by Tang Qi
Yuan Zhen was Shao Xin and Sang Ji’s first son. Although Sang Ji had fallen out of favor with the Sky Emperor, the Sky Emperor still doted on this grandson and invited him along every time he hosted a banquet.
The Sky Emperor had celebrated his birthday recently. Sang Ji took Yuan Zhen along bearing gifts, and they stayed the night in the Sky Palace. Yuan Zhen drank far too much at the banquet, and he stumbled into Xiwu Palace in this inebriated state and tried to have his way with Head Concubine Su Jin.
I threw a glance at Ye Hua, well aware that Su Jin was his concubine. He looked up at me as he was sorting through his papers, a hint of amusement in his eyes. How unique Prince Ye Hua was: he remained lighthearted even when being cuckolded.
Luckily, he had not actually been cuckolded. Yuan Zhen had reined himself in at the last moment and not actually assaulted the concubine. But Su Jin was so resolute and upright that she had taken a length of white silk and tied it to the eaves of the roof. Her suicide attempt had alerted the Sky Emperor as to what happened. I had heard that the Sky Emperor had previously married Su Jin as his concubine, but when his grandson had taken a liking to her, his doting grandfather had transferred his new concubine over to him.
When the Sky Emperor heard that Yuan Zhen had taken advantage of Su Jin, he felt very sorry for his former concubine and was filled with rage at Yuan Zhen. He tied up Yuan Zhen with immortal ropes and issued a sky decree stating that the youngster would be reborn as a mortal. Only after he had lived out a sixty-year mortal lifecycle would he be reinstated as an immortal.
“Yuan Zhen was a kind and well-behaved boy,” Shao Xin repeated again and again through her tears. “He was so caring and careful that when he was out walking, he would make sure not to step on a single ant. He would never have committed an offense like this.” I was not convinced by her logic; in my experience, there was no relation between kindness and lust.
Yuan Zhen had been sent down into the mortal world. I stroked my teacup. “If he only attempted to have his way with her, this punishment does seem excessively harsh,” I said. “However, the fact that it was Ye Hua’s head concubine your son tried to take advantage of and Prince Ye Hua has been in the foxhole, looking after me and cooking me meals for many months now, puts me in a difficult position to help . . .”
Ye Hua picked up a new document. “You don’t have to worry about my feelings,” he said flatly. “I agree that Yuan Zhen’s punishment has been excessively harsh.”
I was shocked. “But it was your head concubine he was lusting over . . .”
“I have no head concubine,” he scoffed. He stood up to pour out some more tea, taking my teacup to refill too.
I was even more shocked. The rumor within the Four Seas and Eight Deserts was that Ye Hua loved and doted upon Head Concubine Su Jin. Could it all have been just hearsay?
It was not a particularly difficult favor Shao Xin was asking of me. She had found out that Yuan Zhen would encounter his big calamity when he was eighteen in his mortal form, and that it would cause him a lifetime of suffering. She begged me to help him through this calamity and help alter his destiny so he could live out his mortal life in peace.
She was wise to come to me, as I was in a strong position to help. All immortals had the ability to change a mortal’s fate, but godly etiquette restricted us from doing it, which meant that even when an immortal was capable of helping in this way, they had their hands tied.
But the Sky Emperor owed the Bai family a favor that had not yet been repaid. If I went before him and asked him to grant me a small favor like this, the Sky Emperor was certain to turn a blind eye to the fact that I would be violating godly etiquette, which would be half the problem solved.
Yuan Zhen had been reborn into an imperial Song family as Song Yuan Zhen. When he turned twelve, he was chosen as heir to the throne. He was fortunate and never wanted for anything, but at age eighteen he was fast approaching his calamity.
Yuan Zhen’s mortal-world mother was a strange woman. She was the only daughter of the emperor’s tutor and had been sent to the palace when she was fifteen to become an honored imperial concubine, a distinguished and prominent position. After giving birth to Yuan Zhen, she decided she wanted to be a nun, and there was nothing that the emperor could do to dissuade her. The emperor had begrudgingly found her a solitary mountain behind the imperial city on which he had built her a Taoist temple, where he had left her to her devoted religious practice.
