To the Sky Kingdom

by Tang Qi

  Zhe Yan suddenly appeared in midair, looking rather worn-out, which was rare to see. He could not have angered Fourth Brother again, could he? I drained my tea without batting an eyelid. Sure enough the first thing he said was, “Young lady, has your fourth brother come to see you recently?”

  I shook my head. “Isn’t he still in the Western Mountains, looking for Bi Fang?” I asked.

  “He’s been back a few days now,” Zhe Yan said with an awkward smile. He put a hand to his forehead. “Bi Fang really was feisty and hard to tame.”

  He was just about to go off when he thought of something else. He turned to me and said, “There’s something I forgot to tell you. The day after you went to the Eastern Sea banquet, the Sky Emperor’s grandson, Ye Hua, came to the peach grove, looking for you. He was asking about something you’d done three hundred years ago.”

  “Oh?” I said in astonishment.

  “I told him that five hundred years ago you were taken seriously ill and slept for two hundred years straight,” he said with a frown. “He left after that without asking anything else. Young lady, you haven’t had another marriage engagement fall through, have you?”

  That hard-fought battle I had waged against Qing Cang was naturally not something that could be shared with outsiders. Qingqiu had not been enemies with Qing Cang, and as a Qingqiu goddess, I had no justification to attack him. I muttered to myself for a while before saying, “No, I don’t think so. I haven’t seen any sign that Ye Hua might want to call off our engagement.”

  “Well, that’s good,” he said with a nod. Then he leaned toward Phoenix Nine and said, “Fourth Brother really misses your cooking. Please come to the peach grove when you are free.”

  “I’m too busy,” Phoenix Nine said, shaking her head.

  Zhe Yan looked at her and said, “Your two lives incantation worked very well,” before disappearing.

  “Aunt Bai, he’s threatening me,” Phoenix Nine said, looking very upset.

  It would be difficult to find anyone in the mortal world who was both able and willing to push the emperor into the water in front of a crowd. Everything was set to help Yuan Zhen pass his calamity. I was just missing this critical component: someone to push the emperor.

  I had thought Phoenix Nine might be the right person to take on this huge burden. She thought it through very carefully before saying, “Being bound by the two lives incantation, I forget who I really am during the day. I think that I have always been Honorable Concubine Chen and have her personality. I spend my days adoring the emperor so much all I can do is cry and vomit up blood.

  “Bound by this magic, there is no way I would be able to push the emperor into the water. In fact, the way Honorable Concubine Chen is, you should be praying that she doesn’t ruin your plan by stopping whoever you find to push him.”

  What she was saying made complete sense, and I did not force the issue. If I could not find anyone else, I would have to be the one to push him. But the emperor had never been fond of Taoists, and I was not sure if I would even be allowed onto the same boat with him.

  Luckily, Yuan Zhen had a mother who doted on him with heart and soul, and not just his mortal mother in the temple. Although the one in the temple worried about him, most of her heart was devoted to questions of immortality, and mundane earthly matters were often overlooked. The mother who doted on him and also concerned herself with these mundane earthly matters was his immortal mother, Shao Xin.

  Shao Xin had come down to the mortal world to see how Yuan Zhen was and how preparations were going to help him through his impending calamity. When I saw her, I asked her to take on the monumental responsibility of pushing the emperor overboard.

  My idea was a logical one. When the time came, she could use immortal magic to make herself invisible. When the predestined beautiful woman appeared and everybody was focused on her, Shao Xin could stand behind the emperor and give him a light shove, toppling him over into the water. But there was a hitch to this plan too. She would be using immortal magic to change Yuan Zhen’s destiny, and since Shao Xin was pregnant, it would not be right to ask this of her. If she did suffer her own magic backbite, it was likely to impact her unborn baby.

  My eyes dropped to Shao Xin’s bulging belly, and I muttered, “It would be dangerous for you to take this on. We need someone sturdier.”

  After thinking it through, Shao Xin suggested getting her husband, Sang Ji, to do the dirty deed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A few days later, it was the first of June.

