Fanfic: Mo Yuan and Shao Wan 2.0 - Chapter 59 (Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms 三生三世十里桃花)
Chapter 59
written by kakashiediting by Panda/LigayaCroft
“You can’t be serious”, Bai Qian murmured, throwing her head as far back as she could to squint up at the high mountain before her. The peak was shrouded in a layer of gloomy looking clouds, and the steep, sleek rock seemed determined to deter people from scaling its surface.
“It is very serious, Queen of Qingqiu,” the young Demon guard with the striking good build said, his handsome face clouded with worry. “She landed up there a while ago but now we have been unable to sense her.”
Frankly, Bai Qian had imagined her next visit to the Demon Realm to be a more stately affair. The kind of visit that had her and Ye Hua shake hands with the new Demon Overlord while there was music, rainbow birds and saluting honor guards… but instead, she had left the Heavens like a thief through a secret door that only the Turtle Clan knew. And then, at the gates of the Obsidian Palace, she had learnt that the Demon Ancestor was not in residence. She could have cried.
Luckily though, somebody else was visiting there, somebody Bai Qian knew from the last war. Thus, the following had come to pass:
“Oh, have you come to congratulate her?” the Purple Queen exclaimed warmly and then explained to the confused Bai Qian that the Demon Ancestor recently got a power boost and was now ready to take over as Overlord. Not that anybody had an idea how Shao Wan had pulled that off, but the entire landscape had shaken, and the rock had sung while all the birds had taken flight. It had been an unmistakable sign of unleashed Demon powers of great magnitude.
“Mo Yuan is not here,” Donghua Dijun informed her straight away when he walked into the room to greet her. She was very surprised to see him there until Bai Qian remembered she had been informed about his whereabouts, but had apparently forgotten due to her recent worries. The white-haired God looked bored as usual but otherwise he was radiant, his skin glowing like only the skin of a very well rested person could.
“You are right to assume I am looking for him,” Bai Qian nodded, taking a seat at the table in a pretty little room designed for entertaining guests. The Purple Queen had called for drinks and of course, Bai Qian would never turn down a good drop, especially since she was unusually thirsty from all the cloud-jumping to journey here. The matter with Ye Hua was urgent but not yet a crisis - he would not even have been born yet down in the mortal realm.
“Shao Wan will be back soon,” Donghua Dijun said with a shrug, lowering himself down, “she will want to punish me for things I did when she was weak and powerless.”
Bai Qian decided to wait for her, finding both the company of the Purple Queen and her niece’s husband pleasant; and the golden liquor served- from the Queen's personal stock, tasty indeed. The last time she had been to the Demon Realm, she had not had time to enjoy herself - now she thought she would like to come here more often. It was apparent why Lian Song was such an open admirer of this realm. The air was clean, the weather good and what Bai Qian had tasted of the food was tickling her palate in exciting ways. Shao Wan’s palace was of marvelous beauty, with tasteful furniture and valuable artefacts on display, breathtaking views, and a gorgeous garden that she was told Mo Yuan had built.
One bottle followed another but there was still no sign of Shao Wan. At one stage, Bai Qian remembered that Donghua Dijun was of comparable intelligence and foresight to her Shifu, so she decided to pose the latest Heavenly conundrum to him: “What would Fate do if we sent someone to watch over Ye Hua during his ascension trial?”
“Ah, we will find out,” he said without missing a beat, “Mo Yuan is taking care of it.”
Of course he was.
“Why is he always doing everything himself?” Bai Qian exclaimed, slamming her cup down. But why was she even asking? She already knew the answer.
“He’d get bored otherwise,” Dijun shrugged. “Besides, he’s not alone this time.”
“I will go down this very instance…”
But she didn’t get to do that because at that moment, Yi Mei Niang’s head of guards stormed in, looking so distressed that Bai Qian’s slightly inebriated self wanted to squish his cheeks, ruffle his hair and tell him things would be alright because they always were in the end.
