To the Sky Kingdom

by Tang Qi

  Little Sticky-Rice Dumpling was quivering in my arms, and Ye Hua was standing in front of me, shaking a little too.

  I took advantage of his shocked disbelief, and flinging Sticky-Rice Dumpling down onto the pavilion seat, I ran pell-mell away from them all, feeling completely and utterly bamboozled.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I had lost my twig from the Mystic Gorge tree, and the sky was growing darker. I had used up all my good fortune getting myself out of the Eastern Sea before evening fell, and I did not have high hopes for getting back to Qingqiu any time before dawn.

  The Eastern Sea consisted of four sea roads, one in each direction. Ever since I was a fox padding along on all fours, I had been a land dweller, and these sea roads all looked identical to me. It was only once I got out of the water that I realized I had taken the North Sea road, thinking it was the east.

  The moon was high in the sky by now, and shining brightly. I sat on a reef on the Eastern Sea’s northern shore, feeling anxious.

  I could have gone back into the water of the Eastern Sea and returned the way I had come, but I didn’t want to risk the potential embarrassment of running into Ye Hua again. I went over all my options and decided I would be best off spending the night on the northern shore and deciding what to do in the morning.

  Lunar April was the most fragrant and verdant of months. The days were warm, but the nights tended to be cold. I was only wearing light clothing, and the white mist rolling off the ocean made me sneeze three times in quick succession. In the end I decided to jump down from the reef and head into a nearby wood.

  This wood was nothing compared with Zhe Yan’s, but its trees had tall, gnarled branches and thick foliage that helped to block out the wind and the light. Although there was a clear, round moon hanging from the Ninth Sky, radiating brightness, inside this wood I was unable to even see my own hands. I pulled the white silk from my eyes, folded it, and put it carefully away. From my sleeve I pulled out a night pearl the size of a dove egg and wandered around looking for a tree with cradle-like branches that I could climb up and sleep the night in.

  It was a wild wood, and despite the glow of my night pearl to guide me, I had trouble navigating in the dark. I stumbled along for ten feet or so before losing my footing and tumbling into a huge underground cavern.

  Strange as it seems, I found that I could see much better inside the cave. A moon and some stars shone down brightly from the magic sky inside the cave, while below I could see a flowing stream and a pond and within it a straw pavilion, slightly larger than Father and Mother’s foxhole.

  Inside the straw pavilion, I could see an intertwined couple.

  I had been prepared for the possibility of stumbling upon almost anything, but I had not considered that I might bump into a couple in the throes of intimacy, and the encounter shocked and embarrassed me.

  The boy had his back to me and was half obscuring the girl’s face with his shoulder. What I could see of her face was delicate and pretty. I had landed gently, but she obviously noticed, as her almond-shaped eyes were full of surprise.

  I gave her a pleasant smile to try and calm her, but she just continued to stare. The two of them were still wrapped in each other’s arms, but the man must have sensed something was wrong, as he leaned over, craning his neck to look my way. Even with half a pond between us, seeing his face felt like having sizzling lard poured over me on a hot day. I was overcome with feelings of awkwardness and anxiety. Past happenings, memories I had worked so hard to blot out started flooding back into my mind, one after another.

  The man seemed preoccupied. He fixed me with a long stare before saying, “Si Yin.”

  I lowered my eyes. “So it’s Li Jing the Demon Emperor,” I said solemnly. “It’s been a long time since I cut ties with you, Demon Emperor, and Si Yin is no longer my name. I would be grateful if you were to address me as Goddess.”

  He said nothing, and the girl in his arms gave a little tremor, which allowed me a clearer look at her. It frustrated me what good terms this generation of little immortals seemed to be on with the Demon Clan. I was feeling apprehensive, and tried not to let the frostiness I was feeling show in my face.

  “Si Yin,” he sighed. “You’ve hidden from me for seventy thousand years. Do you plan to keep on hiding?” He sounded incredibly sincere, as if he really did feel regret and sadness about not having seen me all this time.

  The way he was speaking intrigued me. Our relationship had broken down completely and was replaced by a life-and-death struggle that left me wishing that the two of us had never met. I could not understand why he was now talking to me with such affection.

