Drunken Gods and White Flames
At that same hour, in the Ancestral Shrine of the Hebei Paeng Clan.
The Great Sage Equal to Heaven came down out of the sky astride his Somersault Cloud and touched lightly to the ground.
“Hey there, Old Tiger!”
The White Tiger, who had been lounging at his ease atop the shrine roof while watching Yeong-hwa and Paeng Un-ro, lifted a forepaw to his head. He frowned.
“Ugh. It’s you, you damned monkey?”
The Great Sage pointed a finger at him and cackled.
“I heard the White Tiger of the Hebei Paeng Clan took a proper thrashing from Qiongqi, so I came to see for myself!”
Since the Great Sage had in fact helped him, the White Tiger could say nothing in reply.
“How did it come to that?”
“Could you not see?”
“Those Four Fiends of the Four Perils had thrown a black veil over the whole of Hebei Province.”
At those words the White Tiger’s entire body trembled with rage.
“I lost a martial artist chosen by the Jade Emperor himself.”
The tremor in the White Tiger’s voice stilled even the Great Sage’s laughter.
“Ah—sorry. I read the mood poorly…”
“No need. It was not your doing…”
The White Tiger lifted his gaze, desolate, toward the full moon.
“The Tathagata must have His reasons.”
The Great Sage gave a little hop and settled himself on the White Tiger’s back.
“Still the same romantic soul, I see?”
Annoyed or not, the White Tiger let him be.
“I’ve stayed too long in the human world. Perhaps my temperament has changed.”
“Your temperament has been the same from the beginning, Old Tiger.”
The Great Sage cast his mind back through the years.
“Even during the war in Heaven that I myself started, you always fretted over the other gods first, did you not?”
The White Tiger gave a dry chuckle.
“That was only because you were such a wild, ungovernable creature.”
A faraway look came into his eyes.
“Prince Nezha fell to you, and only we Five Directional Gods managed to check your advance at all.”
“So it was, so it was!”
“Fortunately the Tathagata reformed that nature of yours into the shape you wear now.”
“I’ll have you know I escorted Master Xuanzang all the way to the Western Heaven!”
“I know, you little pest!”
The White Tiger’s expression grew puzzled as he asked,
“Then… why did Prince Nezha abandon them?”
“You mean the Heavenly Demon Cult?”
“Yes.”
The Great Sage drew the gourd flask from his sash. With a bitter face he tipped the wine down his throat. When he tossed the flask at the White Tiger’s muzzle, the White Tiger caught it neatly with his tail and poured the liquor into his own mouth.
“Nezha’s grief runs deep.”
“What happened?”
“They were gathering the Blood Jades.”
“Those Blood Jades the mad humans forged?”
The White Tiger turned his head in shock; the Great Sage nodded.
“The one called the Heavenly Demon—whom Nezha once cherished—now claims he will become a god himself.”
“Has the fool lost his mind? He saw how the Blood God ended and still means to try the same thing?”
“A woman named Seonghwa seems to be goading him on.”
The White Tiger buried his muzzle in his forepaws with a look of weary disgust.
“The world has gone mad.”
“And that is precisely why the Jade Emperor opened the Ghost Gate and simply lets it all unfold, is it not?”
“What do you think of it?”
At that the Great Sage only snickered.
“I simply find those beggar folk pleasing to the eye.”
“Reminds you of Flower-Fruit Mountain, does it?”
“That is all ancient history now.”
Sorrow touched the Great Sage’s face.
“I lost every one of my people in the war I started. What is left for me to say?”
“Did the Tathagata not forgive them and guide every last soul to paradise?”
“Yet in my heart they still live.”
Once more the Great Sage swallowed wine.
“I too have lingered too long among humans. I fear I am growing to resemble them.”
“Tch. You monkey.”
The White Tiger reached back with his tail and gently stroked the Great Sage’s head.
“You do resemble them—your old subjects and those Beggars’ Sect fools alike.”
“Idiots who stake their lives on righteousness and chivalry and never spare a thought for renown.”
With a warm expression the Great Sage watched the Beggars’ Sect disciples dancing in the great training yard below.
After a stretch of silence the White Tiger asked,
“Have you heard anything more of Prince Nezha?”