When she became a nun, her son usually would have been adopted by the empress and continued to be raised in the palace. Yuan Zhen’s mother was extremely obstinate, however, and stated that she would die before handing over her son. She took Yuan Zhen to live in the Taoist temple with her until he turned sixteen, after which time he was sent back to the palace, accompanied by a Taoist nun. This nun was Yuan Zhen’s mortal Taoist master, but she was also a serving girl working for the Northern Sea Emperor, Yuan Zhen’s real father, Sang Ji, who had sent her down to the mortal world to watch over his son. When I went down to the mortal world to protect Yuan Zhen and help him through his calamity, I would be replacing this Taoist master of his.
I saw Shao Xin out and then started to make a plan. First I needed to go to the South Pole Emperor’s to meet with Si Ming the Star Prince and see if I could pull any strings. I needed to find out the exact day and hour that Yuan Zhen’s calamity would befall him and how it would happen. Yuan Zhen’s calamity was a mortal calamity. Unlike the sky calamity gods had to pass through, which, once in motion, had to be played out, mortal calamities could simply be averted.
I was not on close terms with the South Pole Emperor and had never even set eyes on the six Star Princes who worked for him. I made the rash decision to go there anyway, knowing that there was no guarantee they would grant me the favor.
“Si Ming the Star Prince has a strange temperament, and even the Sky Emperor would find it hard to get his hands on his destiny notebook to have a look,” Ye Hua told me as he sorted through his documents. “I don’t think you will have much luck going there without giving prior notice.”
I looked at him and frowned.
He paused, sipped his tea, and said, “Actually I might have a way, it’s just . . .” He gave me a kind and serious look. “If I help you get the destiny notebook, you must promise me one thing,” he said with a smile.
I looked up expectantly.
“You must allow me to seal off your magic when you’re down in the mortal world,” he said calmly. “What did you think I was going to say? Altering the content of the destiny notebook contravenes immortal rules. Even if the Sky Emperor turns a blind eye, any magic you use to change fate you could suffer magic backbite from. Your understanding of this is probably better than mine. Getting magic backbite more than once or twice is very serious, even if you are a goddess. What if the backbite occurs when I’m about to succeed to the Sky Throne and you are about to become Empress?”
On their accession to the Sky Throne, the Sky Emperor and Empress had to endure eighty-one blasts of wildfire and nine blasts of thunder. Only after this were they allowed to preside over the Four Seas and Eight Deserts. This was the way it always had been. The consequences of backbite from your own magic at this moment would be severe. I considered the implications, and realizing that he was making a lot of sense, I gave him my permission.
After agreeing, something else occurred to me. “But we aren’t even married yet,” I said. “If you succeed to the Sky Throne soon, I won’t succeed with you anyway. We have to be married before I can become Sky Empress.”
He put down his teacup and stared at me, and gave a sudden laugh. “Are you upset with me for not mentioning marriage earlier?”
Hearing him laugh like that caused a pearl of cold sweat to drop from my forehead and roll down my face. I gave an awkward laugh. “Nothing of the sort. I meant nothing of the sort.”
Ye Hua was used to having hundreds of pressing matters requiring his attention, and by the next morning he presented me with Si Ming the S
tar Prince’s destiny notebook. After he had told me how precious and coveted this destiny notebook was, the most I was expecting was some handwritten copies of the relevant content, even though Si Ming did owe Ye Hua a favor. I had not imagined that he might bring me the genuine article.
Ye Hua handed me the notebook with a sigh.
I flicked through to Yuan Zhen’s fate and gave a sigh too.
What a convoluted, up and down, mixed bag of a fate it was.
According to the destiny notebook, between his birth and his eighteenth birthday, Yuan Zhen’s life was very peaceful. His misfortune began on the first of June of his eighteenth year.
The first of June was the Vedic Dharma Festival, and the Sky Emperor made a trip to the Suyu River to celebrate with his subjects. He led a large procession of nobles and honored concubines, which included Yuan Zhen too. At noon on the dot, a little pleasure boat floated gracefully into the middle of the Suyu River with a beautiful woman inside, her fine and delicate features half obscured by a circular fan. In the midst of this harmonious and happy scene, a giant Peng bird suddenly swooped down through the sky and took the little boat in its talons, tugging and clawing at it. The boat capsized, and the beautiful woman turned pale with fright as she splashed down into the water.