  The information in the destiny notebook was correct: the emperor did take all his officials and a crowd of concubines and nobles for a dragon boat trip on the Suyu River. Despite the fact that I was his son’s master, the emperor did not hold me in high regard, and I had not been ranked highly within the imperial palace. Some officials from the Department of Rites were more insightful, and realizing that I was a supreme being, they ensured that I was among the officials in the dragon boat. I found myself positioned next to a couple of eighth-level advisers, but from here all I could see of the emperor was the back of his head. Three feet away from the emperor’s head, I could see the back of another head, which looked rather like Honorable Concubine Chen’s.

  Mao the Sun Prince was doing himself proud, and on the day of Yuan Zhen’s and Emperor Dong Hua’s predestined calamities, the sun was shining and the air was sizzling hot. There were a couple of clouds floating in the sky, but they were wispy and looked as if they might just evaporate away from the heat.

  The Suyu River was not very wide, and the emperor’s sizable dragon boat took up almost half its width. Both sides of the river were crowded with the emperor’s subjects, who must have started arriving at dawn to find good spots to watch from. The dragon boat was not going to be traveling down a very long section of the river, and there were far too many people to fit on the banks, which meant that some had climbed up trees or onto nearby houses instead.

  The officials rowing the boat were having a tricky time, as they had to ensure that they steered the boat right down the center of the river. If it deviated an inch in either direction, it would look as if the emperor were favoring the citizens from that side of the bank over those on the other. Rowing with such precision meant that the boat moved along at an almost unperceivable pace.

  The people sitting in the boat were so hot under the bright sun that their thighs had started shaking.

  It was almost noon. I stuffed two pieces of gold leaf into the hands of a young court eunuch working at the back of the boat and asked him to bring Prince Yuan Zhen over. This eunuch was swift and agile. I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds, and by the time I opened them again, I saw Yuan Zhen bounding over.

  He was wearing a sky-blue embroidered robe, and his face had a handsome, youthful glow. When he saw me, he raised an eyebrow and his eyes sparkled. “Master, what is so urgent that you have to call me over at this moment?” he asked and gave me a charming and delicate smile.

  I had thought of a way to deal with his inquisitiveness. I was quiet a moment, building up the suspense before gathering up my sleeves. “A flickering Taoist light has just shone through my chest and illuminated many profound things that normally remain in the dark,” I explained in a wise voice. “I remembered with fondness how dedicated you are to Taoist practice, and since I have arrived at this truth, I wish to share it with you. Would you like to hear it?”

  Yuan Zhen cupped his hands together and bowed. He stood with his head lowered, waiting to hear what I had to say. I cleared my throat to make myself sound more commanding. Despite napping through Mo Yuan’s classes for all those thousands of years, much must still have managed to seep through, because providing a mortal with an hour-long lecture on Taoist practice posed me no problem whatsoever.

  I lectured Yuan Zhen on Taoism while waiting for the beautiful woman from Si Ming the Star Prince’s destiny notebook to appear. It was almost midday, and I was feeling apprehensive.

  I was getting towar
d the end of my lecture when Yuan Zhen, who had been looking as if he wanted to say something for a while now, finally cut in. “Master, you’ve repeated the part about dual person Taoist practice, cultivation of qi, and harmonization of the soul four times now,” he said.

  “Of course I’ve repeated that part four times!” I said in false exasperation. “I’ve done so for good reason. You need to consider the significance of the number four. You also need to consider the significance of this aspect of Taoist practice and the reason your master went to the trouble of explaining it four times. Considering the significance of various factors is an integral part of studying Taoist practice. If you don’t understand your master’s efforts, you are going to have a very hard time cultivating spiritual practice.”

  Yuan Zhen buried his head in his hands.

  He had interrupted me mid flow, and I tried to remember which part I had repeated four times. I decided to just continue talking about dual person Taoist practice, cultivation of qi, and harmonization of the soul.

  I went on and on, speaking until my mouth and tongue turned dry and I had to gulp down two large pots of tea. Finally the beautiful woman from Si Ming the Star Prince’s destiny notebook appeared.

