To the Sky Kingdom

by Tang Qi

  Mo Yuan said nothing. He just rested his cheek in his hand, leaning nonchalantly against the armrest of his chair.

  Zhe Yan glanced at Mo Yuan and then looked at Zhong Yin. “Brother Zhong Yin, you must be having a little joke with us,” he said, not unkindly. “Your older sister, Lady Shao Wan, turned to dust flying and flames dying more than one hundred thousand years ago. How could she possibly have come to you in a dream?”

  Zhong Yin blinked sweetly and said, “Your Godliness Zhe Yan, I think you may have misunderstood me. I have come to deliver the words of my older sister—I have no other agenda. I was not going to come, but my sister looked so unbearably miserable in the dream, and so I undertook this long and arduous journey to Mount Kunlun. Your understanding is that my sister had turned to dust flying and flames dying and therefore should not be able to come to me in a dream. But His Godliness Mo Yuan also turned to dust flying and flames dying, but he has returned now. My sister may have turned to dust flying and flames dying, but who knows where her soul has actually scattered? It is not beyond the realm of possibility that she has sent me this dream message, surely?”

  As soon as he finished speaking, he bent his body and gave a bow before leaving the great hall. Mo Yuan got up from his seat and strolled over to the back courtyard without a word. I was about to go over to see what was wrong, but Zhe Yan stopped me. Second Apprentice walked over, looking upset. “Master has just gone off. What are we going to do about all the other immortal friends who have come to offer praise?” he asked.

  Zhe Yan looked disconsolately up at the sky and said, “Lead them all through to the front hall for a cup of tea, and when they’ve had it, lead them outside.”

  I had always thought that Master Mo Yuan must have a history. Even though he did everything with such precision, I was right: he did have a history, and from what this white-robed Zhong Yin had to say, it sounded like it had been rather a violent and turbulent history. I started to feel anxious. I decided to act the filial apprentice by going first to the front hall to greet the young immortal Zhong Yin and then to Mo Yuan’s room to comfort him.

  When I knocked on Mo Yuan’s door later that evening, he was sitting in front of his guqin in meditation. Dusky candlelight shone onto his face, showing the years and all his experiences within them. I stood anxiously in the doorway. His eyes moved up from the guqin to me, and he gave a faint smile. “Why are you just standing in the doorway like that? Come inside, please.”

  I walked quietly over. My intention had been to comfort him, but I stood there for a long time, and nothing came out. I was mystified by the matter that the young immortal in the white robe had mentioned, but it sounded like it had involved romantic heartbreak. And if that were the case, how would I even begin to comfort Mo Yuan?

  My thoughts had just started to run away with me when I heard a few scattered guqin notes. Mo Yuan’s right hand was resting on the strings as he plucked randomly. “I see your mind still wanders as it used to. Some things don’t change, not even after tens of thousands of years,” he said.

  I rubbed my nose and gave a laugh. I walked closer to where he was, and with a gentle, comforting tone of voice, I said, “Master, people generally aren’t reborn after they die. Zhong Yin has probably been missing his sister, and that’s why he had his dream. You mustn’t take it to heart.”

  He looked surprised. He lowered his head and plucked a little more at the strings of the guqin before saying, “Was that the only reason you came around tonight?”

  I nodded.

  There was another chaotic series of guqin notes and then the music came to a stop. Mo Yuan lifted his head and looked at me squarely for what felt like a long time before asking, “Do you truly love him?”

  This question caught me off guard. I felt awkward discussing a matter like this with a member of the older generation, but never a shrinking violet, I rubbed my nose and answered with sincerity, “I do love him. Truly and utterly.”

  He turned away, gazing out the window for the longest time before saying, “I’m so glad to hear that. I can relax in that case.”

  He had a strange expression on his face this evening. Was he worrying that I might not make a good wife, that I might create an unhappy marriage for myself? When I realized that was what it must be, I cheerfully reassured him by saying, “Oh, you mustn’t worry, Master. Ye Hua is a good man, and the two of us are in love. I truly love him, and he truly loves me back.”

  Mo Yuan did not turn around. “It’s getting late. You should go back to your room to rest,” he said calmly.

