To the Sky Kingdom

by Tang Qi

  He stopped his impersonation and gave a casual laugh. “If I told you that Mo Yuan was about to wake up, would you still be in no great rush?”

  On hearing Zhe Yan’s words, my poor fox heart felt as if it were on fire, and it leaped out of my chest and into my throat. I heard my own voice sounding hoarse as I said, “You’re . . . you’re lying to me.” I heard myself sobbing as I said it.

  He stared, and reined in his smile. I saw waves of lines appear on his forehead. He came over and patted my back. “I promise I’m not playing around with you this time, little girl. I’ve spent the last couple of days on business in the Western Sea with Fourth Brother. I saw the Western Sea Emperor’s oldest son when I was there and sensed something a bit strange about his immortal energy. I performed soul-chasing magic and discovered two souls inside his body. One was his, and the other . . .” He paused, and lowered his voice to say, “. . . belongs to your master, Mo Yuan.”

  I lowered my head and stared at the embroidery on my shoes sticking out from under my skirt. “How do you know that the Water Emperor’s son’s soul belonged to Mo Yuan?” I asked dumbly. “Supernatural mortal-world stories have plots like that, but it turns out that the man is actually pregnant. Perhaps the Western Sea Emperor’s oldest son has been concealing the fact that he’s expecting a baby from his parents?”

  My head had been lowered, and there was now a mist in front of my eyes, which stopped me from being able to see Zhe Yan’s expression clearly. I just heard him sigh and say, “With soul-chasing magic, it is possible to find the source of a soul. The second soul in the Western Sea’s oldest prince’s body was sleeping deeply. I followed it to its source and discovered that it was being nurtured by the spirit power from shattered pieces of itself, which it had managed to fit back together. Ask yourself, who in the Four Seas and Eight Deserts could possibly take a soul that was fragmented to the point of being unrecognizable and use the spirit power from its own scattered pieces to reconstruct itself as a whole new soul? Only Mo Yuan, of course.

  “He is the oldest legitimate son of Father of the Universe, who brought me up too. Growing up alongside Mo Yuan, I’m naturally very familiar with his immortal powers. You told me that before Mo Yuan became dust flying, he asked his seventeen apprentices to wait for him. At the time, I assumed he had said this just to give you all hope, not wishing for all of you to feel too sad. Even though he was always true to his word, I couldn’t believe he could possibly survive something like that. When I discovered this soul sleeping deeply within the body of the Western Sea’s oldest prince, I was filled with admiration. Never in his life has Mo Yuan disappointed his nearest and dearest. That is the sign of a truly outstanding man. He has already spent seventy thousand years reconstructing his soul. Some fragments of it are still scattered, and it will take a little longer before his soul is complete and ready to return to his body. He needed to tap into someone else’s immortal power when he slowly nursed himself back to health. Once that process is complete, he will be able to return to his own body and wake up properly. That must be why Mo Yuan’s soul inhabits the body of the Western Sea’s oldest prince. He is resting there while he recuperates. Unfortunately, the prince is not a very physically robust immortal, and he is finding it hard to produce enough spiritual energy for his own self-cultivation, as well as that needed to nurture Mo Yuan, and his body is getting weaker by the day. The fact that Mo Yuan’s soul has housed itself inside such a feeble body means that it will take him seven or eight thousand years longer to recuperate. Having verified that it was indeed Mo Yuan, I planned to come and tell you straightaway. But when I arrived in Qingqiu and saw how badly injured you were, I decided to keep it to myself for a while in case you got upset. You’ve had a whole day to bathe in the sky spring now, so I imagined you must be more or less recovered.”

  This torrent of words entered my ears, but my brain was too crammed to make sense of them. The words tumbled around my head like a wok of rice porridge being stirred. I felt so confused it was as if my mind had taken a wander far away from the Ninth Sky, leaving me in a state of bewildered confusion.

  I was about to be granted the wish I had been making for seventy thousand years. I just stood there for a long time in a state of complete disbelief, feeling as if I were choking. Suddenly I saw a hole in Zhe Yan’s story. “B-b-but if M-M-Master is using the Western Sea’s oldest prince’s immortal energy to recuperate, how will he ever repay the large debt he incurs?”

