by F. C. Yee
When she dropped her hands she looked like herself once more. The Lady of Infinite Capacity. The veil had been lifted.
“I thought I lacked the guts to pursue what I wanted,” she said with a smile. “But you reminded me that I still have plenty to go around.”
Inner Me was deliriously happy, bouncing off the walls at the way she’d come around. A Universe led by Guanyin, where mercy and action and good sense reigned. The vision was sweeter and more intoxicating than any drink Ji-Hyun could have mixed in her bathtub. Outer Me shrugged, playing it cool.
“We all need a boost from time to time,” I said. “You know, you were pretty mean to me before, calling me a smarmy know-it-all. While you’re here, I think you should apologize for that, too.”
“Don’t push it. You still are one.” She reached behind her and produced a small, cloth-lined box.
“What’s this?” I said.
“A gift.” She opened the box so the contents faced me. Inside, lying on top a miniature velvet pillow, were two little oblong lumps of dark, glittery metal.
I picked them up. They should have been cool to the touch, but instead their temperature matched mine so closely that I could hardly tell I was holding them. The lumps were flat on the bottom, the short side. I turned them over.
One piece of metal had “Lo Pei-Yi” carved into it, in reverse. The other had the characters for “Shouhushen.” I was embarrassed to see that the correct way to write my title was different than the way I’d been imagining it. I had to brush up on my Chinese.
“These are chops,” I said.
“As you mentioned over the phone, you’re the Shouhushen of California on Earth,” Guanyin said. “We should have established your seal of office right away. This is long overdue.”
She swept aside a nearby pile of trash with her arm to reveal a coffee table that I didn’t know was there. With another sleight of hand, she yanked a scroll from thin air and rolled it flat on the glass surface. Next to it she put a small pot of waxy red ink.
My fingers shook as I hefted the first stone and dipped it into the ink. It was only a practice run on blank paper, and yet I was terrified of messing up my first-ever chop stamp. Pressing and lifting the lump of metal made a sticky, satisfying Crayola noise.
I didn’t look at the results until the second seal was also finished. Once I was done, two bright crimson squares of highly stylized characters sat at the bottom of the page.
The Shouhushen Lo Pei-Yi. In the future, once I used them on official documentation, the stamps would be a symbol of my identity and authority. They would represent my word and my will.
This was a momentous occasion. You couldn’t do business in parts of Asia without a chop seal. In some way—actually, in a very large way—this was Guanyin telling me that I was finally real. I’d arrived.
The goddess peered at my signature with more effort and interest than I thought she would have spared for a test version. Maybe it was a little crooked. I could work on it.
I examined the seals themselves. Usually fancy chops were made from jade or chicken-blood stone, a red mineral that was pretty, if unfortunately named. But these were extremely heavy and dense, almost unnaturally so. The contrast between the black metal and the golden flecks—
“Wait a sec,” I said. “These aren’t—they’re not made out of . . . are they?”
Guanyin tucked the paper away before answering.
“They are,” she said, looking me in the eye. “They’re the same cosmic iron as the Ruyi Jingu Bang. You could say that, in a way, these chops don’t only represent you. They are you. I couldn’t think of a better material to make them out of. The most precious metal in the Universe, in my opinion.”
I was speechless. This was more than a gift.
I made a big show of carefully putting the seals back in their case. Once they were safe and secure, I threw my arms violently around Guanyin and hugged her with all my might.
“Genie!” she coughed in surprise. “You’re squishing me!”
Eh. As I knew from our previous fight, she was tough. She could take it.
16
It was uncomfortable to look at the apartment courtyard the next day and know it was a staging ground for the most important gathering that would take place in this epoch. The surrounding buildings blocked out the stained pink and orange hues of the morning sky, looming over me like gray monoliths. There were a lot more people than I had been expecting up and about. Mostly fitness buffs, running on the sidewalks in T-shirts and shorts. A couple of older folks, maybe faculty, taking unhurried strolls.
“Are you sure we won’t be seen?” I asked Guanyin.