Not much later, Bai Qian found herself standing at the foot of Zhang Mei Mountain’s biggest peak, Mount Bǎoguì, trying to see the top.
Her courage boosted by Demon liquor, she had magnanimously volunteered to come with Yue to fetch the Demon Ancestor, much to the relief of the others who admitted they would prefer staying back at the palace. What had seemed a good idea to her back then didn't seem so anymore as she squinted at the uninviting rock surface.
From the side, a tiny stick of a woman looked at her with big eyes. She seemed vaguely familiar in a strange kind of way, triggering an almost memory that was mildly discomforting, but Bai Qian had never been good with faces and got less so the older she got.
“Crown Princess,” the woman curtsied.
A Celestial? Here? Bai Qian squinted at her some more. Perhaps a maid? But she was dressed like a Demon warrior, with leather pants, a tunic and was carrying several daggers as weapons.
“I’m Jie Jing,” the woman introduced herself upon realizing Bai Qian’s confusion, “the Lord of Numinous Treasure's niece. We first met a long while ago at the White Rock Sea Festival.”
Mo Yuan’s former bride?! Bai Qian had to force her mouth closed. What was that woman doing here? Had she not been declared missing and probably dead by her family?
“It’s all her fault,” the Demon guard growled.
What now? Bai Qian turned to him for an explanation, when two large owl-monsters appeared behind a rock and shuffled in his direction with considerable speed. They gave Bai Qian a mighty fright. Those were Dais! She knew they were native to the Ghost Realm and considered very dangerous - but when nobody else panicked in reaction, she presumed they were tamed ones.
Still, she made a few steps backward, stealing hidden glances at the softly hooting beasts. They were magnificent creatures, with snow white fluffy feathers, sharp talons and deadly beaks. Yue scratched both of them on their tummies, confirming her earlier hunch. Pets! How was that even possible? She remembered what her father had once told her about them: fiercely protective if their trust was won, with mysterious powers that were believed to cleanse spiritual energy.
“It was her we had to follow here,” Yue explained accusingly, sullenly pointing his chin in Jie Jing’s direction, “because she is important to the God of War. When she ran away, the Demon Ancestor saw herself forced to enter her birth cave and…”
“But she got her powers back!” Jie Jing exclaimed with shining eyes, “did you not feel it? Never have I felt anything more glorious.”
“And now she is stuck on that mountain!” Yue shouted at her. Ah, the poor boy was very upset. The Dais reacted upset too, poking out pink tongues and hissing angrily.
“We must help her,” the Demon guard begged Bai Qian, wringing his hands.
Bai Qian sighed.
“How am I supposed to get up there?” she mused, eyes back on the rock.
“Can’t foxes climb well?” the Demon Guard asked very distraught. “My True Form can’t.”
Bai Qian looked at the steep surface with much doubt. There was a slight possibility her little paws would be able to find enough crevices to scale up. Yes, she had scaled mountains before, though much smaller ones. She was here with nothing better to do. Maybe she shouldn’t think too much and just go.
Bai Qian wasn’t quite sure when she had started to like the Demon Ancestor. Somehow, it had just happened, sometime during their sojourn in the mortal world when a vulnerable Shao Wan had been scared about Blood Demons and other silly things. But even back when Bai Qian had thought she hated her, she had been struck by how the Demon Leader was able to move the hearts of her people, inspiring a loyalty and veneration in them that she had not seen anywhere else. Shao Wan had not been born into a privileged position, she wasn’t the daughter of High God Kings and Queens to support her. With absolutely nobody to help her, she had clawed her way to the top - and had managed to return there now, against all odds.
Yes. If somebody deserved her help, it was Shao Wan.
Suddenly free of doubt, Bai Qian transformed - the first time she used her True Form in the Demon Realm. It was a phenomenal feeling. Everything around her came alive - and so did she. Pure energy flowing from the earth’s core gave her unprecedented courage and strength. She absolutely loved the Demon Realm.