  His comment about how I had been hiding from him seemed hugely unfair. I had been alive for so long, and it was easy to forget details and events. I rubbed my temples, trying to recall exactly what had happened. I still felt that our lack of contact over the last seventy thousand years had not been due to any deliberate evasion on my part, merely fate keeping us apart.

  Seventy thousand years ago, the previous Demon Emperor, Qing Cang, was out on a hunting trip. He took a shine to one of my fellow apprentices, Ninth Apprentice Ling Yu, tied him up, and carried him off to the Purple Light Palace, where he planned to make him his male empress. I was out with Ling Yu at the time and was unfortunate enough to be abducted along with him.

  I entered into an apprenticeship with Mo Yuan when I was fifty thousand years old. Mo Yuan did not take on female students, but Mother cast a spell to make me look like a boy and gave me the name Si Yin.

  Although Ling Yu and I were abducted together, Qing Cang had no romantic interest in me, and I was given many freedoms, as well as three meals a day. I was allowed to roam the grounds, and as long as it did not involve leaving the confines of the palace, I could do as I wished.

  Later my thoughts often returned to what might have been if on my third day at the Purple Light Palace I had not eaten that extra bowl of braised pork. If I had left it, today the Four Seas and Eight Deserts might be a very different place.

  I had already finished my lunch that day when the chef came along and presented me with this bowl of fate-changing braised pork, which, he explained, came from a mountain boar Qing Cang had hunted down that morning. The chef had cut off a thigh and steamed a couple of bowls of it, giving one to Ling Yu and, since I was there, one to me too. It looked delicious, all glistening with oil, and I did the polite thing and gobbled it up.

  Eating this bowl of braised pork on top of my lunch had made me feel very full. I decided to make my routine post-lunch walk slightly longer than usual. It was those extra steps that led me to encounter Prince Li Jing, thus changing the course of my life.

  Just like the saying one anthill can bring down a whole dike, the idea that this bowl of braised pork made my life infinitely more difficult is not as absurd as it sounds. I often looked back and thought about how different things might have been and mourned all that was lost.

  I could still remember that day perfectly. The sky was bright, and the sun was shining in the distance, and through the barrier of gray-white fog around the Purple Light Palace, it looked like a salted duck yolk suspended in the sky.

  The palace attendant walking alongside me started telling me about an incredibly rare winter lotus that had just flowered in the palace. Since I was still feeling full, she suggested I stroll over and take a look, and pointed me in the right direction.

  I ventured along the path, shaking my silk fan. My poor sense of direction meant that I wandered around in circles for a long time without coming across this rare lotus. The palace garden was made up of man-made ponds and rockeries, but its luxuriant trees and flowers sustained various birdlife, and I could hear the occasional chirruping of a swallow and call of an oriole, which made me stop and listen in enchantment.

  I was happily absorbed in listening to the sound of birdsong and was shocked when a young man leaped out at me, his gown half open at the front and his hair in disarray. He looked bleary-eyed, as if he had n
ot woken up properly, and he had petals stuck to his shoulders. An almost feminine beauty shone through, despite his disheveled appearance.

  I gave a vague nod, assuming he must be one of the Demon Emperor’s husbands. He looked at me blankly, not returning the courtesy. With a shake of my fan, I continued on my way. But as I brushed past him, he grabbed my sleeve, an intense look of confusion on his face. “Your gown is a very strange color. Stunning though. Where did you have it made?”

  I was taken aback and looked at him anxiously, feeling tongue-tied. I was wearing my silvery-purple gown, which I had been wearing for days on end now.

  The young man walked around me in a circle, looking me up and down. “I really have never seen such a color,” he said earnestly. “I’ve been worrying about what to give my father for his birthday. I haven’t found anything suitable. But this is most unusual. Be a kind chap and exchange this garment with me for something.” As soon as he said this, he grabbed hold of me and whipped the gown off me, his snow-white face flushing red and his face turning sheepish.

  I may have had a male body, but I was still an innocent little immortal girl at heart, and I had to put up a fight, even though I knew it was unlikely to do any good.