  Zhe Yan gave a cough. “I’m sure Mo Yuan had his reasons for choosing the Western Sea’s oldest prince,” he said slowly. “Either this prince or a member of his clan must have owed Mo Yuan a favor, and this is their repayment.”

  He took hold of my shoulder, lifted my chin, and gave a frown. “Little girl, are you crying?”

  I dabbed at my face, and sure enough my hand came away wet. My knees buckled, and I knelt down onto the ground, grabbing pathetically at a corner of his sleeve. “I . . . I’m so w-w-worried that this is just a delusion,” I sobbed.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  As soon as I heard what Zhe Yan had to say, I lost all desire to stay in the Ninth Sky. Although I was upset with Ye Hua, he had done me a huge favor by arranging for me to use the sky spring to heal my injuries, and leaving without saying good-bye would have come across as extremely ungrateful. But rushing over to find him now would look like I was the one backing down. In the end I decided to leave him a letter thanking him sincerely for the care he had shown me over the past two days. As soon as it was written, I strode out the Southern Sky Gate with Zhe Yan, and we made our way hurriedly down from the sky.

  At the moment Mo Yuan was nothing but a sleeping soul in the body of the Western Sea’s oldest prince, but I was still anxious to see him. The eagerness with which I was rushing toward the Western Sea made me feel like a mother bird from a mountain forest waking early to search for insects and flapping its wings triumphantly, a fat juicy worm in its beak, as it soared back to the nest to feed its chicks.

  We traveled for a couple of hours on a cloud before we reached the Western Sea. Zhe Yan soon became bored and spent the whole time chattering in my ear. Luckily for me he and Fourth Brother had been getting on famously of late, which saved me from having to listen to those same old dull things that Fourth Brother had allegedly disgraced him by doing and saying.

  The subject of today’s chatter was the Western Sea Emperor’s family secrets. I sat solemnly on the cloud and listened in rapt attention.

  Of the four Water Emperors, it was the Western one that had left the least impression on me. I had always assumed this was because I had spent so long inside Qingqiu, ignoring the comings and goings of the immortals of this younger generation.

  But from what Zhe Yan was saying, these last two generations of Western Sea Emperors had indeed kept low profiles, and their clan had lacked presence within the Four Seas and Eight Deserts. This low-profile Western Sea Emperor had somehow inadvertently become part of an extremely high-profile event.

  Mo Yuan had borrowed the body of the Western Sea’s oldest prince, De Yong, to house his sleeping soul while he recuperated.

  This process had started more than six hundred years ago. De Yong, who had never been particularly robust, had started to feel increasingly weak and listless. None of the medicine masters from the Western Sea Water Crystal Palace could work out what was wrong. A lot of time and effort was spent in vain trying to nurse him back to health.

  They pleaded with the Sky Palace’s medicine prince to pay a visit and give his diagnosis. He arrived accompanied by two immortal children and carried out a thorough examination of De Yong. Twisting his beard, the medicine prince prescribed two types of medicine for his patient, but all these did was prevent De Yong from coughing up blood.

  Before the medicine prince left, he ushered the Western Sea Emperor into a quiet corner and explained that De Yong was not suffering from a physical illness, and as a medical doctor he was unable to offer further assistance.

  W
hen he heard that even the medicine prince was unable to help, the Western Sea Emperor was overcome with grief and indignation. He sat there with bloodshot eyes, pondering it for a long time before coming up with a plan. He decided to design a notice seeking a doctor. He would write this notice in bright, shiny characters and post it all over the Four Seas and Eight Deserts. He wrote that any man who could cure the illness of the oldest prince of the Western Sea would be recruited as the boy’s head concubine, while any woman who could cure it would become the head concubine of the second prince.

  Yes, that jogged my memory. I had heard rumors about the Western Sea’s oldest prince, De Yong, being homosexual. The Western Sea Emperor had been so anxious and in a rush that he had not given careful thought to the content of this notice. There certainly were plenty of capable people under the sky who were homosexual, of whom Li Jing’s father, Qing Cang, was one, but there were also a large number who were not. This notice was not very well thought through in that it was likely to scare away capable people who were not homosexual and did not wish to become the oldest prince’s head concubine. It was some time before the emperor realized the problem with his notice, but by then the damage had been done.

