said feigning surprise. I felt a dull ache in my heart.

  He nodded. “There’s been no sign of Si Yin for seventy thousand years. But recently I heard that Demon Emperor Li Jing has been searching high and low for this Si Yin. Yesterday one of his servants gave me a portrait of Si Yin, which he said was painted by Li Jing the Demon Emperor.”

  My heart started hammering.

  “Qian Qian, when I saw it, I thought it was you dressed as a boy.”

  “Well, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” I said in an attempt to sound shocked. “If that’s true, that means there are two people walking around the Four Seas and Eight Deserts looking just like me. I’m not familiar with this Si Yin, but Demon Emperor Li Jing’s wife is connected with my clan. She’s my sister-in-law’s youngest sister, and she could almost be my double.”

  He pondered it for a while. “Is that so?” he said finally. “I’ll pay them an official visit if I get the chance in that case.”

  “Ah, will you now?”

  He smiled. “I can almost hear you grinding your teeth! Even if your sister-in-law’s little sister does look like you, she almost certainly wouldn’t have your charm.”

  I looked up to the top of the bed curtain and gave some offhand response. His ability to use such obvious flattery without even blushing meant that he must have been very practiced at it. It was admirable, really.

  Ye Hua did not say any more about it, and very soon he was asleep. He had a pleasant sleeping manner, not snoring, grinding his teeth, or thrashing his limbs. I stayed awake for a long time, and it was only in the middle of the night that I finally became drowsy enough to nod off. In the hazy space somewhere between sleep and waking, I suddenly recalled an important fact. Just as I was about to consider it further, it drifted out of foggy mind and floated away.

  During the night I felt as if a pair of ice-cold hands was gently stroking my eyes.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ye Hua was a cruel man.

  We were not in Qingqiu, and there was no reason why I should accompany him for his morning walk. I would have been perfectly within my rights to laze around in bed for an extra hour. But no, he insisted on pulling my pitiful form up out of bed.

  I was still wearing the same dress as yesterday, which was now completely creased, but I could not be bothered to change. I sat down in the chair, poured myself a cup of cold tea, and covered my mouth to give a yawn.

  Ye Hua appeared to be in a very good mood. He slipped his cloak on gracefully and fastened the strap around his waist. He sat down in front of the bronze mirror and said, “Come over and bind my hair.”

  “Are you talking to me?” I asked in surprise. He picked up a wooden comb. “I heard from Mystic Gorge that you had excellent hair-binding skills.”

  I was skilled at binding hair, having had much practice over the years. We had rarely had serving girls in the foxhole, and Fourth Brother never learned to bind his own hair, so I always did it for him.

  He gave a dazzling smile and handed me the wooden comb. “I have an audience with the Sky Emperor today, and I need to look well-groomed.”

  Ye Hua had lustrous hair that was soft, black, and glossy, and the wooden comb easily glided through it. Coiling up his hair and piling it onto his head was the trickier part.

  There were a jade hairpin and a jade crown on the vanity table. I picked up the pin, and once I had attached it to the hair, I placed the crown on his head. I had not done this for a while, but I had not lost my skill.

  I saw Ye Hua smiling at me in the bronze mirror.

  I looked him up and down. This hairstyle really did accentuate his immortal good looks. Satisfied, I placed the comb back on the vanity table.

  I saw that Ye Hua was still smiling to himself in the mirror. He took hold of my right hand as I was putting down the comb, and in a low voice he said, “In the past you always used to . . .” I could just make out a subtle movement in his eyes, like a ripple in calm water.

  Oh dear, I hadn’t been bewitched, had I?

  I gave a half bow, which, with my left hand still on his shoulder and my right one under his on the vanity table, was not easy to execute. I was not sure what to expect from this sentence of his starting with “In the past . . .”

  He slowly released my hand, but did not continue his thought. He just smiled, pulled a slightly decrepit-looking pearl bracelet from his sleeve, and placed it in my hand.

  It was obviously a good-luck charm, one that could turn calamities to blessings. He stood up in front of the bronze mirror and gave a reluctant smile. “You should wear this bracelet. You’re just like a mortal now, and although you are not going to run into great danger in the mortal world, it’s still wise to take precautions.”

  He was acting a little out of character today, his mood swinging between joyful and anxious. I did not want to aggravate him by saying anything rash, so I agreed.

  He nodded and reached out to stroke my face. “I will head to the Sky Palace now in that case.” After a moment’s silence, he continued, “Last night I was so distracted by the important matter that I completely forgot to tell you something. On the first of Lunar June, at the hour in which fate turns the way it will, if you hold Yuan Zhen back and arrange for someone to push Dong Hua into the water instead, he’ll be the one who saves the beautiful girl from drowning. Yuan Zhen will be freed from entanglement without it obstructing Dong Hua’s experience of human pain and suffering. Everyone will be happy.”

  As soon as he had imparted this information, he turned around and was gone.

  I thought back over all the things Ye Hua and I had been busy discussing the night before, but not one presented itse
lf as this “important matter” he had just mentioned. I decided to disregard it for the time being and think about what he had said after instead.

  He really had come up with an ingenious method. Only someone removed from the situation could view it with such clarity. I had been dithering about for so long now that all I was doing was making myself more confused.

  Thinking of a solution to this big concern made me feel as if a huge rock that had been pressing down on my body for weeks had been lifted. I felt weightless and infinitely more relaxed.

  I ran my fingers along the leaves of the mimosa plant in the pot on the windowsill, feeling light as a feather. I sat down and drank another cup of tea, still feeling light as a feather. I had only finished half the cup when I suddenly I remembered the thing that had occurred to me as I had been drifting off. It was a really dreadful thought.

  According to Mystic Gorge, Phoenix Nine had gone to the mortal world to repay her debt of gratitude. All I knew was that some mortal had done her a favor, which she had gone to the mortal world to repay, an explanation I had accepted without giving it another thought.

  Thinking it over more carefully, I realized that in all her thirty thousand years, Phoenix Nine had owed a favor to only one person, and that was Dong Hua. His immortal magic was much more powerful than hers, which made it difficult for her to repay him. Could she have come to the mortal world to find Dong Hua in his reincarnated form and repay the debt that way? It had taken so much for her to make a clean break from her destructive love for Dong Hua. A few days of fussing over him could easily reignite those feelings. For the sake of Second Brother and Second Sister-in-Law I had to act.

  I jumped to my feet, changed my clothes, and ran out into the courtyard. I needed to go see Yuan Zhen, the disciple who zapped three years of my spiritual energy each time we met, and ask him whether a young woman had arrived at the palace half a year ago with a phoenix-feather birthmark on her forehead.