  Mo Yuan rarely came to the great hall after that. I had gone there to comfort him, but after leaving his room, I realized that I had brought him no comfort whatsoever. I felt rather ashamed of myself. He obviously needed to come to terms with what had happened on his own, without others sticking their noses in.

  If I was not able to see Mo Yuan, I decided that the least I could do was dampen the fervor of some of the young immortals who had traveled here to praise him. Their persistent eagerness was beyond belief. And the longer they stayed, the more tea they drank, and their used teacups were stacking up higher and higher in the front hall.

  Fourth Brother guessed that they were all competing with each other for the honor of who could stay at the revered deity Mo Yuan’s residence the longest and drink the most tea there. It was just like when Fourth Brother and I were small and used to hold competitions over who could pick the most peaches at Zhe Yan’s or who could drink the most alcohol. We decided that our only option was to put up a series of posters informing all the young immortal coming to Mount Kunlun to offer praise that each of them would only be offered one cup of tea and no refills of water. Frustratingly enough, this did nothing to dissuade the little immortals, who continued to fill the hall.

  I spent twenty days on duty in the front hall, during which time I began to think of myself as master of the tea ceremony. On the night of that twentieth day, I had finally had enough. I dragged Fourth Brother out into the middle courtyard under the date tree, and asked him to cover for me while I escaped to the mortal world for a few hours to check on Ye Hua.

  The dates on the tree were already thumb-sized, but they were still green and not ripe yet. Fourth Brother picked a couple and held them in his palm. “Why are you being so secretive about this? Are you worried that your fellow apprentices will make fun of you if they find out where you’re going, tease you about being a woman in love?” Fourth Brother could be very intuitive, but this was not one of those times.

  My secretiveness had nothing to do with my fellow apprentices. I just did not wish to worry Mo Yuan with the fact that his twin brother was currently down in the mortal world experiencing a calamity. If he found out, he would certainly want to go down and make sure Ye Hua was all right, and the dusty air in the mortal world would not help his recuperation. Fourth Brother’s interpretation showed that he thought that women were easily embarrassed, even women who had reached my grand old age. It made me feel strange to realize that I was actually much more thick-skinned than he realized.

  Fourth Brother pointed at me and said, “If I allow you a few hours in the mortal world, I will not get a moment’s sleep tonight. I will give you one hour. Ye Hua has only gone to the mortal world for a minor calamity, and nothing bad is going to happen to him. The only reason you’re going down is because you’re being clingy.”

  I managed to maintain my composure, although my ears went crimson. I had not chosen a good time to ask this favor of him. I had forgotten about the spat between him and Zhe Yan in the corridor earlier that afternoon. But an hour was long enough for me, so I thanked Fourth Brother and strode quickly off the mountain.

  He threw the two dates he had been holding into the lily pond. “If you are not back within an hour, don’t be surprised if I come down myself and drag you back,” he said breezily.

  Mount Kunlun had been bathing under the bright Milky Way when I left in the dark of night, but when I arrived in the mortal world, it wa
s daylight, the azure sky stretching on for miles and miles. I dropped down outside a little private school and made myself invisible. The sound of reading drifted over. “‘Shu Xiang went to visit Han Xuanzi and Shu Xiang congratulated . . . ’”

  I walked in the direction of the voice and saw a delicate-faced child sitting at the back of a classroom. He would have been quite an exceptional-looking mortal child, but he looked juvenile and unformed, incomparable to Ye Hua. However, his cold, indifferent facial expression was identical to Ye Hua’s.

  He finished reading, and the teacher at the front of the classroom opened his eyes and looked at the textbook in his hand. “Liu Ying, stand up and explain that section to the rest of the class,” he said. The child with the cold expression got to his feet. My heart started to tremble. My eyesight was slightly better in the mortal world than in the immortal realms, and I could see that this child was indeed Ye Hua’s reincarnation. I knew I would be able to recognize him.

  He went through the passage line by line, explaining it carefully and logically, as the teacher twirled a strand of his long beard and gave regular praise and words of encouragement. I watched Ye Hua in his classroom, looking extremely clever but also utterly charming. I stood outside the school’s window frame and waited until classes were over for the day.