  The Western Sea Emperor found a large crowd of more men than there were drops of water in the Yellow River standing outside his court in response to the notice. They flowed in wave after never-ending wave. Sadly, despite the solid learning and talent of these men, none possessed the key to cure his son’s illness.

  Mo Yuan’s soul was very deeply hidden, in a realm beyond that transcended by immortal magic, and none of these men could see the second soul nesting in De Yong’s body, siphoning off a portion of his immortal energy each day.

  Ever since then, De Yong had been suffering, becoming less and less like an immortal each day that passed. The Western Sea Empress was completely distraught over her eldest son’s languid appearance and spent her days weeping before her husband. The Western Sea Emperor was equally troubled.

  But heaven never closes off every path. De Yong’s younger brother, Second Prince Su Moye, was on good terms with Fourth Brother, and they often ate and drank together. After Fourth Brother had found Bi Fang in the Western Mountains and returned to the Ten-Mile Peach Grove, he and Zhe Yan had a huge argument, and he stormed off to the Western Sea Water Crystal Palace to find Su Moye to drink away his annoyance with.

  He had arrived at the Western Sea Water Crystal Palace that time to find a gloomy atmosphere hanging over the place. Su Moye drank more than usual, and soon started slurring his words. Slouching against Fourth Brother’s shoulder, he explained the whole sorry state of his family affairs. He talked and talked, holding nothing back. As soon as Fourth Brother learned of the plight of Su Moye’s household, he felt full of compassion. He offered to see if he could get Zhe Yan to come over and help.

  Zhe Yan had made very clear his position as a “mysterious god who has shunned the three unwholesome roots and retreated from the world, who has refined interests, and even more refined tastes,” and in normal circumstances, he would have refused to get embroiled in a situation like this one. But he also wanted to keep Fourth Brother happy. So he humbled himself by rushing over to the Western Sea. That was when he discovered the wonderful news fulfilling my deepest wish: that Mo Yuan was soon to wake up.

  Zhe Yan gave me a playful look. “Before your fourth brother and I left the Western Sea, we told the group of young immortals there that we would be sending an immortal envoy to personally assist De Yong’s recovery. For Mo Yuan’s soul to have a smooth recovery, De Yong’s body requires careful attention.”

  What he was saying made sense, except for one detail. “But you don’t have an immortal envoy at the peach grove, do you?” I asked with a frown.

  He gave a free and easy laugh. “When the Eastern Sea Emperor held his son’s one-month banquet, I heard that a palace attendant arrived with a piece of white silk wrapped around her face. She gave the emperor some of my peach blossom wine as a celebratory gift and claimed to be an envoy from the peach grove.

  “This palace attendant also said that she was Prince Ye Hua’s younger sister. A couple of old immortals have spent weeks in the Ninth Sky making discreet inquiries about this but have so far failed to come up with anything about this mysterious little sister of Ye Hua’s. These same immortals went over to the Eastern Sea Emperor to make sure they had heard correctly and were told that it had not been a female palace attendant after all, but a boy dressed as a girl. This boy was in a homosexual relationship with Ye Hua and had been pretending to be a girl and telling people he was Ye Hua’s little sister to keep their relationship under wraps.”

  The corners of my mouth started to twitch. “What a hilarious story for the Eastern Sea Emperor to have come up with. Hilarious and ridiculous!” I said, forcing a laugh.

  I was very grateful to Zhe Yan for the opportunity to personally nurse the Western Sea prince back to health, thus allowing me to repay my debt to Mo Yuan. But having to go to this homosexual prince’s bedside disguised as a boy rather decreased that gratitude. I was starting to feel sorry that Fourth Brother had not been present at the Eastern Sea Emperor’s banquet to stop me from offering up Zhe Yan’s name as I had.

  Zhe Yan glanced across at me. I looked up at the sky and transformed myself into a boy’s image, although my face was still obscured by that piece of white silk four fingers wide.

