Bai Su. You really have no face left to save.
The Dragon Boat Festival in Lin'an.
It had always burned bright as fire in oil, brilliant as flowers on brocade.
By day, dragon boats tore across West Lake, drums thundering. Everyone said the day's yang-energy stood at its peak—the most auspicious hour of the whole year to drive off evil and welcome fortune.
Jinshan's annual life release ceremony had just ended.
Three thousand fish returned to the lake, silver scales flashing, a whole white mist of spray kicked up at once. Chanting and cheering tangled together and drove the summer heat to a full boil.
Xu Xian carried a wine jar wrapped tight in oil paper through the crowd, careful with it. Two hours in line at that old shop south of the city for this jar of aged realgar.
Old Chen's leg troubles in the east of the city, and then home. Old Chen walked with difficulty; Xu Xian went in person, always, took the pulse himself, sometimes delivered the finished medicine too, and never once took more than the smallest fee.
He thought of the night before—his lady's smile, her voice: tonight, let's rent a pleasure-boat, drift out onto the lake, drink beneath the moon. Xu Xian wiped sweat off his brow with one sleeve and felt something faintly besotted rise, unbidden, in his own clear eyes.
"Amitabha. Benefactor, if you would—one moment."
A voice cut through the crowd behind him—clear, warm, a wooden fish falling into fresh snow. Xu Xian turned, startled.
Beneath the willows by the noisy market, a young monk stood alone, robes neat, bearing composed, and somehow entirely set apart from the noise around him, as though he belonged to a different world.
"Master Fahai?" Xu Xian's face opened in surprise. Wasn't this the very abbot who'd just presided over the life release ceremony down at the lake?
Fahai smiled, faint, and drew a warm palm from his wide sleeve.
Resting on it, quiet, a talisman shimmering with faint gold. The Talisman of Golden Light—drawn from a single thread of true radiance off the Supreme Dharma Manifestation at Jinshan.
Worn, it could steady a mortal's spirit; if a spirit drew near, the Buddha-light would sense it at once.
To Xu Xian, it looked like nothing more than a warm, old, rarely-seen charm, touched by the Buddha's own blessing.
"Tonight, once you're home, benefactor, dissolve this into your realgar wine." Fahai's voice could have soothed away the whole height of summer.
"Realgar drives off impurity. Buddha-light protects the heart. Share the cup with your wife, and your household will know peace and good health."
No lie in any of it.
An ordinary couple drinking that wine would truly drive off dark spirits, steady body and soul both. It was only that the household inside the Bai residence had never once been ordinary.
The whole family's health—the words landed straight in the soft, sentimental center of Xu Xian's heart. He thought of how thin, how frail his lady always seemed, felt warmth flood his chest, and reached out with both hands, reverent, to take the talisman.
"My deepest thanks, Master, for this blessing!"
Fahai added, low: "Remember, benefactor—this is a matter of heavenly secret and Buddhist grace. Speak of it to no one. Let ordinary gossip touch it, and the light inside will scatter on its own."
Xu Xian, suspecting nothing at all, pressed the talisman almost by instinct against his own chest, bowing again and again in thanks. Tucked it away beside the jar of wine and hurried east, his whole face lit up like spring.
The lake wind stirred the willows.
Fahai stood alone in their shade, watching that young physician run off toward some happiness he believed was waiting for him. The compassion at his mouth thinned out slowly into something flat. Cold.
He truly did wish that good, simple man a lifetime of peace. But if the lady of the Bai residence really was a spirit—some kinds of happiness were never meant to exist at all.
Fahai stood there a long while.
Dusk crawled up his plain robe, inch by inch. Between the worst of the heat and the deepest of the cold, there was only the width of one evening.
Night. Moonlight washes everything clean.
The heavy Buddhist presence that had hung over the Bai residence all day had thinned, quiet, into darkness, replaced now by cool moonlight pouring like mercury across the whole courtyard.
At its center the ancient tree spread wide, canopy dense, every leaf catching a faint, half-translucent jade shimmer beneath the moon. Green shadow over green shadow.
Night wind, faint.
A white silk fan in her hand, its surface carrying the faint, bitter scent of calamus and mugwort. Eyes half closed, she tapped the fan's handle against her palm, lazy, mimicking the way a mortal woman might cool herself.
Graceful posture. Cold expression.
High in the branches, Qing swung her legs with no regard for how it looked.
The jade bangle on her honey wrist scattered small green sparks through the moonlight. A grass stalk from the bamboo groves of Mount Qingcheng hung from her teeth, her whole face wearing the idle satisfaction of someone thoroughly enjoying a little chaos.
She bit down harder on the stalk, still clearly not over the day.
"Brother, I can't believe you actually let that monk in the door. His whole aura reeked of bad luck. He wasn't here for alms, he was here measuring our necks for a matching bowl."
Bai Su fanned herself, unhurried.
"He hasn't made a move yet. Why should I go looking for a fight before he does?"
"He's obviously not here for anything good."
"He has his own road. I have my own trial." Her tone stayed flat, like she was discussing something entirely unrelated to herself.
"If it's only a warning, I'll hear it and let it go. If he means to sever my karma, that's a fight for when it comes."
Qing snorted, opened her mouth to say more—
"Meow—" An arrogant cat's cry split the night, no warning at all.
At the very peak of the roof, an elegant shape had appeared out of nowhere.
A spirit-cat, long and sleek, marked with striking leopard spots, coat threaded gold and silver, catching a silken sheen in the moonlight, green eyes cold and bright, a faint thread of Buddha-light—the mark of a spirit from the Western Paradise—flickering, half-visible, at its brow.