“Only that he has locked himself away in Heaven, helping the Jade Emperor tend the peach orchards of the Immortal Peaches.”
The White Tiger’s face clouded.
“So one vote in the Heavenly Council is already lost.”
The Great Sage shook his head.
“Nezha’s heart is too pure; one can never be certain.”
His gaze had settled on Yeong-hwa.
“Who can say?”
“Say what?”
“That the Mudang child might yet turn Nezha’s heart.”
The White Tiger snorted.
“Hah. Perhaps he might.”
He lowered his tail into the shrine. A wine jar came up dangling from the tip. Color flooded the Great Sage’s face.
“This wine—!”
“The night is long. Have a cup before you go.”
“Who would refuse Old Tiger’s own Hebei Royal Essence wine?”
The two gods sat upon the roof of the Ancestral Shrine and tipped their cups, taking moonlight and stars for side dishes. The night only deepened, and the drunken gods’ rambling showed no sign of ending.
When moonlight pooled in the wine cups the Great Sage fell quiet a moment and looked down. The beggars and ordinary folk dancing amid the falling snow looked to them like the people they had lost long ago.
Before a vast brazier filled with pure white flame, a woman offered up her prayers.
Her eyes were strange—wholly white, without iris or pupil.
The chamber was draped entirely in dark crimson silk; the massive pillars were carved with malevolent gods and baleful spirits. Bottomless darkness and the ominous white fire kept her company as she murmured mantras under her breath.
She closed her eyes for a moment, then thrust her hand into the pure-white blaze. The flames did not burn her; instead they slipped naturally into her body. She rose from her place.
As she turned, a maid’s voice sounded from beyond the door.
“Holy Maiden Seonghwa, Qiongqi and Taowu have returned.”
“Admit them.”
The door creaked open. Staggering, Baek Un-geuk, young master of the Mukhongeomga, and Yeon So-rin, young mistress of the Dokryeonamga, entered.
“May the Heavenly Demon return and all demons bow in submission!”
They prostrated themselves before Seonghwa, touching forehead to floor. Seonghwa approached Baek Un-geuk with unhurried steps.
“Hold out your hand.”
Trembling, Baek Un-geuk extended his blackened left hand. Seonghwa took it between both of hers.
Whooosh—
Pure-white flames coiled around the ruined limb.
“Aaaaargh!”
Baek Un-geuk rolled on the floor in the burning agony.
“And So-rin—your shoulder, is it?”
“Yes, Holy Maiden.”
This time Seonghwa laid her hand upon Yeon So-rin’s shoulder. The white fire seared the wound.
“Nnnngh—”
Yeon So-rin bit her lip and endured the fierce pain.
With a sharp flick Seonghwa withdrew her hands. The flames that had been on both their bodies streamed back into her palms. Baek Un-geuk stared at his left arm in disbelief. The blackened, charred flesh was whole again. Yeon So-rin was the same. Her shoulder, shattered and gouged by the Azure-Robe Peak sword, had knit itself back together as though it had never been broken.
They bowed their heads again and again.
“Thank you, Holy Maiden.”
“Holy Maiden, we are forever in your debt.”
Seonghwa returned to the brazier and plunged her hands into the fire once more. The flames left her body and settled back into the brazier. Her soft voice wrapped around Baek Un-geuk and Yeon So-rin.
“You understand that Qiongqi and Taowu chose you personally, do you not?”
“Yes, we understand.”
“Of course.”
Seonghwa went to them again, sank to one knee, and met their eyes.
“But the gods of the Four Fiends are fickle creatures.”
Baek Un-geuk shuddered under the chill of those pure-white eyes. A thin line of blood welled on Yeon So-rin’s bitten lip.
“There is no shortage of martial artists in this cult who could replace you.”
Her voice remained gentle.
“I shall regard this matter as a simple mistake and let it pass.”
Slowly she stroked both their heads.
“But there will be no next time.”
A satisfied expression touched her face.
“So for the sake of your clans as well—do your utmost.”
“We obey!”
“How goes the gathering of the Blood Jade fragments scattered through the cult?”
“Hundun and Taotie report that all have been collected.”
Seonghwa gave a slow nod.
“They are the sacrifice our Heavenly Demon will require when he ascends as a new god.”
A look of rapture crossed her features as she rose.