Yuan Zhen had lived in a Taoist temple all his life and was extremely kindhearted. Being a strong swimmer, he jumped straight into the river after this beautiful woman and saved her from drowning.
Their eyes met though the glittering water, and they fell in love. Unfortunately it was not just Yuan Zhen who lost his heart to this woman. Her beauty bewitched everyone at the scene, including Yuan Zhen’s father, the emperor, who also fell instantly in love with her. The emperor wrapped this bedraggled beauty up in a blanket and took her back to the palace with him.
Yuan Zhen felt anguished and indignant, but he managed to conceal his melancholy. The tenth of Lunar June was the Ghost Festival, a time when local officials asked to be forgiven for all their sins. That night, Yuan Zhen became so drunk he lost control, and he ended up becoming intimate with the beautiful woman, who was by now his father’s concubine.
The misdeed he had not managed to commit in his immortal life was successfully played out in his mortal one.
Despite his misdeed, Yuan Zhen was actually a filial boy, and waking up to the cold light of day the next morning and recalling his night of joyful congress with his own father’s concubine, the guilt hit him hard, and he fell seriously ill. It was nine months before he next left his bed. As soon as he got up, he was told that this beautiful woman had borne a son, and realizing that it could be his, his illness returned with twice the force.
The beautiful woman wished to reignite their affair, but Yuan Zhen felt such intense guilt that the fire of love in his chest turned cold. Yuan Zhen woke up to what he had done and ended the relationship.
More than a decade passed. The beautiful woman’s son grew up into a man. When the emperor was ill on his deathbed, this son came to see Yuan Zhen and challenged him for the throne. A huge struggle ensued, and Yuan Zhen, who was a very different man from the boy he had once been, killed the beautiful woman’s son with his sword. When the beautiful woman heard the news about her son, she hung herself, leaving a note telling Yuan Zhen that the boy he had killed belonged not to the emperor, but to Yuan Zhen himself.
Yuan Zhen thought about slitting his own throat, but he was the last male heir to the dynasty and had no choice but to carry on living. He sat on his throne, his chest filled with an unbearable sadness. He lived with this misery until he was sixty years old and could finally be laid to rest.
The beautiful woman who fell into the lake had clearly been Yuan Zhen’s mortal calamity.
I read all the pages of the notebook relating to Yuan Zhen’s fate seven or eight times. Everything seemed to have been organized seamlessly, except for the appearance of the giant Peng bird. Did giant Peng birds actually exist in the mortal world?
Ye Hua placed the documents he had already read under a paperweight and took a leisurely sip of his tea. “The giant Peng bird was borrowed from the Great Buddha of the Western Paradise.” He paused, tutted, and sighed. “Si Ming seems to seriously have it in for this boy. My second uncle, Sang Ji, must have built up some bad blood over the years.”
I started to tremble. I had not imagined that Si Ming might be one to bear a grudge. Planning a great drama like this had been no mean feat. If I were to crash my way into the middle of it, changing the fate of one of its characters and messing everything up, who was to say he would not start to resent me too?
Ye Hua took the notebook back, glanced over at me, and smiled. “What are you worried about? He still owes me a big favor.”
I thought it all through carefully before leaving and reasoned that the simplest way to help Yuan Zhen dodge his calamity would be to persuade him to feign illness on the first day of June and miss the Suyu River trip. No magic would be required then, and if there was any sign of danger, I could just hide.
Even if I did not manage to hide and got a scratch or two, it was not going to be anywhere near as damaging as magic backbite. I took Ye Hua’s advice and let him seal off my entire supply of immortal magic.
I dropped down into the mortal world, where I was met by the immortal attendant who Sang Ji had sent down there to watch over Yuan Zhen. If I was to replace her and become Yuan Zhen’s second Taoist master, the first thing I needed to do was win over his elderly mother.