Climbing that rock? It wasn’t hard at all.
***
“High God Mo Yuan? Can you hear me?”
“I’m meditating, not dead,” Mo Yuan said and opened his eyes. The Green Demon Lord was crouching before him, peering at his face with furrowed brows, obviously still uncomfortable when he went still for too long. “You’ve got news?”
Yu Dian nodded. “They were rotated. I counted fourteen Soulswappers,” he informed him, “four of them of the high caste, which is two more than before.”
Every few months, the Cult swapped out its soldiers. That was a prudent move on their part and was proof of how well organized they were. Sitting around on rooftops for weeks upon end with nothing happening was so desolate and boring, attention was going to be lacking and mistakes were bound to happen at crucial moments.
“They are all stationed around the false Pin Kuì’s house this time,” Yu Dian continued. “Maybe this means they’re getting ready to make a move soon?”
Mo Yuan curled his lips. “Good,” he said.
Yu Dian looked pleased too. “I kept thinking it’s way too easy, but it seems we really fooled them.”
Good plans often appeared easy in hindsight. It had not taken Mo Yuan long to find out which other Star Lord was compromised. Rather than neutralize him, Mo Yuan had made sure he felt secure and continued his treacherous activities. Thanks to Si Ming’s meticulous records, they had been able to identify a mortal woman who was going to have a boy in the same town and at around the same time Ye Hua’s mortal representation would be born. Based upon this knowledge, two trial scripts had been prepared, a real one and a fake one. Since the process of writing scripts was a shared responsibility ever since the incident with Mo Yuan’s trial, the two scripts that had been prepared for Ye Hua’s case had to look almost identical. Only at the very end had Si Ming been able to change a few crucial aspects. The fake one had been copied and handed over by the Soulswappers.
“I’m going out for a bit,” Mo Yuan said and got up from his lotus position, righting his dark green robe before stepping out into the small courtyard.
Summer was approaching, the heat was mounting daily, but there was sufficient shade until way after midday thanks to two majestic trees growing just outside the walls. Mo Yuan had chosen a house not too far from the city center, it was small but had good feng shui. Their old servant who was sweeping the stairs nodded in his direction.
“Young Master, what do you wish to have for dinner?” he asked.
The man was quite adept at preparing meals for different tastes in a reasonable amount of time, which was a great asset. There was nothing Mo Yuan and Yu Dian agreed on when it came to food. Apart from that, they were getting along much better than he had ever thought possible. In fact, Mo Yuan had come to greatly appreciate the Demon’s talent for words. He found the Green Lord very well read, sufficiently opinionated and very sharp - somebody to have good conversations with during the long days of waiting.
“I will pass by the market and bring back some ingredients,” Mo Yuan told the servant.
The man had gotten used to this by now even though he was still confused why such a brilliant scholar would insist on buying food and sometimes even cooked for his household when he had servants to do it for him.
Boredom was not something the Master of Kulun was familiar with. Restlessness hadn’t been either, but down here it had become a massive issue that forced him to preoccupy himself with things like grocery shopping and cooking, apart from writing, meditating and sword practice. He could not leave this world, too much depended on being at the right place at the right time. Both Zhe Yan and Donghua knew where he was and he was certain they would immediately fetch him if they thought it was necessary, but even that knowledge and the certainty that only five days had passed in the immortal realm didn’t help much. He could not stop but worry endlessly about Shao Wan’s wellbeing.
It was almost like he was going through his own mortal trial, Mo Yuan thought as he stepped out onto the dusty street. A proper love trial that made the heart hurt so much in longing you wanted to claw it out and bury it deep underground. After five years of torment, he was about ready to write his own turgid love poems. However, writing love poems was no remedy against an aching heart - that much was clear from observing the Green Demon Lord. At least they fetched a good price in the larger town about half a day on horseback from here, Yu Dian had told him.
