To the Sky Kingdom

by Tang Qi

Mystic Gorge stood with the broom in his hand, looking distressed. “Your Highness, you are well aware . . .”

  “There’s a first time for everything,” I comforted. “You’ve experienced the doom of thunder. How can you be scared of this? I’ll watch your back.”

  Reluctantly he traipsed to the stove room.

  Ye Hua regarded me with his chin in his hand. “I really do not understand you,” he said with a quiet laugh. “Qingqiu is clearly within the immortal realm, yet you govern yourselves as if you’re all mortals. The men plow and the girls embroider without a hint of magic or Taoist practice.”

  He did not have the slightest idea of how a guest should behave, so I decided I was not required to uphold my hostess demeanor either. “If you need magic to solve everything, what’s the point of being an immortal?” I asked with a listless laugh. “If we were to live like that, our people would have no challenges and would become very easily bored. I would have to start arranging battles just to give them something to do, a little fighting to keep them entertained.”

  The teacup clattered against the table. “Interesting,” he said with a faint smile. “If you do get to that point and need my assistance, let me know. I could send over a couple of sky commanders to assist.”

  I was about to cheerfully accept when we heard a blast from the stove room. Mystic Gorge stood in the doorway to the cave with his hair in disarray, wielding a ladle and glaring at me. I stared at him dumbly before leaning over to Ye Hua saying, “Sticky-Rice Dumpling has eaten so much he has the hiccups, and three adult immortals skipping a meal is hardly a matter life or death. Shall we just forgo tonight’s meal?” I turned to Mystic Gorge. “Quickly, journey to the mortal world and retrieve Phoenix Nine,” I said sternly.

  Mystic Gorge cupped his hands together and gave me a deferent bow. “What reason should I give her?” he asked, still holding the ladle.

  I racked my brains. “Just say there is something unusual going on in Qingqiu,” I said after some thought, but before I had managed to finish my sentence, Ye Hua was dragging me into the stove room. “Put some more wood in the stove and get a fire going. You can do that, surely?” Little Sticky-Rice Dumpling was sprawled out on the bamboo chair, watching us and rubbing his tummy. He turned to face the other way, his breathing gradually becoming deeper and more regular.

  It was two days since Ye Hua and I had first met, and already he had his sleeves rolled up and was cooking at my stove as if he belonged there. Every so often he would give me an instruction such as, “There’s too much wood on the stove. You don’t need any more for the moment,” or “The fire’s dying out. Can you add some more wood now?”

  I suddenly remembered Little Sticky-Rice Dumpling telling me about his mother being a mortal from Junji Mountain. It must have been this poor first wife, the woman who had thrown herself off the immortal punishment platform, who had taught Ye Hua to whisk his spatula around the wok with such panache.

  He had a soup ladle in one hand and the spatula in the other now, brandishing them with artistic perfection. I was so impressed that I could not hold myself back. “Did your first wife teach you all this? She must have been an excellent cook!” I sighed with heartfelt admiration.

  He looked taken aback.

  I realized that by mentioning his dead wife, I had reopened old wounds.

  The flames sizzled as they licked the bottom of the wok.

  I swallowed and moved silently to the stove to add a handful of firewood. Ye Hua gave me a strange look as he ladled out the food. “She was just like you,” he said calmly. “Stoked the fire and added the wood while I did all the cooking.”

  I was embarrassed and not sure how to respond. He turned around and continued to ladle out the soup. “I have no idea how she managed to survive on that godforsaken Junji Mountain before we met,” he said with a light sigh.

  He had actually mumbled those sentences to himself, but my powerful fox ears picked up every word perfectly. His sigh was quiet but considered. I had caused him unnecessary sadness.

  Ye Hua made three dishes and a pot of soup.

  Mystic Gorge had tidied up by then, and I called him over to eat with us.

  Ye Hua shook Sticky-Rice Dumpling awake and started plying him with food. Sticky-Rice Dumpling patted his little cheeks. “If Father Prince continues to feed Ali at this rate, Ali will turn into a big rubber ball,” the child said grumpily.