“In place of Prince Nezha, who abandoned us…”
She walked toward the enormous glass sphere that stood behind the brazier and gathered it into her arms as one might cradle a child.
“…this is the great work of raising a new god for our cult.”
“May the Heavenly Demon return and all demons bow in submission!”
Inside the glass sphere a middle-aged man slept naked. The sphere was filled with viscous fluids of every hue, and dark-crimson demonic energy swirled within.
She stroked the surface and spoke.
“The human world no longer needs gods.”
Baek Un-geuk and Yeon So-rin nodded fervently.
“It is for people themselves to rule the world of people.”
“This humble one will engrave it upon her heart!”
“I will offer my life!”
Without looking back she flicked her fingers in dismissal.
“You may go. Your next task will be given when Hundun and Taotie return.”
“We obey.”
When Baek Un-geuk and Yeon So-rin had withdrawn, she murmured to the man who stirred faintly within the sphere.
“Our love is not finished.”
A single tear traced her cheek.
“Even if I must make you into a god, I will bring you back to this world.”
For a long while she stood there, cradling the glass sphere against her breast.
“Neeeeigh!”
At the foot of a vast and forbidding mountain the horsemen reined in. They wore black traveling robes embroidered with the Taiji. They were Hyeonsong, Yeong-hwa, and Hagun.
Hyeonsong pushed back the brim of his bamboo hat and spoke.
“At last we have reached the Huashan Sect.”
Yeong-hwa shifted uncomfortably in the saddle, clearly sore.
“Um… Sect Leader.”
“What is it?”
“Might we take a carriage next time?”
Hyeonsong burst into hearty laughter at the boy’s complaint.
“To be swayed by luxury and vanity at every turn is not the way of a Taoist.”
Yeong-hwa’s spirits sank.
“My backside hurts terribly.”
“It is all part of cultivation.”
The party had ridden hard from Hebei Province all the way to Shaanxi, where the Huashan Sect made its home. Former Clan Leader Paeng Un-ro had repeatedly urged them to use a carriage, yet Hyeonsong refused so firmly that Yeong-hwa and Hagun had given up the idea.
Hyeonsong dismounted and set the horses free at the mountain’s base.
“Huashan’s terrain is too rugged for riding. We go on foot from here.”
Yeong-hwa’s face drained of color.
“Y-you don’t mean… that mountain, do you?”
“I do. Is it not beautiful?”
Plum blossoms that had endured the winter and now greeted early spring carpeted Huashan in full bloom. Yet the spring wind of the mountain still remembered winter and cut cold. The blossoms rode that wind, scattering like white breath.
Gazing upon the breathtaking vista of pure white and soft pink, Hyeonsong grew reflective.
“I wonder how everyone is faring.”
No sooner had the words left him than he unfurled the Cloud-Treading Art and began to climb. He stepped from rock to rock as though riding clouds, ascending the near-vertical cliffs with effortless ease.
Watching him, Hagun clenched his fists and loosened his limbs.
Yeong-hwa cast him a look of last desperate hope.
“I’m going on ahead, Yeong-hwa!”
Hagun likewise poured everything into the Cloud-Treading Art. Watching the two vanish at speed, Yeong-hwa turned instead toward the stone stairs.
Grumbling, he began to climb the long flight of steps. Having ridden for so many hours for the first time in his life, his backside ached so fiercely that he could not follow Hyeonsong and Hagun with the same art.
“Aaaaaargh! What kind of living hell is this…!”
Yeong-hwa’s howl echoed across Huashan.
He had been laboring up the stairs for some time when a sudden scream rang out.
“Help me!”
A woman in the plum-blossom-embroidered robes of the Huashan Sect was descending the steps toward him. Her face was white with terror; her whole body shook like a leaf in a gale.
Drip—drip—drip—drip—drip—
Fresh blood coated the blade of her plum-blossom sword. Spotting the Taiji emblem on Yeong-hwa’s chest, she flung herself straight into his arms.
“Taoist, please—save me…!”
Yeong-hwa flushed scarlet at the sudden embrace.
“Ahem… ahem… Perhaps we might step apart a moment and talk—”
But she only buried herself deeper against him. From the tip of the sword still clutched in her hand, not yet dry, blood continued to drip steadily onto the stone.