Their house was in the better part of their town, but that part was small and Mo Yuan was soon reminded of hardship as he walked further. Droughts in one year, floods in the other, hail, vermin and pestilence - these lands were not spared from a single calamity, making them the perfect hellhole for Celestials on ascension trials.
Ye Hua’s five year mortal form lived in the orphanage on the other side of town. Staying away took all of Mo Yuan’s resolve paired with Yu Dian’s continuous nagging. The Crown Prince’s trial would be a life of extreme hardship, a life with no parents and no support. He would have to learn how to fend for himself, experiencing the brutality of life as a weak, vulnerable being. Compassion for all living creatures whatever their rank was the lesson he had to learn.
Of course, Mo Yuan knew that only complete non-interference with that fate would not break the rules. His hands were tied, and yet, the poverty in this town was heartbreaking to see. How could he do nothing? A war was raging in an adjacent kingdom and a flood of refugees, mostly old people, women and children, had sought shelter from the already poor here recently.
Today, he didn’t even get as far as the market before a throng of little children in rags gathered around him.
“Mister, please give us money,” they wailed, pressing closer when he did not threaten them, pulling on his robe.
They worked in gangs, the most pitiful posing at the front and the most skillful working from the shadows. Mo Yuan always carried several wallets with coins with him for them to steal. He hid them well to make it difficult so that it wouldn’t count as interference with mortal affairs or so he hoped.
But they did not get far today. “Scoot!” a sharp voice rang out behind him. “Thieves will have their hands cut off, you little vermin!”
The little hands were pulled back lightning quick as the children disappeared into the holes they had come from like frightened rats. Mo Yuan sighed and turned around. Yu Dian was coming down the street fast, wearing a deep scowl on his face.
“You really shouldn’t,” he scolded Mo Yuan. “We are drawing enough attention as is. If the Cult realizes who is down here with them they are gone like the wind. Didn’t you say that would complicate everything?”
The Demon Lord was right, of course. Wasn’t it ironic that he had become the voice of reason to Mo Yuan’s folly?
“Anything the matter?” Mo Yuan asked the Demon.
“We’re out of ink,” Yu Dian replied evasively.
Maybe they were out of ink, but Yu Dian looked like he had run after him. Mo Yuan frowned at him.
“Alright, I had a strange feeling,” Yu Dian admitted. “I suddenly thought I had overlooked something.”
Did he think he needed extra watching today? The passenger had been quiet for a long time. Extreme vigilance and a tough meditation regime had made that possible. Nonetheless, Mo Yuan kept Yu Dian close at all times in case magic needed to be used. The parasite was a Demon after all. And Demons were not punished for using magic on a mortal world like Celestials were.
“Overlooked something? Like what?”
“Like…”
Seemingly out of nowhere, a small person jumped down from a roof and landed before them.
“Jie Jing,” Yu Dian breathed. “It was you I sensed? Where have you been for so long? It’s been five years down here!”
“I forgot the time,” she said, her eyes flitting to Mo Yuan as if she were afraid of being scolded by him. “But now I’m ready. Where are they?”
So she had finally come. Mo Yuan only felt one thing: relief.
“God of War,” she said, looking guilty, “what if Shao Wan were to come here? Would that jeopardize your plan?”
“Don’t tell me…,” the relief instantly changed to worry.
“I’m not sure anybody can stop her,” Jie Jing said meekly.
Mo Yuan might not be able to use magic in this place, but his mind still worked the same way it always had. Very fast. Even if he wanted nothing more than to hold Shao Wan in his arms, he could not. Not yet.
“Yu Dian,” he pressed out, “we’ll have to attack. Right now.”
The Demon Lord briefly closed his eyes. But then, he nodded. “I am ready. Let’s do this. Even if it’s the last thing I ever do.”
***
Earlier in the Demon Realm
“Demon Ancestor?” Bai Qian yapped once she was able to poke her head into the large nest at the top of the mountain. “Are you alright?”