  Ye Hua took leisurely sips from his cup of cold tea. “Feeding you up into the shape of a rubber ball is a fantastic idea! I won’t need to carry you on a lucky cloud into your Qingyun Palace once we’re back in the Sky Palace then. I could just roll you there instead.”

  Sticky-Rice Dumpling lay down in my lap and pretended to cry. “Boo-hoo-hoo,” he said. “Father Prince is so mean.”

  Ye Hua put down his teacup and picked up a bowl. He ladled some fish soup from the pot and gave his son a faint smile.

  “So you’ve found someone to take your side, have you?” he said. “Come, Qian Qian, you need to replenish yourself,” he said tenderly, pushing a full bowl of fish soup toward me.

  Mystic Gorge started to cough and nearly choked on his rice.

  I felt my eyes turning red as I lifted Sticky-Rice Dumpling up from my knees. I smiled as I picked up the soup bowl in front of me. “Be a good little boy and have another bowl of soup,” I said.

  Ye Hua had fantastic culinary skills. The fish soup was not to my liking, but all the other dishes I ate with great relish.

  Lunch was a casual affair, and it caused us all to relax no end—so much so that when Ye Hua asked me if there was a room in the foxhole he could use as a study to work on his documents, I agreed willingly and cleared out Third Brother’s old lakeside room for this purpose.

  My initial thought was that Ye Hua had come here to punish me. But a fortnight passed and he had yet to even mention the Eastern Sea Water Crystal Palace incident.

  Early each morning, a little immortal called Jia Yun knocked on the door. He collected the official documents Ye Hua had worked on the day before, while handing him a batch of new ones.

  Jia Yun was Ye Hua’s desk official and an extremely dutiful fellow. At first I would shuffle over to open the door for Jia Yun every day, my feet only half in my shoes. After a couple of days, I could see this situation making Jia Yun feel awkward, so I stopped shutting the foxhole door and placed a magic barrier on it instead, which I taught Jia Yun to circumvent.

  Ye Hua spent most of his time shut up in his new study, working on his documents. He would wake me up each morning and drag me out the house for a walk, and after dinner he would drag me out for another at dusk. Every so often he invited me into his study for an evening game or two of chess. I was so exhausted that I spent my days yawning, and a couple of times, I fell asleep at the table halfway through our chess game. He never woke me when this happened, he just laid his head down on the chess table with me, and we would both sleep there like that.

  When Jia Yun came to collect the documents and saw us like that, he started to get absurd ideas about what we were up to, despite the fact we were both fully dressed.

  Even dutiful immortals like him were prone to tongue wagging, I discovered.

  Too late unfortunately, only after Ye Hua’s main Sky Palace concubine, Su Jin, had sent a palace attendant to the mouth of the Qingqiu Valley to urge Ye Hua to come back.

  Mystic Gorge had been standing guard, so luckily I did not have to deal with her.

  I just heard about what happened from a group of gossiping young immortals who had been at the scene and witnessed the drama. This palace attendant had been wearing a fluttering black robe of fine silk, apparently, but had been rather plain herself. When Mystic Gorge blocked her at the mouth of the Qingqiu Valley, she sneered, “It’s not that our empress is in any way intolerant, and she is aware that this involves the future Sky Empress. However, she has sent me here out of the goodness of her heart to remind His Majesty Prince Ye Hua and Her Highness Bai Qian that they are not ye
t officially wed. Spending their days lying around being intimate together is therefore rather indecent. Even the old Sky Emperor did not behave in such a way during his younger days. And His Majesty Prince Ye Hua must not forget that he invited Princess Liao Qing to the Sky Palace. It is unfair of him to neglect her like this.”

  Qingqiu had always been a broadminded and accepting place, and no one concerned themselves about matters such as children being born out of wedlock. It was nothing extraordinary, only intimacy. The group of young immortals who had witnessed this scene found the palace attendant’s message absurd, and they hounded her out of Qingqiu before Mystic Gorge had been given a chance to respond.

  I considered what she had said, and apart from the false claim that we were spending our days lying around being intimate together, everything else she had said seemed justified. I did not really understand why Ye Hua was still living with me, and I was glad to have an excuse to discuss it with him.