  I did not get to see her from my position at the back of the boat. Even craning my neck, all I could see were the backs of a lot of heads. I knew that she had arrived, however, because hovering above us I could see the giant golden-winged Peng bird, the creature that Si Ming the Star Prince had gone to the trouble of borrowing from the Great Buddha of the Western Paradise.

  In all my years, I had never seen an emperor dive into the water to save a beautiful woman. Any moment now I would have the chance to enjoy this rare spectacle, and the prospect gave me a blood rush. To keep Yuan Zhen reined in, I needed to remain calm, however difficult this sounded.

  People on both sides of the river suddenly stopped their whooping and cheering, and a wave of silence moved up the boat. I scanned the sky for the giant golden-winged Peng bird, but it was still just a small dot in the sky, and it could not have been the bird that silenced the crowd.

  It must have been catching sight of the beautiful woman that had rendered them speechless.

  Yuan Zhen was still deeply immersed in the expansive realm of Taoist philosophy and had not even noticed the spectacle unfolding around him. I felt comforted by this and continued to talk on the subject, while taking the odd surreptitious glance up at the giant golden-winged Peng bird, which was now swooping toward us.

  The Great Buddha’s giant Peng bird was extremely powerful, and each flap of its wings could send it soaring three thousand miles. Today it was disguised as a mortal bird and was unable to fly with as much force and vigor as it was used to. It kept its wings retracted as it flew slowly through the sky. It had probably never felt so pathetic flying before, and hung its head and looked despondent.

  I watched the tormented Peng bird floating through the sky until it was right above the Suyu River. It circled gently through the air before extending its wings and diving down, before soaring slowly back up again, all its movements extremely gentle. I could not imagine that it had ever flown with such delicate grace.

  But its movements obviously did not look so gentle from the perspective of the mortals watching from below, and they began to shriek with a terror that filled my ears with a constant roar. One old adviser next to me pointed a shaky finger and said, “I didn’t know giant Peng birds actually existed, let alone such fierce ones flying as fast as this.”

  Yuan Zhen was still fully absorbed in the wonders of Taoism and lost to the outside world. The beautiful woman ought to have fallen in the water by now. I sat there calmly, waiting for the splash that would signal Sang Ji to push the emperor into the water from the front of the boat.

  Finally I heard it and nodded to myself in satisfaction. Sang Ji had succeeded in pushing Dong Hua into the water. Excellent.

  I was still nodding to myself when I heard Honorable Concubine Chen shouting, “The emperor can’t swim! Oh, goodness gracious . . . he can’t swim!” This was followed closely by another splash and another. Splash after splash after splash.

  I stared in dumbstruck horror. Oh my. Despite planning everything so meticulously, we had not given a moment’s consideration to whether Dong Hua in his mortal form might actually be able to swim. Who was going to dive into the water and rescue the beautiful woman now? I scrambled toward the front of the boat. Honorable Concubine Chen’s roaring had snapped Yuan Zhen from his reverie, and he dashed in front of me in a panic.

  There had been so many flaws in the carrying out of our plan already, but it was still vital to stop Yuan Zhen from jumping into the water. Dong Hua’s fate may have been altered, but the very least we could do was make sure that Yuan Zhen’s was altered along with it. Finding a moment’s clarity within all this chaos, I rolled up my sleeves and grabbed Yuan Zhen by the arm.

  As he was racing toward the front of the boat, Yuan Zhen turned and gave me a serious look before continuing to sprint on ahead. Everyone cleared the way for the heir to the throne, and we were soon at the front. We squeezed past the thick crowd and found ourselves standing behind the mast column.

  I looked down past the column to see a very strange scene. A number of brightly dressed officials of all ranks were bobbing around in the Suyu River. Those that could not swim were choking on water and yelling to be saved while those who could were swimming back and forth, dipping their heads in the water, swimming a bit farther and shouting “Emperor!” When they came across a colleague who had leaped into the water without being able to swim, they would grab them, and together they would swim back and forth in search of the emperor.