Two large, frightened eyes looked in her direction from underneath a layer of fluff. Suddenly remembering what form she was in and that the other woman was unlikely to understand Fox-language, Bai Qian jumped into the nest and transformed.
“Demon Ancestor, it is me, Bai Qian,” Bai Qian explained, though that was quite obvious now. The wind was blowing forcefully up here, tugging at Bai Qian’s hair and making her robe flutter like a standard atop a stronghold.
The two eyes moved upwards, revealing a head and a stark naked body underneath.
“What are you doing here, Demon Ancestor?” Bai Qian asked with a frown.
“Why are you here, Fox Woman?” Shao Wan asked, seeming confused.
“They sent me up here to check on you,” Bai Qian explained. “Everybody is worried. They say you flew up here but then did not come down.”
Shao Wan looked around herself.
“I did come up here,” she agreed. “But he did not come. And then I got worried.”
Was she experiencing memory loss again? Bai Qian squinted at the troubled face.
“Why don’t you transform and fly down? We can talk back at your Palace.”
But Shao Wan shook her head vehemently. “I cannot transform.”
“Why not?” Bai Qian asked patiently.
“I am afraid I will lay eggs if I do. I do not want my children to be born from eggs.”
Bai Qian suppressed her unbelieving laugh because Shao Wan looked very serious.
“I doubt that they will just pop out! It’s not that easy.”
The Demon Ancestor’s face turned angry. “They almost did! But it hurt too much, so I transformed back into human form.”
Oh. “Are you…,” Bai Qian pointed at the Demon Woman’s large belly. “Are you experiencing pain?”
“Yes!” Shao Wan sobbed and rubbed her belly. “Yes, it hurts.”
Bai Qian moved closer. “Please give me your hand,” she said. Shao Wan complied so that she could take her pulse.
“Hmmmmm,” Bai Qian said. Did going through two pregnancies make her an expert? Not really. But she did remember all of it well enough to guess what was going on. “Listen. I think your body is slowly getting ready. These are early practice contractions, but not yet the real thing.”
“They are not yet coming out?” Shao Wan asked in a small voice.
Bai Qian shook her head. “No. Not yet. But fairly soon.”
One week? Two? More? Enough time for Mo Yuan to finish what he was doing and return in one piece?
“Where is Mo Yuan?” Shao Wan asked her with a frown. “I cannot sense him anywhere.”
“Hm, well… he went to the mortal realm to… I’m not quite sure what he’s doing. Watching over his brother, I think. But that’s probably not all.”
“I need to go to him,” Shao Wan said firmly.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Bai Qian asked.
Shao Wan nodded vehemently. “Yes. I know what he’s trying to do down there. I remembered something he needs to know.”
“I see,” Bai Qian tapped her finger against her lips. “Well, we first need to get you down from here. Then, we need to get you some clothes. And then, we can…”
But Shao Wan was already transforming, the blast of it almost throwing Bai Qian out of the nest. Staring up at the most magnificent Phoenix she had ever seen, Bai Qian transformed as well and upon the dip of the bird’s head, jumped onto its back.
No eggs popped out. Yue had organized clothes, proving he had remarkable foresight. But someone had disappeared in the meantime. Someone who Yue reported had exclaimed: “Dammit! I almost forgot. I need to go to the mortal world!”
“I can sense her,” Shao Wan said unworried. “She will lead us to him.”
“Sense her? What do you mean?” Bai Qian frowned.
“Oh,” the Demon Ancestor shrugged. “I guess there’s some sort of link between us because we both got Demon powers at the same time?”
A Celestial woman becoming a demon? Bai Qian thought as they got ready to follow after Jie Jing, Ye Hua will have a diplomatic crisis at hand as soon as he gets back.
Funny, though. Apparently, she now was certain he would get back soon. But was anything else even possible when the likes of the God of War and the Demon Ancestor were looking after you?
Chapter 60