The goddess stood next to me, surveying the area. “I’ve got concealment operating around us three layers thick, barriers impregnable to mundane means, and a web of silence that could muffle a shuttle launch. And if a human who isn’t you randomly wanders too close, they’ll feel the sudden urge to find the nearest bathroom.”
She winked. “That’s a unique little spell I cooked up myself.”
I smiled at her cleverness. “Where’s Quentin?”
“Here,” he said behind me. I turned to see him grumpily holding a large coffee toward me, a big scowl on his face.
That was incredibly sweet of him, especially since I hadn’t asked for it. It did my heart good to know that even though we were fighting, and we were still fighting, that my boyfriend was the least petty person I knew. He was all big heart and shouted emotions, with none of the silent, spiteful cruelty that I tended to—
I nearly spat my sip of coffee out. “There’s a ton of sugar and cream in this!”
Quentin shrugged. “They must have messed the order up. I wasn’t paying attention.”
Okay, so he was becoming petty. The student was learning from the master.
“Nothing for me?” the Great White Planet said, suddenly appearing to the side.
I’d been in this business long enough to stop caring when and how gods appeared on Earth. The Jade Emperor, the one time I saw him, needed to be announced with pomp and circumstance. Guanyin descended from the sky like the saint she was. And the Great White Planet got his jollies from popping in and out of nowhere; it was his prerogative. I couldn’t be surprised anymore.
“Boba shops don’t open this early,” I said. I chugged my erroneous caffeine to get rid of it faster and chucked the cup into a nearby trash bin. It left a disgusting film of sugar on my teeth.
“Just as well,” the Great White Planet said. “Bribing a judge during a Mandate Challenge is a crime punishable by dismemberment.”
He didn’t seem amused by his own joke. Perhaps he was still salty over what I pulled during the conference call. “You look upset,” I said, daring him to voice his disapproval of Guanyin to my face.
“I am,” he said. “An extremely serious problem has arisen. And the blame can be laid squarely at your feet.”
Quentin threw his hands in the air. “See?” he said to me, not waiting to hear what the issue was. “I knew this wouldn’t go down smoothly. When you screw with the process, bad things happen.”
As if to prove him right, a pair of bright red hands suddenly burst from the ground under Quentin’s feet, grabbed him by the ankles, and dragged him under the surface of the earth.
“QUENTIN!” I screamed. I dove for the small sinkhole he’d left behind and clawed frantically at the loose soil.
Guanyin might have been yelling something behind me, but I couldn’t hear her with the blood pounding through my veins. I had only one thought, a name out of my nightmares.
Red Boy.
The demon who had nearly incinerated the entire Bay. Red Boy had scorched Guanyin’s arm into a mass of scars and mine into a smelted attachment of living iron. He’d nearly killed Quentin. The only way I’d defeated him was by burying him deep under the airless Earth, and he’d escaped somehow to deliver the same punishment upon us.
The lawn behind me exploded. Rubble and dirt showered down, a rock the size
of a paving stone thudding off my back. Grit got in my eyes as I tried to make out what was happening.
Quentin had reemerged with his assailant, their battle taking them back above the surface. He and the red man grappled at close range, not wanting to give the other an inch of room to maneuver. They smashed each other’s backs with their fists as they snarled and laughed and—
They were laughing. The terror clouding my eyes began to fade, letting me see for the first time that this man who’d attacked Quentin was a good deal taller and thicker than Red Boy.
And more clothed. Red Boy had been nearly naked except for a loincloth when we’d fought. But this new guy was wearing a panoply of silken robes that could have put Ao Guang’s ensemble to shame. Quentin’s fist-pounds had knocked most of the dirt off, and the gilded embroidery underneath gleamed like the sun itself.
He also had the biggest, densest beard I had ever seen on a living creature, human or not. His jungle of facial hair was so aggressive and bountiful that Quentin was nearly swallowed whole by it.
“MONKEY!” the man roared, loud enough to unsettle nearby birds into flying away. “YOU SON OF A BITCH!”