The Northern Sea immortal attendant had done a good job of protecting Yuan Zhen and ensuring his safety up to this point. Yuan Zhen’s mother really looked up to this first master of his; her words and actions were all incredibly respectful, treating her as if she were indeed some supreme otherworldly being.
This young immortal servant took me over to meet Yuan Zhen’s mother. Running her hand up and down a horsetail whisk, she said, “Every banquet must come to an end, and my earthly bond with His Majesty Yuan Zhen has reached the end of the road. I am not one to just leave, however. Luckily a fellow esteemed Taoist master who has been wandering the world recently happened upon our sacred land and has grown to love the place. I have asked her to oversee and protect His Majesty in my place. This master spent hundreds of years of seclusion in her temple. The fact that fate has led her out of her temple and allowed her to meet Yuan Zhen, giving them this opportunity to become mistress and apprentice, is a rare stroke of good luck for His Majesty . . .”
Coming so highly recommended, Yuan Zhen’s mother embraced me wholeheartedly and called Yuan Zhen over straightaway and got him to praise me as his new master.
When immortals were reincarnated as mortals, they usually retained an element of their immortal bearing. Yuan Zhen was no exception. Even though he was only eighteen, he already had the elegant and graceful bearing of an immortal.
He bowed down graciously in front of me, and before we had even performed his apprentice ceremony, he was already calling me Master. I looked him up and down and gave a satisfied nod. “You seem to have good immortal foundations. I would be happy to take you on as my apprentice.”
Yuan Zhen’s mother was overjoyed.
I accompanied Yuan Zhen back to the Eastern Palace, where the eunuchs in charge assigned me to a quiet courtyard. It suddenly dawned on me that I had successfully managed to infiltrate myself into the great drama set up by Si Ming the Star Prince of the Ninth Sky.
I heard a couple of female palace attendants gossiping inside Yuan Zhen’s palace the next day. They were talking about how happy the emperor had been yesterday morning when he heard that his son’s Taoist nun had finally left. By that afternoon he found out that she had been replaced by another Taoist nun, and he became extremely angry. He spent the whole evening in a foul mood, and this morning he was still seething and had been taking it out on innocent officials.
The emperor’s anger was understandable. He had a very weak lineage, and despite working hard to remedy this, Yuan Zhen was still his only son. He wante
d his son to help to take an interest in national affairs and contribute to the country, but these Taoist nuns arriving one after another were teaching him how to live like a recluse instead. The emperor was not to know that neither Yuan Zhen’s old master nor I was recruiting Yuan Zhen as an apprentice in order to help him cultivate the spiritual energy needed to become an immortal; Yuan Zhen was a fallen immortal after all and had no need for spiritual cultivation practice.
The emperor had no idea about my actual mission and was in no great hurry to meet me. I spent a whole week at the palace without even setting eyes on him.
Yuan Zhen was making very good progress as an apprentice. He seemed to want to make use of me and would turn up every day with a pile of Taoist texts in his arms and pester me with difficult questions. The books on profound theory gave me the biggest headache, and every time we discussed it, it zapped three years off my supply of immortal cultivated energy.
It was still one month until the first of June.
After spending a couple of days with Yuan Zhen, I worked out what I needed to do. Yuan Zhen came across as a modest, cautious, and amiable apprentice, but he had an immature mind and found everything new and exciting. If you told him to head east, he might set off toward the east, but as soon as your back was turned, he would turn around and head west instead. That was how he was about everything.
If I were to deal with his calamity using a direct approach, I would simply urge him not to go on the trip to the Suyu River. He would be certain to ask me why, however, and any reason I used to dissuade him would only end up piquing his curiosity and might well lead him to tag along secretly with them without my knowledge, just to see what would happen. Many of life’s joys and sorrows were caused by seeing what would happen. The direct approach would not work; I had to rethink things. Yuan Zhen’s situation needed to be handled in a more careful and subtle way.
What if when the time came for the beautiful woman fate had chosen to hurt Yuan Zhen to fall into the water, I leaped in to save her first? Oh, but what if there was a shift in fate and she fell in love with me instead? How would that work out? No, it was no good, no good.