  We were both standing by the lotus pond, and a gentle breeze blew over carrying the beautiful lotus scent. Our struggle did not involve magic, just pure, bare-fisted, shirtless rough and tumble. I turned my head in the middle of this scramble and somehow managed to topple us both into the pond. Members of the Demon Clan are known for their sharp ears, and the splash brought a number of people rushing over to see what had happened. Being caught like this would have been very embarrassing for him, so he gestured for me to stay there and keep quiet. I nodded and squatted back-to-back with him at the bottom of the pond.

  We waited anxiously like that until the sky went dark, when we assumed it was safe to get out unseen, and we climbed back up shivering onto the bank.

  All that time crouching down there together, we had managed to make amends, exchange names, and even start referring to each other as brother. This beautiful youngster was indeed connected to the homosexual Demon Emperor, not his husband, however, but his second son. This was Li Jing.

  I remember being very surprised to learn that the homosexual Demon Emperor had a son.

  Following this incident, Li Jing regularly invited me to drink tea with him, watch cockfights, and share wine. However, having just heard that Ling Yu was going to be forced to marry Qing Cang on the third of Lunar February, I was in no mood for such jollities. Ling Yu had decided he would sooner die than let this marriage happen, and he had already tried to kill himself by bashing his head against a pillar and was now on a hunger strike. I was the only one who could help him, but I was not in any way strong enough to rescue Ling Yu and get us both out of the Purple Light Palace. I had faith that Mo Yuan would come to our rescue, and was keeping my spirits up. I had been counting on Qing Cang’s devotion to Ling Yu to keep my fellow apprentice safe and well cared for. I had not been expecting Ling Yu to get himself worked up into such a state.

  I spent my days and nights in constant worry.

  Li Jing began to lose patience with me. One day he had a tantrum, smashing his wine cup down on the floor. “But that’s so easily resolved!” he said when I explained. “Why would you spend your days with that morbid look on your face, worrying when you could have just asked me for help? You clearly don’t think much of our friendship, or take me as a proper brother. I promise that I will help you to sneak Ling Yu out of the palace before the second day of Lunar February. Write down anything you have to say, and I will deliver it to him this evening and give him a little peace of mind. I heard he threw himself into the lake yesterday—I had no idea immortals these days were feeble enough to drown in lakes. My father is the only one taking his suicide attempts seriously.”

  I was speechless. Because he was Qing Cang’s son, I had not wanted to involve him for fear of getting him in trouble. But he was insistent, so I quietly went along with it.

  I quite clearly owed Li Jing a favor after this, so I joined him in drinking and making merry, which was all I had to offer. The thing that scared me most about drinking was being forced to play sophisticated word games. I was young and had spent too much of my time fooling around. I was always out and about with my gang of silly apprentices, watching cockfights and dog races and swaggering through the streets. Poetry and verse were therefore beyond me, and when playing games that involved a mastery of them, I was always the one who forfeited. For lowbrow drinking games, it was a different story. Whether it was drawing lots, rolling dice, guessing fingers, or number games, I excelled effortlessly. But I wanted to let Li Jing win in order to keep him happy, so I suggested we play these sophisticated word games. Losing them was easy for me, just a matter of talking nonsense and then lowering my head to drink. Trying to lose at the lowbrow games would have been much harder, and the effort involved would have left me scratching my cheeks and pinching my ears.

  Li Jing was delighted and started to formulate a plan. He decided on the night of the second to help me to steal Ling Yu out of the palace.

  One night I dreamed that Ling Yu did end up having to marry the Demon Emperor, making him empress, while I was forced to marry Li Jing’s sister, Princess Rouge. Li Jing gently took my arm in the dream and pointed at Ling Yu, saying, “Si Yin, you may greet your empress mother.” Ling Yu grabbed my hand and placed it on his stomach, a golden light shining above his head. “In a few months, Empress Mother will have a baby. It will be your little brother, Si Yin. Aren’t you pleased?” My face stiffened, and I gave an awkward laugh. “Very pleased,” I said.

  I woke up to find my clothes drenched through with sweat. I was just about to get out of bed for a sip of cold water to calm my nerves when, pulling back the bed curtain, I saw Li Jing standing silently by my bed, dressed in a white robe, watching me through glimmering eyes.