  He had the window open and was standing in front of the desk, admiring the lotus flowers near the lake outside. He frowned when he heard what I had to say. “If I want to come and live with you, I damn well will. For all intents and purposes, you are my wife. What business is it of anyone else?”

  I gave a blank stare, realizing as I heard this that Prince Ye Hua was indeed my husband-to-be, promised personally to me by the old Sky Emperor.

  “Oh . . . oh . . . ,” I managed at last. “But if I had married at a proper age, my grandchildren would the same age as you are.”

  The pen in his hand went still. I glanced at the official-looking document on the table. The bold ink soaked right through the paper. It was beautiful, wonderful calligraphy.

  He put down his pen and stared silently at me through cold eyes. I gave an awkward laugh. “I heard the palace attendant say you had invited Liao Qing to the Sky Palace?” I said in an attempt to change the subject.

  This was obviously not a favorable topic either.

  I was under the impression that all men enjoyed discussing women. When I had been Little Seventeenth at Mount Kunlun and I happened to annoy First Apprentice, all I needed to do was start a conversation about the female immortals he found attractive, and his anger would melt away. But I reminded myself, I was no longer Little Seventeenth from Mount Kunlun, neither was I male in form. Male immortals might enjoy discussing female immortals with other men, but probably did not feel as comfortable discussing them with other female immortals. My question had clearly caused him offense.

  But I was learning that men’s hearts could be as unfathomable as women’s. Ye Hua, who had seemed dispirited a moment ago, staring at me blankly when I asked the question, picked up his pen again, and dipped it in the inkwell. The corners of his mouth lifted into a slight smile. “Walk over and stand next to the window,” he said. “Yes, next to the bamboo couch. Oh, actually, why not lie down on it? Tidy up your hair. Find a relaxed pose.”

  I followed his instructions in a trance before it finally dawned on me that he meant to draw my portrait. He had been sketching away looking very refined when out of nowhere he suddenly said, “Liao Qing would rather die than marry the second prince of the Western Sea. She’s been very good to Ali and me, so I took her back to the Sky Palace and got her employment there as a servant. When she has had a chance to consider all her options, she can go back.”

  I stared at him dumbly. I had not been expecting him to bring up Liao Qing.

  He lifted his head, and with warmth in his face, he said, “Do you have anything else you wish to ask me? Please feel free if you do so.”

  I did actually. “My hand is numb. Can I change positions?”

  He did a double take and gave a laugh. He sketched out a couple more lines and said, “As you wish.”

  I ended up falling asleep like that on the bamboo couch.

  When I woke up, it was dark. I had been covered with Ye Hua’s jet-black cloak, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I climbed out of bed early the next morning and had a quick wash. I drank half a cup of strong tea before dragging myself to the entrance of the cave to wait for Ye Hua to take me off to the forest with him for a stroll. I had no idea where he had picked up this habit of his, but each morning he would take stroll around the foxhole, without fail, an excursion I was forced to take with him, whether I liked it or not.

  There was nothing much in the way of scenery surrounding the foxhole, just some bamboo forest and a couple of clear springs. Walking around these places once or twice was fine, but after the third time, I started to find it tedious. A fortnight later, his enthusiasm for these walks did not seem to be waning in the slightest. The whole thing puzzled me.

  Today I reached the cave entrance to hear the pitter-patter of rain outside. I tried to quash my feeling of elation as I put my teacup back down on the table next to the entrance and made my joyful way back to bed.

  I was just starting to drift off when I heard footsteps. I opened my eyes to see Ye Hua standing beside my bed. “Some Water Emperor or other seems to have arranged rain for today. If we go out in this weather, we’ll just end up getting soaked through,” I said, trying to sound disappointed. “We’d better be sensible and stay indoors.”

  There was a smile playing on Ye Hua’s lips, but he said nothing.

  At this point Little Sticky-Rice Dumpling, usually still fast asleep at this hour, appeared behind Ye Hua. Giving a joyful squeal, he launched himself up onto my bed. He was wearing a colorful tunic of shimmery embroidered cloud cotton, which accentuated his tender little white hands and bright face. He put his arms around my neck, dazzling my eyes with his gaudy garment. “Father Prince told me he’s going to take us out to the mortal world today, so why are you still lazing around in bed, Mother?” he asked in a petulant little high-pitched voice. I looked at him in surprise.