  Just sitting on the cloud and waiting to arrive at the Western Sea felt like torture. With an air of stern godly authority, Zhe Yan led me into the sea. We were swirling through the water for a while before finally arriving at the magnificent palace residence, in front of which a crowd of young Western Sea immortals had gathered to greet us. It was an extravagant display with all of them dressed in splendid attire.

  Even though Zhe Yan had referred to me as just a little immortal envoy, the fact that a god as respected and worshipped as he had led me personally all the way to the Western Sea earned me a lot of respect, and the Western Sea Emperor treated me very well. Zhe Yan was cordially invited to sit down and rest his feet at the most important seat within the great hall. Fine tea leaves were steeped for him while he was waited upon by a great gathering of palace attendants bearing trays of fruit.

  Seeing that Zhe Yan was taking a rest, I naturally decided to join him.

  Some tens of thousands of years ago, Second Brother had become fascinated by literature and would often bring poems about love and heartbreak from the mortal world to discuss with me. One of these poems was written by a mortal who was commonly recognized as being extremely talented, but highly lacking in morals. I cannot recall the whole poem, but two lines stuck in my mind: “Nearing your hometown you grow more timid, you dare not ask questions about the place you love.”

  Second Brother provided me with a thorough explanation of this poem. Apparently the poet had wandered far from his hometown and had received no news from home for many years. On returning, his heart had been like an arrow focused on the target, but as he approached, he had become fearful, too nervous to ask for news of his household because of what he might hear. These two lines brilliantly revealed both the yearning and the foreboding in this talented poet’s heart. I had not agreed with Second Brother’s analysis. I was unable to grasp how a poet could be filled with such yearning for home and yet stop in his tracks when he was so near. It had sounded like a complete contradiction to me.

  It was only now that I realized the profound implication of these two lines and came to appreciate the talent of this mortal poet, because sitting in the great hall of the Western Sea Water Crystal Palace, about to return to the one my heart had been yearning for, I was filled with extraordinary fear. I was both impatient to see Mo Yuan’s soul and terrified at the prospect.

  Zhe Yan did not rest for long. He took a couple of sips of tea with his eyes closed before explaining to his host that he had important matters he needed to attend to. He said these words with such godly authority and sternness that even tho
ugh the Western Sea Emperor obviously wished him to stay longer, he did not press the matter. He called for a group of little Western Sea immortals to see Zhe Yan out, some at the front to clear the path and others to walk behind. In this formation, the bustling throng made its way out of the palace.

  Having seen Zhe Yan off, the Western Sea Emperor started to look nervous. He said a courteous word or two to me before taking me to see his oldest son, De Yong. I was taking deep breaths, my whole body feeling taut from the tension and fear. I was terrified that when I actually came face-to-face with De Yong, I might be so overwhelmed with emotion that I would perform some serious breach of etiquette.

  I had naively thought that since Mo Yuan’s soul inhabited the Western Sea’s oldest prince’s body, the prince would radiate an energy that would give me a sense of affection and familiarity. I felt certain that his physical appearance would in some way reflect its association with Mo Yuan’s soul. But as soon as the palace attendants pushed open the doors of the Western Sea’s oldest prince’s Fuying Hall and I followed the Western Sea Emperor inside and saw De Yong sprawled on the bed, his hair in disarray and a blank look in his eyes, my heart sank.

  The young invalid lying on the bed had delicate features and was incredibly fragile-looking. He looked nothing like Mo Yuan. The immortal energy surrounding his body was weak and lackluster. It was hard to believe that this body could possibly contain the soul of the most powerful and influential god in the whole of the Four Seas and Eight Deserts. Mo Yuan must have been sleeping very deeply, as he had not allowed De Yong the slightest benefit from the association. He had not passed on a hint of his strong and calm immortal energy.

  The Western Sea Emperor stood to the side of his son’s sickbed, prattling away earnestly. He told his son that the immortal prince standing by his bedside, surrounded by a thousand trails of propitious vapors, was an apprentice who had come highly recommended by His Godliness Zhe Yan. That they were putting his health in this immortal’s hands. That this chronic illness that had gone untreated for all these hundreds of years was going to be given to this immortal to cure. And De Yong should act with extreme gratitude and be cooperative.