Bai Su's fan paused, faint. Then she let out a long, tired sigh, too weary even to lift her eyelids all the way.
Up in the branches, Qing's eyes lit at once, and she burst out laughing.
"Well, isn't tonight busy. Fahai in the afternoon, and now this one. Your Feline Majesty—did you two coordinate? Taking turns dropping by?"
She slapped the branch beside her, grin widening, thoroughly asking to be struck.
"How many times is this now? Does that coat of yours start itching on a schedule, needing a proper beating from Brother to feel right again?"
"I spit on you!" The cat's whole coat bristled, tail cracking hard against the tile, deeply offended by the accusation.
"Who says this sovereign's working with that shaven-headed wretch? This sovereign, I'll have you know, once tore the relic right out of his master's chest!"
Qing rolled her eyes, plucked a leaf without even looking, flicked it. It sliced through the air like a thin blade, grazing the cat's ear.
"Tch. What's so special about an old monk's relic, worth all that fuss?"
"You know nothing about it!" It jerked its head up, indignant, and let slip more than it meant to.
"That old monk spent eighty years meditating! What was forming inside him was a living relic—one in a hundred years, that kind! Once he dies, his primal energy scatters. The whole treasure turns to dust with him! This sovereign, naturally, had to act before he took his last breath—"
It stopped itself dead, mid-word.
Couldn't say more.
Confess the rest and it would have to admit stumbling into that hunter's trap, being saved by that same mortal pair, dragged back to the Western Paradise in chains for three months' penance.
What was left of a Western Paradise sovereign's dignity, after that?
It cleared its throat, licked one paw as though nothing had happened, and gathered its dignity back around itself, glaring down at the white-robed "woman" beneath the tree.
"Bai Su." It drew itself up, perfectly righteous. "This sovereign did not come tonight for idle chat."
It tossed its head, voice dripping malicious delight.
"This sovereign came down to watch you make a fool of yourself! What a shame! An immortal, and you bend it into a woman's form just to marry a mortal man?" Read the latest chapters at novelping . com.
It fixed its stare on her white robes, like it had finally caught her out in some enormous shame. "Bai Su. You really have no face left to save."
Bai Su lifted her eyes, at last, resigned.
"What quarrel, exactly, do you and I have?" Flat. Even.
"One worth dragging you down here every so often, just to pick a fight?"
Qing, arms around the branch, was already laughing too hard to sit straight.
"Brother, it's not even a fair fight. It's only got the hide of a Western Paradise sovereign going for it, thick enough to take a beating and come back for more."
She called down toward the roofline, mocking.
"Your Feline Majesty, if Brother sends you flying again tonight, don't go hiding on the roof crying about it after!"
"Shut your mouth! You chattering green long worm!"
Struck where it hurt, the cat flew into a fury at once. Arched its back, bared its claws, still clinging to whatever scrap of dignity it had left.
"This sovereign came to spar! Purely spar!"
It would never tell these two snakes that Guanyin herself had once said, plainly, that Bai Su harbored great love in his heart's core, guarded it with absolute clarity, uncorrupted, and had earned the Buddha's own particular favor.
Admit that, and every one of its little visits would start looking like naked jealousy—like it had been down here, all this time, competing for the Buddha's affection.
That would be the true shame.
In the space of one thought it became a streak of mottled gold light, diving off the roof, straight for Bai Su's face. Fast as thunder, wind shrieking, strong enough to split a mountain.
Bai Su didn't move from her seat.
Not until the claws closed to within three inches did she turn her wrist, lazy as ever. The thin fan traced one smooth arc through the air, met the strike, turned it gently aside.
Four ounces deflecting a thousand pounds. Two thousand years of dense, gathered power condensed at once into an invisible shield, settling entirely across that soft silk surface.
Bang—
A dull, heavy sound.
The cat's attack, powerful enough to flay a great spirit alive, struck the fan like it had struck a mountain no eye could see. It lost its balance at once. Bai Su flicked her sleeve, and a force overwhelming as a collapsing range, carrying not the faintest killing intent, surged out to meet it.
"Meow—!"
The cat tumbled through the air, over and over, and landed hard back on the roof with a sharp crack, its beautiful spotted coat caked in dust.
Up in the tree, Qing pounded the branch with her fist, laughing outright.
"Three! Three losses in a row! Well fought, well fought, Your Feline Majesty!"
"Just you wait, all of you!"
It ground its teeth, shaking dust from its fur, and shot one last venomous look at Bai Su—not one hair out of place—before leaving with the same worn-out threat it always left with: "Bai Su, next time, this sovereign wins!"
Before the words had fully landed, the disgruntled, spotted shape leapt into the night and was gone.
Qing watched the direction it had fled, still laughing.
"What a strange, stubborn cat. Beaten every single time and it still keeps coming back." She dropped down from the branch, landed light beside Bai Su.
"Brother, you think it's genuinely just itching for a fight?"
Bai Su shook her head, a tired amusement rising in her eyes. She unfolded the fan slow; night wind passed across it, carrying off whatever restless spirit-energy still hung in the courtyard.
"Let's go in." She looked toward the deepening dark beyond the courtyard walls.
"The mortal candles are nearly burned down. Husband should be home from his rounds soon."
Moonlight fell through the ancient canopy, quiet, across her plain white silk. And beyond the walls of the Bai residence, a gold talisman rode closer, inch by inch, against Xu Xian's chest, with every step he took.