  Ye Hua handed me my robe, which was hanging on the screen, saying, “As luck would have it, there is no rainfall today in the mortal world.” I had no idea what Ye Hua was up to. If he was unfamiliar with the mortal world, he should be asking an earth god to act as his guide. While studying at Mount Kunlun, I traveled to the mortal world every couple of days, but I never managed to orient myself properly and would make a terrible guide. However, seeing Sticky-Rice Dumpling looking at me through those big, glistening, wet eyes, I felt unable to come out with an excuse.

  I jumped off my lucky cloud, and transformed my appearance into that of a gentleman. “For the next couple of days, you must refer to Ye Hua as Father instead of Father Prince. And me you can call, um, Godfather,” I told Sticky-Rice Dumpling.

  Little Sticky-Rice Dumpling did not understand why, but as always he listened with blinking eyes and gave an obedient nod. Ye Hua kept his immortal form, but used magic to change his cloak for contemporary mortal clothes. He threw me a friendly and appreciative smile and said, “You look very confident and at ease like that.”

  Having spent twenty thousand years of my life as a boy, the pretense did come quite naturally. I cupped my hands together and bowed in his direction. “You’re too kind,” I said with a smile.

  An older immortal gentleman, a younger immortal gentleman, and a young immortal child all dropped into a bustling town center.

  We started walking along, Sticky-Rice Dumpling yelping and squealing joyfully at every new sight, his Sky Clan etiquette completely out the window. Ye Hua did not make any attempt to rein him in, and let him scamper ahead while the two of us followed along slowly.

  The marketplace in the mortal world was busier and livelier than the one in Qingqiu. I casually waved my fan around and suddenly remembered what I had been meaning to ask Ye Hua. “Why did you decide that we should come to the mortal world today? Jia Yun brought you a huge pile of documents yesterday morning, and from his expression, they looked like they might be quite urgent.”

  He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “Today’s Ali’s birthday,” he said.

  “Oh!” I snapped the fan shut. “That�
��s incredibly bad-mannered of you,” I said sternly. “Why didn’t you give me some warning? I don’t have anything nice to give him. Dumpling thinks of me as his mother. He’s bound to be upset if I don’t give him something nice for his birthday.”

  Ye Hua looked unfazed. “If you wish to give him a nice present, why not a night pearl?” he asked.

  “How do you know about my night pearls?” I marveled.

  He raised an eyebrow and smiled. “A couple of old immortals drank too much during some Sky Palace banquet and got to gossiping. They mentioned this as your gift of choice. You’ve nurtured the habit of only giving night pearls as gifts for a good many years now apparently. Little pearls for the young immortal, and big pearls for the older gods, all very fair. But night pearls are expensive, and Ali’s too small to appreciate their value. It would be a waste to give him one. Why not just give him a really good day out instead? That is sure to make him happy.”

  I rubbed my nose and gave an awkward laugh. “I have one pearl that’s half the size of a person. From afar it looks like a little moon. If we took it to Qingyun Hall and set it up for Dumpling in there, it is sure to make the place brighter than the sun prince’s residence even. It might be the Four Seas and Eight Deserts’ only . . .”

  I was speaking with such exuberance that I stopped paying any attention to what was going on around me. I suddenly felt myself being tugged off the road and tumbling into Ye Hua’s arms as a horse-drawn carriage galloped past.

  Ye Hua’s brow creased slightly. The two horses galloping in front of the carriage suddenly stopped and reared up onto their hind legs, whinnying loudly, and the wooden-wheeled cart that had been rolling along at a flying speed spun around in a circle. The coachman slid down from the driving seat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Thank goodness my horses have stopped! They went crazy just now.”

  Dumpling, who had been running ahead of us, crept out from under one horse’s belly with a wailing little baby girl in his arms. The baby girl was slightly taller than Dumpling, and he seemed to be clutching her around the waist and dragging her along.