Quentin freed himself from the man’s follicles and shoved him to get some space. “Guan Yu! You old bastard, I knew it was you!”
“Lies! I waited there five hours for that prank, and it was worth it to hear you squeal!”
The two of them slammed their arms together in a thunder-clap of a handshake. They did it the old-fashioned way, each gripping the other’s bulging wrist. It turned into a contest of strength immediately. They grinned at each other over the tug-of-war, and it seemed like the air itself would snap in two from the torque they were exerting.
“What’s the matter?” Guan Yu snorted as Quentin budged a millimeter. “Gone soft? Too many peaches?”
Quentin pushed back, reclaiming the ground he’d given up and then some. “That’s pretty funny coming from a soldier who hasn’t fought a war since porcelain was invented.”
A small shiny object pinged into the air and landed near my feet. It was one of Quentin’s cuff buttons, popped off from the sheer power of their flexing. Given more time, their biceps would have caused a critical meltdown.
“It’s a draw!” Guanyin said, stepping forward in between them and laughing. “It’s a draw. Please, or we’ll be here until the next eon passes.”
Guan Yu let go of Quentin at her behest and bowed solemnly toward the goddess. Then he gave her a big smile, and an even bigger hug. “My lady, you are looking as radiant as ever.”
Guanyin bore his affection with aplomb. They stood on opposite sides of the Mandate Challenge, but it was clear they were on warm terms at the very least. “It’s good to see you too, General,” she said, patting his back.
Guan Yu put her down and noticed me standing nearby. “And who is this human child?” he asked.
I was going to make a sarcastic comment about him being behind on the news, but I remembered he hadn’t been present in the hall of the gods when I made my declaration.
“My name is Genie,” I said, going with the short version. “I’m the Ruyi Jingu Bang.” I extended my hand and prepared myself for another squeeze-war.
Instead Guan Yu took hold of my fingers like they were made of glass and bowed again. I was mildly disappointed that I wouldn’t get to feel how strong he was. I needed to know if I could take him if things got ugly.
The warrior god straightened up and looked at me with a similar sense of probing interest. “Most curious!” he declared at an earsplitting volume. An ear-splitter, this guy was. “I had heard tales that the As-You-Will Cudgel had taken a new form. But I never would have believed it until seeing you with my own eyes.”
He stepped back, curled his tongue, and let out a whistle that made the Tarzan yell of his speaking voice sound like a church whisper. Even Quentin and Guanyin flinched at the inhuman shrillness.
High above us, a slice of lightning formed in the air, growing bigger and bigger, until an elongated shape fired downward out of it. The projectile slammed into the ground in front of Guan Yu, sizzling from friction. It looked like a metallic green staff, as thick as a parking meter pole and three times as tall, until he gripped it by the still-smoking haft and pulled the rest of it free. The earth revealed a broad, yard-long blade that glowed like a lightsaber set to dim.
It was a gigantic guandao. A halberd. A big-ass sword attached to a big-ass stick. Guan Yu hefted his weapon over his head and peered at it. It didn’t catch the nascent sun’s rays so much as Hoover them up and spit them back into your eyeballs like a cobra.
“The Green Dragon Crescent Blade,” he pondered, stroking his beard with his free hand. “My companion of many centuries. If it ever reincarnates and leaves my side, I should certainly be up the proverbial creek.”
He held it between us as if I could translate for him. “What say you, Madam Shouhushen? Is there a spirit in there who needs to be let out? I would hate to exploit an unwilling armament.”
“Maybe?” I didn’t remember the details of my past life as the Ruyi Jingu Bang or know what the rules were for weapons reincarnating. But I did appreciate Guan Yu’s consideration for his blade. “I think if it glows, that’s a sign that it’s connecting well with whoever’s wielding it. So it’s probably not unhappy right now, in any case.” In staff form, I had apparently glowed as Sun Wukong approached for the first time, and the guandao was certainly shiny.