  I was shocked to see his face. It was around midnight, and although the moon outside the window was not very bright, it provided enough light to illuminate my small room. I lay on the ground, telling myself, It’s not that strange. It’s not that strange. Perhaps he had been unable to sleep and had come to see me out of boredom. He crouched down and muttered incoherently to himself for a while before saying, “Si Yin, I have a secret to share with you. Do you want to hear it?”

  If I did not allow him to unburden himself, I would not be honoring our brotherhood. So I gave an unenthusiastic nod and reluctantly said, “Yes, do.”

  “I like you, Si Yin, and I want to sleep with you,” he said shyly.

  I had just climbed up from the floor, but hearing this shocked me so much I fell straight back down.

  Li Jing had always seemed disapproving of his father’s sexual orientation and, as far as I was aware, had always been one for the ladies. The women he kept in his bedchamber were beauties with big breasts, tiny waists, and long legs. I had a boy’s body, and although my face was the same as it always had been, my chest was completely flat.

  He assumed that my hearing his confession was the same as giving my consent, and so he came over and tried to rip off my clothes. I desperately guarded my lapel. “You’ve agreed, Si Yin. Why are you acting all coy?” he said angrily.

  I was still too shocked to speak, how could I have agreed? The first time he saw me, he tried to pull my gown off, and less than ten days later, he was at it again.

  Deciding enough was enough, I hit him, and he fell over. I was surprised by my own strength. I had hit him on a vulnerable spot at the back of his neck, and as luck would have it, he fainted. He crashed heavily down onto my stomach, and I could smell alcohol wafting off him.

  I wondered if all this had just been that, a craze born of drunkenness. Thinking it must be cold on the floor, I picked up the quilt and wrapped it loosely around him, rolling him up and pushing him to the end of the bed, before climbing back onto my mattress and drifting off back to sleep.

  Early the next
morning I opened my eyes and saw him pitifully bundled up by the side of my bed. “How did I end up sleeping here?” he asked, frowning and rubbing his neck.

  My mind raced as I tried to figure out the best way to respond. “You were drunk last night,” I began slowly. “You came to my room in the middle of the night, telling me you liked me and that you wanted to sleep with me.”

  He had been scratching his head, and hearing this, he stopped his hand in midair and stiffened while his face turned first green, then white. “I . . . I, I, I can’t . . . ,” he stammered. “I can’t be homosexual. If, if, if I am, how . . . how can I explain to my sister that you are going to be my wife?”

  “You aren’t homosexual,” I told him, drawing my clothes around me, an action I had not expected to provoke such upset.

  He pointed a shaky finger at me. “Look at you . . . you’re scared that I’ll take advantage, aren’t you!”

  I was stunned. “Well, you did try to rip my clothes off me last night,” I told him acerbically.

  I did not see Li Jing for several days following this. Before he had been badgering me on an almost daily basis, but after that incident, not a glimpse.

  Although he was brash, Li Jing did bring nice wine, and it was entertaining to watch cockfights and cricket fights. After not seeing him for a couple of days, I started to miss him.

  During this time Princess Rouge invited me for a wander around the gardens, and mentioned her brother in passing. I learned that Li Jing had been spending his nights cavorting with beauties, having a debauched and merry old time.

  Princess Rouge was sweet natured and attentive. “Have you and my brother fallen out?” she asked with concern. “You used to be as thick as thieves. I never saw you two apart.”

  I rubbed the back of my head and thought back over my friendship with Li Jing, realizing that aside from the drunken move he made on me that night, the two of us had always gotten along very well. But it made me think of the saying wives are like hands and feet while brothers are like clothing. While he was cavorting with these hands and feet, I was the unnecessary piece of clothing that could be cast off. Having a beautiful woman in your arms was romantic. Having a friend lurking like a tiger by your bedside and staring at the beautiful woman in your arms was not. Even though I was not a man, and had no interest in his wives, Li Jing was not to know that, and it was natural he would keep me at arm’s length. Being a man was not easy, and being a man with many wives even less so; I felt for him.