  The sheer volume of people in the river was making the search for the emperor more difficult. Standing inside the boat gave me a panoramic view out over the river, and I saw that while all his officials were swimming up and down in a desperate search for him, the emperor was actually being held firmly in Honorable Concubine Chen’s slender arms as she swam her exhausted way toward the dragon boat.

  After Sang Ji had pushed the emperor into the water, Honorable Concubine Chen must have alerted the crowds with her shouts of “His Highness can’t swim!” and the emperor’s eunuchs had displayed their undivided loyalty by diving into the water to save him.

  Some of them could not even swim, but stirred up by the eager crowds, they had pulled up their sleeves, gritting their teeth, and jumped in as well. Those who had not lost their minds to blind panic worried about how it might look if they were the only ones who did not jump in, so in the end they felt compelled to do so too.

  The emperor’s bodyguards were all able swimmers and could have easily rescued the emperor. But there were now so many people floundering around half drowning and in need of saving, all of them pillars of the country, and their workload was increased to no end.

  Honorable Concubine Chen had already dragged the emperor up onto the boat while his bodyguards were still busy swimming around rescuing these floundering officials. There was so much chaos that no one paid any attention to the beautiful woman from the destiny notebook who had also fallen into the water.

  Yuan Zhen’s only concern was the fate of his father, and he remained completely oblivious to the beautiful woman. He had been about to throw himself off the boat to rescue the emperor, but fortunately a couple of old eunuchs were on hand to hold him back. The emperor was in no state to help and was clearly of no use to the beautiful woman.

  I was momentarily distracted, but when I looked back to the woman, I saw her paddling to the bank, tears streaming down her face. The emperor was half drowned and in a very sorry state.

  Honorable Concubine Chen had been the only concubine to jump into the water after the emperor and had singlehandedly managed to save his life, which had automatically elevated her status. Aware of what had happened, the empress made all the other wailing concubines stand to the side and allowed only Chen to be near. Chen wailed to high heaven and bashed her head agai
nst the boat. “Wake up, Your Highness, wake up!” she cried. “You can’t leave your eunuch and concubine servants!”

  Soon she was grasping at her throat and vomiting up blood again. She yelled a while and then vomited up some blood, yelled a bit more, vomited a bit more. There were a couple of worldly old imperial doctors among the attendees, who rushed over and dragged Honorable Concubine Chen away from the emperor. They approached their patients, hands trembling as they opened their medicine cases and inspected them before giving their diagnoses.

  The outing was abandoned. The dragon boat could finally be rowed like a normal boat, the officials in charge no longer constrained by precision steering. Under the heir to the throne’s command, they held their heads up high, shook open the flag, and traveled full speed ahead, all the way back to the imperial palace.

  I beckoned to the young eunuch I had bribed earlier and asked him for a jug of water. Yuan Zhen had successfully avoided his predestined calamity, but Dong Hua and the beautiful woman had missed each other completely.

  I knew of Dong Hua’s position as head of the immortal audience and all the cumbersome matters he had to deal with. It could not have been easy for him to find the time to be reborn as a mortal, and I felt terrible for having destroyed his predestined love calamity so completely and utterly.

  I wiped the sweat from my forehead and took a sip of water. I had made a pig’s ear of things while dealing with this Yuan Zhen matter, but at least I had achieved what I had set out to do. I counted on my fingers how many days I had spent in the mortal world, thinking to myself that the mortal world was no more interesting than before.

  I decided that tomorrow I would go with Yuan Zhen to the temple behind the imperial palace and bid farewell to his mother. And that would be that. I would be free to return to Qingqiu. The only problem was that my magic had been sealed off, and I was not sure how I was actually going to get myself back to Qingqiu.

  Phoenix Nine had told me that after today’s Vedic Dharma Festival when Dong Hua had met the girl of his dreams, she would be free to leave. Dong Hua’s fate had been altered, but it had not been Phoenix Nine’s fault. Besides, she had risked her life to save his life, and by so doing had completely repaid her debt to him. As soon as the sun had set over the mountains, I would go and find Phoenix Nine, and tomorrow we could both return to Qingqiu together.