Quentin seemed jealous that his buddy was paying more attention to me than him. “Helmet check!” he shouted. He leaped up and slammed his skull into Guan Yu’s. The warrior staggered back before whooping and returning the blow with his own cranium.
I watched the two friends run at each other like a pair of mountain goats. It was almost hypnotic, a Newton’s Cradle made out of Chinese gods and testosterone.
“I, uh, I’m not seeing King of Heaven material here,” I whispered to Guanyin as the grass trembled from the dome-to-dome contact.
The goddess shrugged. “Guan Yu’s actually a good egg. He’s forthright and moral to a fault. He’s just . . .”
“Kind of Quentin-y,” I said, finishing her sentence. She smirked at me.
This time the Great White Planet played referee. “Enough,” he said. “Before this interruption I was in the middle of explaining a matter of grave importance.”
Guan Yu leaned on top of Quentin’s head, the two of them catching their breath. “We’re listening,” he said.
The Great White Planet muttered to himself under his breath before continuing. “As I was saying, I have bad news regarding the nomination process. After the sudden injection of unorthodoxy by the Shouhushen, a rash of poorly considered ideas took hold in the assembly. Names of candidates began flying left and right. It was utter chaos.”
“Stop right there,” I said. “My decision to back Guanyin had good reasons behind it. And if you compare her to chaos, we’re going to have a problem.”
The Great White Planet threw up his hands in concession. “Noted,” he snapped. “Yet the fact remains that many gods, including prominent ones like Lei Gong and Zhenyuan, began to question what made a candidate worthy of consideration for the mandate. Was it raw power like Guan Yu’s? Unshakable compassion as displayed by the Lady of Mercy? Or should more old-fashioned constraints like lineage take precedence?”
Quentin frowned. “So they don’t want Nezha anymore?”
“No, Prince Nezha is still in the running,” the Great White Planet said. “He’s arriving with the final nominee right now.”
To the side, on a pristine patch of lawn, a ring of fire bloomed. Little gouts of sparks and ash chased each other round and round in a circle, building up speed. The growing flames stayed in their lane, ignoring the rest of the flammable grass.
The inside of the hoop filled with a soft yellow light. As if raised by an underground platform, a young man floated upward into view.
He was stunningly pretty, even for a god. His long hair flowed with
silken ribbons, and his exquisite robes were cut tight and sleeveless to reveal lean, well-muscled arms. He had a delicate, troubled expression on his face that twisted his pouty lips with concern.
This guy is totally Yunie’s type, I thought.
“Prince Nezha,” the Great White Planet said, forgoing any introductions with the rest of us. “Did you bring him?”
“I did,” Nezha said in the same smooth tenor that I recognized from over the phone. He reached down below his feet and grabbed something heavy.
A foul smell of brimstone and caged animal filled the air. I heard the metallic jangling of chains. With a grunt, Nezha hoisted another man onto the lawn, bound tightly like a prisoner. The circle of fire closed behind them.
The second arrival was filthy and unshaven, and his bird’s nest of hair fell over his eyes. His clothes were rough-spun and stained. What I had thought were chains were instead strings of iron, baseball-sized prayer beads that looped around his neck and shoulders, trapping his wrists together in front of him.
But despite his stooped posture and mass of bindings, the man still radiated an air of menace that was not only chilling, but familiar. He raised his head. The fine, handsome lines of his face showed through the layers of dirt and scraggly facial hair, and pitch darkness couldn’t have masked the gleam in those eyes.
“Behold, the final candidate in the Mandate Challenge,” the Great White Planet said bitterly. “The Jade Emperor’s nephew, Erlang Shen.”
17
“Hello Genie,” Erlang Shen said.
I ran forward and kicked him in the groin. I didn’t get as much strength into it as I would have liked, but I still managed to elevate him a couple of inches off the ground.
The other gods were slow to react, but I knew better. You couldn’t let enemies as dangerous as Erlang Shen get their footing. A word would turn into a sentence would turn into a lie, and then before you knew it you’d have flying demon bombs threatening to eradicate the nearest city. It had happened before.