  Ye Hua’s two book servants helped him pack away the things from his desk, and they all left together. I followed behind them, about to make myself visible, but wondering the best way to approach them and strike up a natural conversation. I hesitated awhile, unsure of what to do. While I was running through different options, I heard a whistle as two objects came hurtling past me. Without thinking, I waved my sleeves, and the two stones flying past immediately changed direction and crashed against the trunk of an old willow tree at the side of the road.

  Ye Hua turned around when he heard the commotion, and three or four young scoundrels cursed him and started running away. As they ran they sang out a taunting rhyme: “Fire can harm, ice can harm, young Liu Yang was born with only one arm. Misdeeds in past lives cause this life’s repercussions, reincarnation hears no discussions. Young Liu Yang may do well at school, but his body is nothing but a broken tool!” I heard a roaring in my head, and I lifted my eyes to look at Ye Hua’s right arm.

  The Sky Emperor, that utter wretch! Ye Hua was his own grandchild. How poisoned his heart must be to reincarnate his own flesh and blood and not even give him an able body! Ye Hua’s right sleeve was hanging by his side, completely empty.

  Ye Hua’s two book servants rallied around him, defending him loyally, and were about to chase after those little scoundrels, but Ye Hua stopped them. The bullies looked familiar. I thought about where I had seen them before and realized they had been in Ye Hua’s classroom with him.

  As someone who was similarly unacademic, I understood the mindset of this group of young scoundrels. They were obviously falling behind in their studies, and seeing a prodigy like Ye Hua made them feel intense jealousy. They had every right to their feelings of jealousy, but only if they stayed away from Ye Hua and felt them from a distance. Making up a malicious taunt like that and singing it in front of him was too much. Oh, those little scoundrels. Later in life when they were suffering and feeling hard done by, they would realize what they had done, and how awful they had been.

  Ye Hua stroked his empty sleeve with his left hand and gave a slight frown, but said nothing. He just turned around and carried on down the road. It was agonizing to see him like this, but I could not risk making myself visible here now; all I would do was scare the life out of them. I had to just bite down on my bitter rage, push it into my chest.

  I followed him around from dusk until nightfall, but I never found the right time to appear before him in my true form. His two book servants were constantly by his side, and I was starting to find their presence extremely irritating. At nine that evening, Ye Hua eventually crawled into bed. His servants helped him undress and waited on him until he fell asleep. Once he had drifted off, they extinguished his candle, and giving a yawn or two, they headed off to their own beds.

  I summoned my energy and released myself from the invisibility spell. I sat beside Ye Hua’s bed, using the moonlight to take a closer look at him before reaching out over the quilt and nudging him awake. He gave a little groan, turned around, and sat up a little. “What’s happening?” he asked in a fuzzy voice. When he saw that it was not one of his book servants speaking to him, but a stranger, he gave a start. He stared at me in disbelief and then closed his eyes and lay back down, mumbling, “Oh, I must be having a dream.”

  My heart trembled. I gave him another hasty shake to wake him, and before he could say anything, I cut in with the question, “So do you recognize me?”

  I knew that he did not really recognize me and that thing he had just said about still dreaming, rather than asking me who I was, had probably been because he was still half asleep. But I was hoping so much that he would recognize me, so I asked him again.

  Sure enough, he responded by saying, “No, I don’t remember you.” He frowned, the sleepy haze finally lifting. He paused for a while before saying, “So I’m not dreaming?”

  I pulled a night pearl the size of a dove egg from my sleeve to offer more light. I took his hand and used it to stroke my face. “Does this feel like part of a dream?” I asked with a smile.

  He went red.

  I gasped in surprise. Could Ye Hua in his reincarnated form really be this shy?

  I moved a bit closer to him, and he leaned away, his face growing even redder. I had never seen this side of Ye Hua before, and I found it intriguing. I shifted closer and closer, and he inched farther and farther toward the wall, where he cowered, his pale little face bright red by now. Working hard to maintain a look of calm composure, he said, “Who are you? And how did you get into my house?”

  Seeing Ye Hua’s coy shyness brought out my teasing side. I covered my face with my hand, and adopting a listless voice, I said, “I’m a little immortal from Qingqiu Kingdom, sir. I dropped down for a visit to the mortal world a couple of days ago. During that time, I saw you and have come to greatly admire you and have been unable to think about anything else. I have been pining away for you, and I have become wan and thin. I have come here tonight to declare my feelings in the hope that you might feel the same.” After I had finished my speech, I looked up at him shyly. While I had been saying these words, I was cringing so much my body tingled, but the way I was looking at him seemed to be having an effect.

  He looked at me in disbelief before burying his crimson face in his sleeve and giving a cough. “But, but I’m only eleven years old,” he said.

  The hour Fourth Brother had granted me was already up. I found reincarnated Ye Hua much more interesting than Ye Hua in his immortal form. It would seem that the Liu family knew a lot more about raising children than the Sky Emperor who reigned over the whole of the Ninth Sky. I started to feel slightly more relaxed that Ye Hua was not going to get into too much trouble down here.

  Before I left, the two of us exchanged tokens of affection. I gave him the pearl bracelet that he had given me when I had gone down to help Yuan Zhen through his calamity. This bracelet would help to keep him safe. I was unable to stay with him throughout his time there, but knowing he was wearing this bracelet, I would worry about him less. He took off the jade pendant from his neck and fastened it around mine. I leaned over to his ear and reminded him one last time, “You really must not marry anyone else. I will pay you a visit when I can, and when you are old enough, we shall marry.” He went red in the face, but he gave an earnest nod.

  I had told Ye Hua that I would go and visit him when I had time. But I became extremely busy back in Mount Kunlun and did not find a moment to go back down.

  Mo Yuan had decided that he would start his confinement in seven days. Zhe Yan wished to refine some pills for Mo Yuan to take into his cave with him to aid his recuperation. He designated me as his assistant. I spent days going back and for
th between the medicine room and the pill room, and I did not even find enough time to sit down and wet my throat with a cup of tea.

  By early on the second of September, we had refined the pills, which we placed inside a jade bottle to give Mo Yuan, with the instruction that he take them into the cave. Mo Yuan entered the cave, looking pale and unwell. He said nothing to his other apprentices, but he asked me one question: “Is Ye Hua good to you?”

  I told him honestly that he was. And with that, Mo Yuan nodded and walked into the cave.

  After Mo Yuan went into confinement, the flow of young immortals who had come to praise him finally stopped. I went outside to count the tea plants left on the mountain and saw that they were all bare. Every leaf had been plucked and used.

  Fifteen of Mo Yuan’s apprentices said farewell and returned to their own posts and lives, each leaving one immortal child to assist Ninth Apprentice in looking after Mo Yuan. I also said farewell to Ling Yu and left the mountain alongside Fourth Brother and Zhe Yan.

  I climbed down from Mount Kunlun and flew down to the mortal world. In my estimation, Ye Hua would be seventeen or eighteen by now, a magnificent and prosperous age for mortals. I wondered what the boy who had been eleven only six days ago would look like at this age.

  It was with excitement that I dropped lightly down just in front of the Liu family mansion.

  I scoured every inch of their household grounds but could see no sign of Ye Hua anywhere. My excitement started to wane.

  I came out of the Liu family house full of disappointment. After looking in every nook and cranny, I decided to make myself visible. I strolled up to the front gate and asked the young servant standing guard where Liu Ying Zhao Ge was. I was told that he had taken the civil service exams and done incredibly well and been sent off to work as an official for the heir to the mortal throne.

  The little serving boy at the Liu residence spoke with great emotion and lofty sentimentality. “Our little lord is a rare prodigy, a rare prodigy. He was admitted into the imperial college when he was just twelve. Five years ago the emperor’s grandfather developed the civil service grace exams. Our young lord took the exam just to have a go and see what would happen, but he ended up getting the top results in the country. He entered the Hanlin Academy, rose rapidly up through the system, and has already become a high-ranking government minister for the Ministry of Revenue. Oh, a rare prodigy, a rare prodigy indeed.”